Are you scared of being known? Like, truly, deeply known?

I grew up in the hills of SoCal, tramping through my backyard, making up stories.

We lived about forty-five minutes away from everyone we knew, and I was ten, so I didn’t have a phone to contact my friends. This left me with a lot of free time to imagine and play make-believe with my sister and brother.

Then, one day, my sister decided she didn’t want to play with us anymore.

She’d recently turned thirteen and was now “an adult,” so all manner of make-believe was strictly prohibited. I remember standing in the kitchen and realizing that all the stories we’d made up over the years—the characters, the plots, the twists and turns—would be forgotten. One day, I would be an adult, and I would have to put make-believe behind me.

“Never!” I hissed, stormed to the family computer, and wrote my first story.

I loved crafting stories and pouring myself out onto the page. I remember making myself laugh and cry as the story unfolded… and then people wanted to read what I wrote.

And I realized something terrifying. If they read what I wrote, they would know what I actually thought about the world.

Bob Sorge wrote a book, Secrets of the Secret Place. In it, he has a chapter called The Secret of Being Known. He describes what a relationship with Jesus looks like and how we can know him without being known in return. We can know Jesus, but have we let Jesus know us? He goes on to say that our relationship with God requires us to be vulnerable with him.

The same concept can apply to our writing.

One of the things we’re taught here at The Company about marketing is that people will follow your platform because it’s you. (My boyfriend Noah has a great blog on this!) When you are vulnerable with someone, subconsciously, they appreciate that, and it endears you to them.

It’s the same with your writing and your characters. For your story to have an impact, you need to be vulnerable. No matter the story you write, you are what makes your story unique!

You can learn everything there is to learn about wonderful prose, thrilling plots, and fantastic settings. But unless you’re willing to be vulnerable, your writing will always be missing one special part. You.

Vulnerability with God and others.

In my first couple of months at The Company, I tried to write without letting my emotions, thoughts, or ideas get onto the page. I wanted to just write a good story, and I thought that if I was part of it, that would make it a bad story.

As you can probably guess, these were the worst stories I wrote. Finally, by December, I decided to be vulnerable and write what I was feeling.

I submitted that small short story, and now, it’s a full-length novel that I’ll be releasing soon! (Join my newsletter to get updates on my projects!)

You can write without being known, without any real vulnerability. But the greatest books are those that speak to the innermost secret places of our soul—the quiet parts that we deem silly or inexpressible. Good writing takes you to a new world. The best writing takes you to a new world and gives you special insights into the real world.

Your inner critic might tell you that you have nothing important to say. That your thoughts about the world and life are of little value. It’s not true. Don’t believe that voice. Pick up your pen or grab your laptop, and let yourself out onto the pages. 😊

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