How to overcome fear of exposure and write about strong emotions in your memoir —
By: Carolyn V. Hamilton
Tags: Memoir, Journaling, Writing, Storytelling

“The first step to writing a memoir is getting over your fear of exposure, says memoir editor Kristin McTiernan. “That fear can be crippling.”

As a Success Coach for Memoir Writers and Admin for the Facebook group, Aspiring Memoir Writers, I hear this fear expressed in many different ways.

One big fear of exposure is sharing painful memories and emotions. How much should you tell? What you do leave out? How do you find the right words to explain your strongest, most painful — or even your happiest memory?

This may come easier for writers who have kept a personal journal for years, but what about the rest of us?

The strongest element in any memoir is in emotion.

Readers want to know how what happened to you affected you, and how it made you feel.

As human beings, we all experience similar emotions. This is what makes the experience you are writing about in your memoir personally relatable to your reader.

With practice, you can become more relaxed and less fearful about exposing your emotions in your writing.

Experts say it takes 21 days to create and become comfortable with a new habit.

I experimented with this with a select group of memoir writers who agreed to work with me for 21 days during which they would respond to a different emotional writing challenge each day.

The response I got from this first 21-day writing challenge was so tremendous that I turned that workshop into a workbook planner called THROW UP YOUR EMOTIONS ON PAPER!

It’s a series of 21 Challenges to help you learn to write about emotions in your memoir in 21 days.

To get the most out of this challenge experience, I recommend that you write in long-hand on paper. Studies show that when you write by hand, it triggers your brain in a more positive, impactful and effective way than typing.

This personal Workbook Planner is specifically designed to make it easy for you to “journal”, if you will, your thoughts and experiences, all in one place. This will make it easier for you to access your emotional work when you are writing your memoir.

Your first “challenge” — before the real Challenges begins — will be to write one or two paragraphs on what you want to learn from your participation during the 21 days of challenges.

Each day, along with the challenge, I provide a positive affirmation related to the challenge. You’ll want to copy this in your 21- DAY CHALLENGE journal as well. I suggest you take as much as half a page and write the affirmation more than once, at least five times.

Why more than once? In grade school, were you ever disciplined with the after-school assignment of writing 100 times on the blackboard,”I will not (fill in your bad behavior)…?”

The theory of this exercise was to imprint the message into your brain. Of course today we know that the brain doesn’t register negativity, as in the word, not. So your brain was really recording, “I will (fill-in your bad behavior).”

You’ll want to plan at least an hour a day to devote to your daily challenge.

For many of us, that means writing first thing in the morning before doing anything else, as Julia Cameron recommends in her creative-thought-provoking book, The Artist’s Way.

When you commit yourself to learning how to write about deep, memorable — and sometimes painful — emotions, you are well on your way to writing a compelling memoir that readers won’t be able to put down.

So I’ve made my workbook THROW UP YOUR EMOTIONS ON PAPER into a FREE instant downloadable PDF.

CLICK HERE to get it now FOR FREE so you can begin today.

And in 21 days of completing these challenges you’ll be over the biggest fear of exposure: sharing painful memories and emotions.

Carolyn