Do You Have the Courage to Write About Your Life?

Writers need courage to write about their lives.

Having courage applies to non-fiction writers and fiction writers alike. At some point in your writing, your personal life will find its way into your words.

Use of Pen Names

Using a pen name may allow some writers to write about subjects that they would not otherwise touch with their "real" names. There is nothing wrong with using a pen name, it still takes courage to do the writing. There are just not usually as many consequences.

When you write with a pen name, your manner of writing may change. Try it sometime, if you are accustomed to writing under your real name. Sit down to write something that you will publish under a pen name. See if your writing changes. Find out if you are willing to reveal more, or take a different tone than you normally would.

Courage and Writing

For those writers who do use their real names, they do need to muster up some courage to write compelling works.

When writing fiction it is easy enough to say you just made it all up. Oftentimes, certain characters could be auto-biographical or semi-autobiographical. The best writing flows from experience, which makes it natural to include ourselves in our works.

Fiction may also contain actual conversations the writers had at one time, as these words find their way into your story's dialogue. This dialogue could be coming out of the mouths of characters you have written that are based on actual people in your life and from your past.

It takes courage to write because you will have to face the proverbial music when your work is published. Novelists and fiction writers think about how wonderful it will be when people around the country, and maybe even the world, will curl up and read their first book. What fiction writers sometimes forget is that people you know will also be reading that book.

People from your past may instantly recognize themselves in your work, and they may even contact you.