Authentic Writing

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In the memoir workshops that I participate in, we write.

And then we read aloud what we just wrote, if we so choose.

Most participates choose to read, but not all. For me, there is something powerful about committing one's words to another's eyes, another's ears.

I've heard Fred say more than once, "Don't commit to reading before writing."

As I dove into writing last night, I had to center myself. Would what I write offend people in the workshop if I chose to read it? How would it affect the workshop, for I might even mention the workshop in my writing?

I wasn't sure what would come off my keyboard, but I had an inkling in my head. And if my writing took a certain course, it was going to be difficult.

I recall words from another time in another memoir workshop when Fred quoted one of the McCourt brothers, I think it was Frank. Something like, 'Write what shames you. Write what scares you.'

On more than one occasion, Fred has said something like, 'Don't commit to reading (ie: publishing) before writing.'

If only I can keep that at the center of my core. For it is only that way that I can be true to my self.

My self.

I recently made a promise to never again abandon my self to another's silhouette.

And if I find that I have failed;
if I look inside and find a hollowness;
or if I look down and realize that I am trying to mold a certain shoe to my foot that I really don't like or walk a stretch of gravel road that I really don't want to be painfully trudging...
I hope beyond hope that first I can recognize my self from the hollowness, from another's silhouette, from shoes not designed for me, and definitely from the crunching of crushed rocks from a quarry.
I hope I will always be able to distinguish my self from what isn't my self.
And if I find my self being another self, that I can get back to my self.

And when that happens, I won't be the same self.

The hollowness; the shoes; the gravel road; the silhouette - all will have become a part of me.
There is no way around it.
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