Dear Brilliant Writer,
Yes…you who puts words on paper because it heals you.
I’ve been thinking about you and that thought you have about your writing that keeps you from sharing it.
You know the one that says, “It’s not ready…not finished…not complete…not good enough yet.”
I just recently created two different experiences that blow that to pieces and I want to share some of what I discovered with you.
The first experience was my Beyond the Journal Challenge—a 5-day virtual experience where I challenged participants each day to randomly find and share something from their old journals.
You wouldn’t believe the amazing, wise, real and brilliant stuff that was shared.
This was not edited, polished, reworked writing. It was raw, unfiltered, writing full of the clarity of voice that comes when someone writes freely, with no audience in mind.
It’s the voice that every already writer has but thinks they don’t have, so they keep looking for it and feel incomplete.
And it was all writing that was strongly labeled as: “Not ready for public consumption!”
Yet when it was shared, just as it already was, it had an impact. It touched others.
People recognized themselves in it. They said, “thank you, I needed that.”
One more person felt less screwed up and alone.
Here are just a few things that some of the participants had to say about the experience of sharing what they felt was “not ready”:
“Writing and exposing my ‘hidden’ voice was so freeing and exhilarating!! Fun & unexpected!”
“The challenge helped me be more uncensored, not just with my audience, but in the rest of my life, too. I thought I was already being uncensored. I often edit out quirky little turns of phrase that seem to hit too hard or be too off-color, but those are actually some of the best parts. As a result of the challenge, I’ve started leaving them in. So far, nobody has died.”
“For me the experience is about a pure expression of self without boundaries. This exercise really showed me the vulnerability we all share in self expression. I felt like I was looking into the hearts of others and am very honored to share in this experience.”
The second experience was my EXPAND Retreat—a powerfully sweet, culminating retreat for the clients in my ALIVE! Book Writing Program.
The main “experience” of the retreat was a public reading where each woman read an excerpt from her INCOMPLETE book to family, friends, and the general public.
The biggest fear that came up was a fear of not being good enough, particularly because the book wasn’t finished.
While each writer has a lot of writing and a clear development of her book, each one felt as if what she had to share wasn’t ready, cohesive, or “complete” enough to be shared.
But each woman did it anyway.
In the process of taking what she already had, narrowing in on what was primary, and having an event, with a time limit and a deadline, each woman (even while editing up to the last minute) stood before a crowd and embodied her work.
It was powerful. It was amazing.
Each woman shared the gift of who she is through words.
Each woman discovered and felt a profound sense of completion, integration and fulfillment.
Many of the attendees lingered at the end of the reading and stayed longer than they had planned because they were deeply moved and touched by what was shared.
This is what it means become a story giver.
It means that you share your words, you share what you already have, what you already know as a continuous gesture of visibility.
Visibility and completion doesn’t just happen when the book is done or the writing is “ready.” What makes it ready is the act of sharing.
When you become a story giver you make an important and powerful shift.
You GIVE validation to your writing and to others, rather than longing for and waiting to get validation that may never come, at least not in the ways you want or expect.
This is the work of being an empowered writer on and off the page.
There is no one arrival point where everything is all wrapped up nice and neat and complete for you to hand off. There is always going to be the next thing.
The root of the word complete is “to fill up, to be full.”
Completion isn’t something you arrive upon, it’s a choice. It’s a moment when you choose to be in touch with the fullness of your own life.
Completion is a choice to pause, gather what you already know, what you’ve already written, feel it’s fullness, and then make a conscious choice to share it.
Sharing IS completion.
Sharing IS validation.
It’s time to harvest and share what you know.
Without the act of sharing, the story cannot be complete.
As author Barry Lopez says, “Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.”