“Write as if your parents are dead.” -Anne Lamott
If you’re going to write anything meaningful, you have to let your guard down. You have to write as if no one will ever see what you’re writing. You promise yourself that whatever ends up on the page, it’s for your eyes only.
You have to let your guard down that much, and then – and this is the tension – then you have to break that promise, letting everyone see what you wrote.
You do that, you lie to yourself, to trick yourself into being vulnerable. Because readers only connect with writers who are willing to be vulnerable. Why? Well, because being vulnerable is the only way writers can tell the truth.
And that’s the tension: lying to tell the truth.
