UPDATE: Georgia Writers is thrilled to introduce a new column to our Substack, written by none other than Meredith Talusan, whose groundbreaking work has shaped the landscape of memoir and queer literature. We are very lucky to have her!
In Meredith’s words: “I’m Meredith Talusan, author of the memoir Fairest who works in multiple genres including essays, journalism, translation, poetry, and criticism, though I’m mostly working on fiction these days. This column will cover various aspects of life writing, though I’ll often bring in ideas and examples from other genres because for me, all writing is life writing.”
Without further ado, here’s Meredith’s first Writing Life column:
In her essay “Mind Fuck”—part of Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative, a much-needed book on craft from a queer, BIPOC perspective—Melissa Febos describes how she begins a weekend writing workshop by asking students to write their sexual life story in five sentences. Then she does it again, then again until the students lose track of how many times. Febos writes:
“Here’s the point: Their writing got better. It became truer. It became more them. I told them, We could do this all day. I meant: and not run out of ways to tell that story.”
This reminds me of a story my college photography professor told about how Diane Arbus took pictures of the same person for hours and hours, to break down their social facade and reveal the self underneath. I have, more than once, given a student feedback that the story they’re telling doesn’t ring true, to which they respond, “But that’s what happened.” This is the point when I ask, “Is this what happened, or is this what you told yourself happened?”
We all lie to ourselves to different degrees. These days I know it even while I’m doing it, but I can’t stop. I’m too afraid of being judged—entitled, hysterical, unreasonable, overdramatic, too much of a Cancer. I can’t think of anyone who tells the whole truth about themselves even part of the time.
This is one of the most important reasons to write. The endless drafts give us the time and space to get closer to the truth.
When I’m writing about something hard, which is almost always, I don’t stop until I get to the point when it feels true. Having done this a long time, I’ve learned to smell the false truths, the erudite language, the clever techniques, that try to hide who I am to myself. But the thing is, there is always a truer truth that gets left out. It’s why we have to tell the story again and again, over and over, to get as close to the truth as we can.
So I suggest giving yourself the space to try Febos’s exercise, except you don’t have to just apply it to sex. Maybe it can be your romantic life story, your immigration story, your recovering from addiction story, but do it over and over, and notice the intricacies you open up along the way, the deeper truths that emerge from the hard work of digging and uncovering.
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