Ev BogueG.B.: "The more I think about it, there's no place for anything but experience telling in the blogosphere."
I looked up from my beet sandwich and took a sip of carrot juice. "Can I quote you on that?" I said. "Because if you can stand behind that, you might just have the recipe to ground the blogosphere in a reality that it so often needs."
G.B.: "Yes, you can quote me on that."
Ev: "Can I interview about it?"
G.B.: "Sure."
And so the interview was born below.
G.B. on Telling from Your Tender Center
Ev Bogue:
Since you started writing about experience telling, I began to realize the same thing about my work. Whenever I publish something that isn't telling from experience, it doesn't land as strongly for my readers.
I've started to ask this question every time I write "am I telling from experience?"
When did you first realize that the strongest writing online is that which is told from experience?
G.B.: The most honest answer is, I started noticing what I clicked away from.
I was reading a piece earlier this week. The author started strong, telling from experience. She was sharing about a hard time in her life. She shared details. She mentioned what the tile of her bathroom floor felt on her backside, because she was spending time there, crying.
The story went on from there, and I was engrossed (and I'm editing it some because I don't want to finger point to the specific piece, because I'm using it to illustrate, not put down her work). I was really feeling her, until she shifted from "I" to "we." I felt it, even if there was no real tense change.
What happens in that shift, I think, is the shift out of experience telling and into philosophizing. (If I use the word "one" it better be in reference to the number. I'd never say "when one feels sad," instead, I'd say, "when I'm sad.")
If I slip into broad, sweeping statements, or switch to we (when blogging, I should add, because I do use third person in Digital Warriorship and longer pieces) -- it's to self-protect. I was hitting on something tender, I was at the tender center, and then I pull back.
If I feel the urge to do that in my writing now, I wonder if I've fully processed it. And rather than barreling ahead using "we" and distancing myself from my experience, I pause and give myself empathy. What's alive in me now? I ask.
From that tender place, I'm telling from experience.
Ev Bogue: I hear what you're saying about switching from "I to we" in writing. I find myself drifting in that direction often. It's usually because, yes, I'm about to hit on something that is very true and tender for myself.
This is very different from ways that I was taught to write in college. I went to journalism school at NYU. There I learned to write about external things from myself. I remember being taught to edit myself out of the story.
Now, when I'm crafting, my focus on editing myself into the story.
Actually, what I've found is this:
When I'm not experience telling, I'm bullshitting.
I'm making stuff up. I'm theorizing about something that I know nothing about. Meanwhile, my writing starts to fall flat with my readers because it's not grounded in anything but my own theory, or someone else's theory.
When I look back at my past work, and I come across a theory or philosophy, I want to click away from my past-self. I want to hit un-friend/un-follow.
Reality is, my strongest work from the last two years is when I told from experience. I lived with 47 things. I moved to San Francisco. I did yoga teacher training. I launched books that people paid for.
No one can argue that these things happened to me.
Have you ever slipped into writing in a philosophical or hypothetical way? How did you get back to telling from experience?
G.B.: Sure. I slip into philosophy in my writing. That's the work, getting myself back to telling from experience when the pull of philosophy, or glazing over the challenging aspect, or embellishing, is there. That's what edits are for.
What I've noticed is the temptation to go into blanket statements and generalizations is almost always there when I'm at, or near, something tender, something vulnerable.
P.R. and I have been telling from experience for years. When we podcasted together for three years, I learned the rhythm of experience telling with two.
P.R. called me on any embellishment, any glazing over the truth of something. He always had out his Zen stick and would give me a good rap about the shoulders to get me back on track. We'd stop the recording, laugh at each other, hit Record again, only when we could tell it from experience.
Again, it's that processing piece. If I'm crying about it, it's probably a touch too vulnerable to share about it. That said, we recorded within days of my house burning down, and that podcast is still one I remember vividly.
You can tell through tears, and you can tell even when you're scared, but it's something to consider -- am I in alignment as I tell this? Or do I need more space around it before it's shareable?
If I'm publishing solely to get a rise out of people, I assume I'm still triggered about it. It's back to the cushion/mat for me.