Notes from The Writer's Corner: The Case for Navel Gazing

If you missed this week, here's a snippet of what we discussed. What's coming up next week? A conversation you definitely won't want to miss!

If you missed this week …

What is navel gazing in writing? 
The activity of spending too much time considering your own thoughts, feelings, or problems.

Why is it a problem in writing? 
In my experience, it is more of a problem not because writers do it but because the fear of doing it makes their writing less effective. 

Many times in my classes, writers share something that just touches the surface of something or generalizes without specifically putting themselves in the story. When I ask why, they say they don’t want to seem …
… like they are self absorbed
… like a victim
… like they are whining
… like they are being dramatic
… like they are looking for attention
… and so on. 

What we need to remember is everything we put in our personal stories is there for a reason. If done well, they are not the same as a diary entry but composed works that took skill to put together. The details in them were selected because they serve a purpose. To believe anything is there simply for shock value or as a way for the writer to gain attention is to misunderstand the amount of craft it takes to create these stories.

In the book Body Work, author Melissa Febos writes: 
“Writing about your personal experience is not easier than other kinds of writing. In order to write that book, I had to invest time and energy to conduct research and craft plot, scenes, description, dialogue, pacing—all the writer’s job.”

“I have the capacity to appreciate masterpieces of craft, but without a certain emotional depth I lose interest. I want more than mechanics, more than experimentation. I want to feel on the page how the writer changed. How the act of writing changed them.” 

“Navel gazing is not for the faint of heart. The risk of honest self-appraisal requires bravery. To place our flawed selves in the context of this magnificent, broken world is the opposite of narcissism, which is building a self image that pleases you.”

What is the distinction? Remember these keys point: 
• It doesn’t matter that you are telling your own story, it matters that you are telling it well.

• Often when we begin to write personal stories, we only see ourselves and our experience. As we begin to shape the story, we need to ask what are the more universal themes within it. What are we really trying to say? This is the difference between confessional or journal writing and writing for publication. 

• Knowing what you want the reader to takeaway from the piece will help narrow what you decide to leave in and take out of your story.

• The things we include (a scene, a detail, a character, etc.) are there to move the story forward and clarify the overall message.

In the essay “In Defense of Nazel Grazing,” Jay Ponteri writes:
“For me, to contemplate the self is also to contemplate other humans, to whom we are thickly connected in mysterious and concrete ways yet from whom we, at the same time, are deeply, privately separate.”

Are we including details for the sake of getting sympathy from the reader or for shock value? No, we are including them because they help the reader understand the story in a better way. We are including them because they support the greater message we want them to take away from the piece and make it human.” 

What’s coming up next week …

October 21 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST - Julie Maloney on Your Writing Life Deserves Happiness
Many writers get caught in the trap of feeling stress around their work—you aren’t producing enough, what you are producing isn’t good enough, or that “it” you thought you had seems to have vanished into thin air. In this session, we’ll talk about ways to turn that mindset around and remember what brought you to writing in the first place. Special guest Julie Maloney is a poet and writer and founder/director of WOMEN READING ALOUD, a non-profit organization dedicated to the support of women writers. Since 2003, she has guided women writers throughout the USA and across the Atlantic through writing workshops, retreats, and special literary events.