I have struggled with this issue. I have stories I'd like to tell that would make me vulnerable even as they might help others avoid some of the traps I've fallen into. Yet after careful consideration I don't believe they are my stories to tell. Telling them would hurt many others who are longtime friends. I also realize that the lessons I have learned simply showed me truth I already had been taught was valid. I knew that before I ignored it and thought my case would be different. It's very likely I could damage many other relationships without changing anyone's behavior with my warning. Those likely to fall into the trap I did would probably also believe it wouldn't happen to them and ignore any truth or warnings that contradicted their own desires.
Barbara, many thanks for the feedback. I loved your observation "I don't believe they are my stories to tell." I feel the same way most of the time yet if you are a professional writer, from time to time you can't help but draw on your life experiences which inevitably include other peoples' paths and stories. It's a difficult balancing act. There have been times when at least one friend of mine was actually happy that I wrote her story because she herself couldn't write it and she was glad that the story was out there because I acted as her pen, so to speak. Life is a very long learning process that never ends. The core idea is never hurt anyone knowingly since that's my definition of evil. Best regards, Ugur
I found this article interesting and important, thank you. I detest writing that simply splurges anger or hatred, it's an abuse of the power of the word, if you ask me, ignoring the craft and the art of writing. I tend to check in with myself before posting anything: Can this do any harm? Can I stand by this, in any other place and time?
However, I have struggled with a related, but slightly different problem in my writerly career, which is that the people I love who are most close to me (my son, and my partner) do not want me to mention them at all! They are singularly 'private' and feel uneasy about ANY mention of them on a public platform.
This has caused me untold discomfort in turn, especially since I am the kind of writer who plucks her own feathers for just about all her raw material.
With regard to my son, I can still assert a maternal authority and say, "Sorry my darling, but your mother is a writer, you have to live with it. I'll never mention you in a way that would compromise you." So he has no choice but to be tolerant, albeit a little grudgingly. (Just as well - one poem involving him was published in an anthology which paid me the most handsome sum I have ever been paid for a single poem.)
With my partner, I have to balance a native female desire in me to grant him his wishes, against my writerly integrity and the freedom that requires. It's a risk I take, whenever I do mention anything about him, no matter how delicate the manner in which I do so, that he may - if he happens to read it - react negatively for being 'exposed' in public.
After a beautiful marriage to a fellow-poet (sadly no longer on this earth), who liked to say that "writing poems means taking all your clothes off in public" I have much to learn to understand the quirks of non-writers!
Silke, thanks for your comment. I'm familiar with your predicament. I think it's important to observe the right of others not to be mentioned in a story or not to be used as input to a story. I sometimes go around that obstacle by changing the names and tell the story as though it happened to somebody else. I try to preserve and save the lesson of the story without revealing the exact identity of the characters in it. And sometimes I bury the story altogether and not write it at all if I realize there is not way to conceal the identity of the person who does not want to be in what I'm writing. It's a delicate dance. Not easy. And yes, not only poetry but all honest writing is like taking our cloths in public. It's scary but exhilarating at the same time.
I have struggled with this issue. I have stories I'd like to tell that would make me vulnerable even as they might help others avoid some of the traps I've fallen into. Yet after careful consideration I don't believe they are my stories to tell. Telling them would hurt many others who are longtime friends. I also realize that the lessons I have learned simply showed me truth I already had been taught was valid. I knew that before I ignored it and thought my case would be different. It's very likely I could damage many other relationships without changing anyone's behavior with my warning. Those likely to fall into the trap I did would probably also believe it wouldn't happen to them and ignore any truth or warnings that contradicted their own desires.
Barbara, many thanks for the feedback. I loved your observation "I don't believe they are my stories to tell." I feel the same way most of the time yet if you are a professional writer, from time to time you can't help but draw on your life experiences which inevitably include other peoples' paths and stories. It's a difficult balancing act. There have been times when at least one friend of mine was actually happy that I wrote her story because she herself couldn't write it and she was glad that the story was out there because I acted as her pen, so to speak. Life is a very long learning process that never ends. The core idea is never hurt anyone knowingly since that's my definition of evil. Best regards, Ugur
I found this article interesting and important, thank you. I detest writing that simply splurges anger or hatred, it's an abuse of the power of the word, if you ask me, ignoring the craft and the art of writing. I tend to check in with myself before posting anything: Can this do any harm? Can I stand by this, in any other place and time?
However, I have struggled with a related, but slightly different problem in my writerly career, which is that the people I love who are most close to me (my son, and my partner) do not want me to mention them at all! They are singularly 'private' and feel uneasy about ANY mention of them on a public platform.
This has caused me untold discomfort in turn, especially since I am the kind of writer who plucks her own feathers for just about all her raw material.
With regard to my son, I can still assert a maternal authority and say, "Sorry my darling, but your mother is a writer, you have to live with it. I'll never mention you in a way that would compromise you." So he has no choice but to be tolerant, albeit a little grudgingly. (Just as well - one poem involving him was published in an anthology which paid me the most handsome sum I have ever been paid for a single poem.)
With my partner, I have to balance a native female desire in me to grant him his wishes, against my writerly integrity and the freedom that requires. It's a risk I take, whenever I do mention anything about him, no matter how delicate the manner in which I do so, that he may - if he happens to read it - react negatively for being 'exposed' in public.
After a beautiful marriage to a fellow-poet (sadly no longer on this earth), who liked to say that "writing poems means taking all your clothes off in public" I have much to learn to understand the quirks of non-writers!
Silke, thanks for your comment. I'm familiar with your predicament. I think it's important to observe the right of others not to be mentioned in a story or not to be used as input to a story. I sometimes go around that obstacle by changing the names and tell the story as though it happened to somebody else. I try to preserve and save the lesson of the story without revealing the exact identity of the characters in it. And sometimes I bury the story altogether and not write it at all if I realize there is not way to conceal the identity of the person who does not want to be in what I'm writing. It's a delicate dance. Not easy. And yes, not only poetry but all honest writing is like taking our cloths in public. It's scary but exhilarating at the same time.