When some thinks of intimacy, they might think about those who are married or couples. However, in some case, it’s within yourself and being willing to open yourself up to others about you and your family.

I love what Barbara Abercrombie wrote about intimacy:

“I want to read writers who have the courage to let me into their lives, who are open and intimate. If they’ve gone to the trouble of writing a book or an essay, I want it to be emotionally true; I want the details, the nitty-gritty, what’s underneath the façade. This is not to say that I want to read their life spilled onto the page but the details, the emotion, their experience craft into art.

“May Sarton wrote, ‘I believe we learn through the experiences of others as well as through our own, constantly meditating upon them, drawing the substance of human truth from them.’

“There’s no intimacy without truth, and how dangerous it sometimes feels to write.”

Think about that for a moment. To really draw the reader into what you write, whether it be nonfiction or fiction, you have to allow yourself to be emotional so you can transfer that emotion into it.

With Mari’s book, as you can probably imagine, I felt like when I was writing the first draft that I opened the already tender wound and bared it into her memoir. I had to put a part of who I am as a person to show the reader what it had been like during those sixteen days and those few days after. For me, it was important that I be very open about that time. In order for the reader to be touched by it I had to become intimate with it because in return the reader will as well.

I think the same thing applies with my fiction writing. No, it’s not real life, but my story is sort of based on real life. I’m able to understand a loss that most people, fortunately, will never be able to. It’s because of what I’ve been through in my life that I’m able to better understand my main character and in turn can portray her realistically. God has given me the ability to be able to do this. Talk about a beautiful blessing.

I thank the Lord for allowing me to be intimate with my writing so the reader will be able to see that in it.