I never thought I could be a writer. I never trusted my own voice for a multitude of reasons. In real life, I can be “too much.” Probably because I don’t fully understand social cues. And when I start to tell a story, I always start at the beginning, the beginning that I see. I need to give all of the details, not necessarily because they’re important to you, but because they’re how I process the moment. I process the story through those details.
My first principal once described my storytelling style as circuitous. To get from point A to point B, I have to take you through point C first, because in my mind, it’s all connected. That circular route is how my brain works. I see patterns and connections that might not be obvious to everyone else, but they’re clear to me. And when I tell a story, when I recount an event, I connect those dots for whoever’s listening.
And I tend to tell the story until I realize the listener has stopped listening.
That’s when the self-doubt creeps in. The part of me that wonders if I’ve said too much, if I’ve made something boring or confusing, if I’ve taken up too much space. It happens in life. It happens in writing too. I worry that the roundabout way I process stories will lose my readers. That the patterns I see won’t be obvious to them, and they’ll get bored or frustrated.
When I write about my life, the fear runs deeper. Writing opens me up to judgment and criticism. The circuitous paths I take in conversation become even more vulnerable on the page, because I go back, I reflect, I see the details more clearly. I feel them. I uncover the moments beneath the moments. I trace the impact they had on me, and on the people around me.
Writing makes me vulnerable. It forces me to expose not just the story, but the way my brain moves through it. That’s the scary part, the part that feels most at risk of being “wrong.” Even in my writing, I catch myself inserting apologies. Apologies for the way my brain works. For being different than what I was taught I should be.
I teach my students that the story is in the details, that the details tell the story. But I have a tendency to overshare. It’s part of my ADD and that ever-present gap in reading social cues. That said, the look of abject boredom on someone’s face is usually a pretty clear cue to stop talking. But in writing, I don’t get to see your face. I can’t tell when I’ve said the wrong thing, when I’ve been offensive, or when I’ve simply lost your attention. Instead, I dump everything out of my head for you to read. It’s more organized, less tangled, but also less filtered.
So for years, I didn’t write. The super critical voice in my head—the one that had spent a lifetime observing the world around me—would point out every flaw. I would write something, then go back and proofread. I’d look for details to cut, grammar to fix, places where I was sharing too much. In the end, I’d delete everything and walk away dejected. I hated my writing.
But then, I started sharing it.
Before I hit the delete button, I began saving it. I printed it. I read it to my students. Maybe sixth graders aren’t the best judges of writing, but they would listen. Then they would applaud. And because they are sixth graders, when they liked my writing, I knew they were being honest. They have no qualms about hurting your feelings. If they didn’t like it, they’d let me know.
As I read the stories aloud, my students fascinated, watching me with rapt attention, I began to feel different. The critical voices in my head began to soften. I began to see the possibility of being a writer. That my penchant for details could actually make my writing interesting. That readers could find connection in my words and maybe even understand the patterns that I saw.
When I finally wrote my book, the words flowing from my fingers, I felt powerful. I didn’t need social cues in my writing. I didn’t need to worry about what others might think, and the words just kept coming. The details, the patterns, the connections became my memoir.
Now, each time I sit down at the keyboard, I still have that moment of insecurity. That moment when I worry about my own vulnerability in my words. I don’t worry about oversharing. I feel vulnerable for just a moment because I am sharing my inner soul without a filter. I am letting the reader see me, truly see me, and know who I am without hiding.
But I still hit post, and I hope that someone out there will see it, connect with it, and understand.
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