How to Write for Thine Own Self First

Have you ever felt hindered to express yourself in your writing? Are you struggling with how to write for yourself and what to release to the public eye? What if writing was more than just “creating content”? Read on as I share my own struggles and insights on these very topics.

Excerpted from my lagoon blue “Ecosystems” journal on September 16, 2014

To Share or Not to Share...

What’s been most on my mind lately is the idea of online journaling (aka blogging). I have a need to share my writing with the world—mostly those who enjoy writing themselves and reading other people’s writing. Maybe even type up a few of my journal entries to share [like this one, lol]. There’s a wealth of content in them after all, so “Why not?” I ask myself.

The answer I keep getting is “That’s good and all, but don’t let yourself be so absorbed with sharing your personal thoughts with the public that you’re too scared to bare your whole self in your journals and are thus forced to ‘tone down’ the magnitude of your writing.”

Considering this, there is a danger in holding back from sharing my innermost thoughts and feelings for fear of the public eye. But I must remember to tell the truth—my truth—and that my journals are free from anyone’s eyes whom I do not want perusing their pages. I decide what I publish and what stays between me and the lids of the covers.

The Best Way to Share One's Thoughts

I should also beware the notion and attitude of seeing my journal as fodder for “content.” That’s all I ever hear in the online business world—“Great content is what gets you more traffic and generates more sales.” That may be so, but I shouldn’t have to sell out my precious, personal thoughts just to make a lousy buck.

Having these ideas (on paper) makes me realize more and more that the best way to share one’s thoughts is potentially to write a book; something one intends to make accessible to the public eye. This is yet another great example of how wonderful it is to write fiction. Novel writing allows you to mingle your true thoughts with a fantastical spin, so that no one knows the line between the real and the made-up.

Stories—great stories—come from real-life experiences. You may not have super powers, but your fantasies about them are real to you. And if they’re real to you, certainly you can make them real to others in your transcribing of them.

To Thine Own Self Be True

So if there’s ever a question, even the slightest doubt, of whether to make your writing available to the public eye, just tuck it away for the meantime—but write it down for goodness’ sake. Then you can use it later as fodder—not for content, but for your works of fiction and/or nonfiction. After a short time, you will have accumulated enough fodder in your trusty notebook or journal [such as the ones I've listed for you below] for several novels, short stories, even nonfiction books, which will act as your reservoir for new material.

So be free to be yourself in all of your writing. Write with reckless abandon, censoring only the things that aren’t true for you and your character, personality, and way of life. Live your life in this same way and you will have then truly fulfilled the words of the legendary writer William Shakespeare:

P.S. What a great thing it is to have had these thoughts in the company of pen and paper!

Fun Fact: Just a few short days after writing this entry into my journal, I put myself out there and wrote my first blog post here on the website. Click here to see how the journey began.

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