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When Writers Lose Interest,
It Might Actually Be Healthy
It's common in a workshop for a writer to find that she has written about a period of her life that now is uninteresting to her. Though she wrote with enthusiasm, intending to include this material in her lifestory book, it doesn't seem to merit inclusion now. She may be despondent. "I worked so hard! Is this going to happen with everything I write?"
I've heard workshoppers express this frustration and I've also experienced it myself. What's up?
I believe the writer in this situation has accomplished an inner goal with a good piece of healing writing and, now free of the material's emotional intensity, no longer needs to give it attention. Often a writer confuses personal attachment to the subject with a potential audience's general interest in the topic. Through the writing process, s/he has grown beyond that attachment and has achieved perspective. It now seems, in its intrinsic interest, to be minimally important.
I respond with congratulations! Lifewriting has brought you maturation and freedom from attachment. Now get on with writing what is unique about your life, what your kids, your community, and the world need to hear from you.
Has the writing been a waste? Not any more than the submerged 9/10ths of an iceberg is "wasted." It fulfills a crucial function of holding up that visible one-tenth above water. To continue the analogy, the seemingly useless writing has lifted the writer up above the tide of life's many experiences so s/he can now concentrate on the telling the more unique and meaningful story.
As one writer said in a workshop, "I had all this anger at some family members. When I wrote about it, I realized they weren't particularly aware of the impact their actions had on me. I was not the center of their attention. In fact, I was totally peripheral. For years, I've thought these were "bad" people who couldn't be trusted. Now I realize they were simply self-involved and caught up in their own drama."
Watch for this phenomenon in your workshoppers. Be ready to reassure them that the process rather that the product of lifewriting may be the most valuable part as they work through their attachments to eras or incidents in their pasts.
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