When *not* to tell your story

Back to writing for a moment. . .*

The most common piece of advice given to new writers--aside from WRITE--is, "write what you know." I spent almost all of l6 books ignoring that advice. Although I've spent my entire life on one side or the other of the Missouri/Kansas state line, I never set a book entirely in either of those states until my most recent novel, the 17th. Oh, I had one book that took place mostly in Kansas, and another where a character spent a couple of scenes here, but they were Kansas as seen through the eyes of outsiders, not Kansas as seen through insider eyes. I tried that only in a handful of short stories--which was safer since so many fewer people would ever read them. :)

One reason I wrote about other places is that I wanted to live in them, and even fictionally would do. So I moved my heroines to New England. South Florida. Colorado. New York City. That was the "positive" reason for doing what I did. The "negative" one was because I was nervous about "doing" the place where I live. I was afraid of not getting it right, but what did "right" mean? I suppose it meant getting it down so that it felt familiar and true to other people who live here. Looking back, I realize that I also didn't have the skill yet to be able to write my "local" stories. Plus, I was afraid of offending. I didn't want to become one of those writers who becomes unwelcome in her own home. As my (then) 2-year-old son said one day when he was wearing only diapers and cowboy boots, and he had an "accident". . ."Never pee in your boots, Mom."

I didn't want to pee in my boots.

But a funny thing happened to that fear. It turned into something closer to love of the very people I was afraid of offending. And with affection came the confidence to write about them, and since I was writing from a place of love, there was nothing to worry about any more. Weird how that works.

Personally, I don't think it's a good idea to try to force stories that make you feel terribly nervous to tell them. I would trust those inner feelings, which may just mean that you don't yet have the skill to tell that story, or that you aren't ready to deal with the responses you get when you tell it. You may not yet be at the crossroads of Desire + Ability + Confidence. When your story is ready--and you have the skill to tell it, and you're also ready to cope with the consequences--it will burst out of you, and you won't be able to stop it from coming. Seems to me that might be true of novelists, journalists, whistleblowers, bloggers, and family members with secrets.

If to everything there is a season, then to every story there is a time for telling it. So, if you have to, wait. Keep waiting. And then wait some more. Don't let anybody pressure you into writing what it is not yet time for you to write, or telling what you don't yet want to tell. Don't let anybody pick your audiences for you. Maybe you never will want to tell that particular story; maybe you'll always want to keep it to yourself, or you'll change your mind about it, or the need to tell it will melt away. So much of writing (and life) is about trusting your own inner wisdom. As that trust (in yourself) builds, so will the confidence to tell your deepest and most heartfelt stories in your own best way.

Or so it seems to me. And in the meantime, while you're waiting? Write all that other stuff that will prepare you for being the writer you want to be.

*This post inspired by something Katiebird said