When I cannot resolve what is happening, or what has happened in the past, when I can't say clearly to anyone what I am feeling, then it is only in writing that I find my voice. That is why I write. To extract what I otherwise find hard to comprehend at once. I can dig out of the recesses of my consciousness, that which I already know and explore it with a depth that is unavailable otherwise. Writing whether memoir or fiction is a long slow journey. We are explorers of the human condition at large and of our own personal self. Our attempt-- my attempt, is to find what makes us most human.
I have used "self" as a way of making what I write something that hopefully is a universal truth. I hope I have written characters with compassion, even when they are flawed, even those I perceive as having done me harm. It is the personal experiences we write about which help us discover a small truth about ourselves and a bigger truth about our world. When I write in the first person, I think I may be revealed. Or that someone will recognize themselves. and when i manage to write without fear of having to be safe I have the chance of finding that amazing moment, the thing that turns on every light in the house Even while the sun is still shining.
