Word count: 700 words
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Do you suffer from writing shame? Even if you’re not aware of it, it may be the secret monster that’s sapping your writing strength….
When I was 10 years old, one summer morning I remember standing at my kitchen door, talking to a neighborhood pal of mine. Suddenly, wasps started swarming around us. Terrified (I’d been stung on the lip on the first day of grade 1 – an extraordinarily painful experience), I slammed the door and ran to get my mother. It never even occurred to me to try to rescue my friend.
This incident shames me still. Even though it happened 45 years ago. Even though I was only 10. I’d left my friend on the porch! With all those wasps.
I remembered this story recently, while coaching a client. It was clear she felt a great a deal of shame about her writing and as the word “shame” lingered in the air, the wasp incident popped into my head. Isn’t it amazing how we carry around feelings and emotions long after they’ve outlived their usefulness? It’s a bit like finding New Year’s Eve party favours in your pocket on January 8th.
While most of the writers I work with don’t ever mention the word shame, I think it’s a remarkably common feeling. Think of the ways in which this oily little emotion can ooze out of the cracks:
Speed: Does your boss criticize you for how slowly you write? Or, perhaps you criticize yourself – thinking of colleagues who seem to write so much faster and so much more easily.
Content: Do you find yourself frequently fretting about “client confidentiality”? (Many counsellors and therapists have this concern.) Similarly, memoir writers often worry about their right to tell their story from their own point of view without getting “permission” from parents or siblings.
Quality: Do you think you write reasonably well? Or are you so embarrassed by the quality of your output that you don’t want anyone else to see it?
Genre: Do you write for money in a well-paying genre (say corporate communications) but secretly yearn to be a novelist? Or a poet?
There are many ways in which shame can rear its ugly little head in the writing world. If it’s plaguing you, here are five steps to take:
- Identify the source of your shame. My own writing shame grew out of my title as a senior editor at a large metropolitan daily. I was ashamed that while I was an excellent editor, I couldn’t write nearly as quickly as the people who worked for me.
- Examine your situation, without regarding the shame. Remove the feeling and take a clear, unemotional look at exactly what’s going on. Then, make a plan for dealing with it. In my case, it helped when I realized that the reporters who wrote for me couldn’t edit nearly as well as I could. Even though the hierarchy in the typical newsroom implied that the best writers should advance to become editors, the two skills are entirely separate. I realized I needed to learn how to pick up my writing speed. Instead of just feeling awful, I suddenly had a purpose.
- Imagine someone else in exactly the same situation. What would you think of them? How harshly would you judge them? It’s an odd trait of human nature that most of us are much more inclined to be easier on other people than ourselves. Resolve to treat yourself with the same empathy you’d quite willingly extend to a stranger.
- Talk to someone else. Most horrible things in our lives involve some degree of hiding. If you feel shame, defuse the feeling by talking to someone else about it – a friend, a colleague, a coach, or even your boss! As they say in hockey, the best defense is a good offense. You will make your shame less powerful if you’re prepared to blab about it.
- Always separate the task of writing from any evaluation of it. While you write, write. Don’t do anything else. Don’t edit. Don’t think. Don’t assess. Just write.
Shame is writing’s mortal enemy. If it’s harassing you, take some concrete action to stop it in its tracks.
Does shame affect your writing? Please comment below. (If you don’t see the comments box, click here and then scroll to the end.)
