Not A Recipe

on writing and time

I get asked sometimes, at events and stuff, how I can bear to write about such personal things; and almost always what I want to say is that I can’t, and I wish I hadn’t. It feels churlish to say that, though, because almost always the person asking is asking in a way that means they are grateful that I did. It is usually because they have read one of my books, or an essay or something, and it made them feel less alone. And so that’s basically what I say to them: I say that I write it so that other people can feel less lonely, and that’s why I do it.

Which is true! But it is also true that writing about yourself is a compulsion and one I don’t know how to heal.

I don’t know if “heal” is the right word: I don’t know if writing, this kind of writing, is actually a wound, or if it just feels like one. Would it get better if I stopped picking at it? I always want to know if there’s fresh pink skin under the scab, or something much worse. I always want to know how I feel, so I can feel it.

The compulsion to write, different from the compulsion to publish, is because I have an obsessional desire to know how I feel about things. Or how I might feel about things. Or how, if things were different, I could feel about things.