I unscheduled this week's email

on the stories we share and the stories we don't

Sometimes I write about people on the internet instead of talking to them in person. Like this story, for example. Maybe it’s because talking about hard things is, well, hard. But more often it’s because writing things down is how I figure out life. (That’s what it means to be Led By Stories.)

This week I spent late nights and early mornings writing 1523 words about a man that I loved and lost.

I read and rewrote those 1523 words over and over, as though they might act as a healing salve on my wide open and bleeding heart. I read those words with the eyes of my lover, then read them again with my pulsing gash of a heart. Then I started all over again at the beginning.

By the time I hit “schedule” on the story, I must’ve read it three dozen times, and rewritten it a dozen more. I retreated to a hot shower at 4:43pm on Thursday afternoon, proud, tired and heartbroken. Twenty minutes later I came back to my desk and hit “unschedule.”

My students often ask me, “How do I publish a story that’s not just mine? What about the other characters in my story?”

I don’t have a good answer for that question. Every story is unique and every person is different. Sometimes it’s enough to change names and details. Sometimes you need lawyers. Sometimes a better question than “is someone going to sue me?” is “will this break someone’s heart?”

My approach to storytelling is to be clear that this is my perspective and no one else’s, and take as much responsibility as possible. I never write what someone else was feeling or thinking because really, how could I know? Leave that to writers of fiction.

It’s possible to write a strong character without giving them a name, so I rarely do. Not unless it’s complimentary. In this particular case, I didn’t. But, for the people who know me, it’s not hard to guess.

I’d like to make a case that, since my audience for this newsletter isn’t very big, it would be okay to take some liberties with the characters you meet in Led By Stories. But the truth is that it’s not about quantity; It’s about the one or two or three people whose opinion really matters to that character.

That man that I loved and lost? He is a private person. I’ve hurt him enough times and in enough ways that it wasn’t worth the risk. I am learning through trial and error how to share stories that don’t belong to only me. I’ve made many mistakes in the past. Hardly any story belongs to only me, so this is a dance I will be dancing for the rest of my life. And I intend to learn the steps.

Maybe you will see that story, but maybe you won’t. I really hope you do because I am very proud of my work. But it won’t be without his permission.

‘Till next week then. With a story about love or a story about life, who can say.

We’ll let the story lead.