In the time between Writers’ Gym podcast series, I’m releasing mini-episodes on aspects of writing and creative confidence that come up for members and clients. 

No names, of course, but each one results in someone who isn’t the person (or usually people) who inspired it saying, ‘I felt you were talking directly to me’.

Here’s why.

In a week that reminds us how much fear there is around who we are and who we have the right to be, I was asked at my Riverscribes Fiction and Memoir workshop why I thought imagination belonged on the ‘artist palette’ of a memoir writer as much as a writer of fiction. After all, memoir is things that happened to us. What’s imagination got to do with it?

It’s not the first time I’ve been asked, but I try to treat it like it is. 

Every writer has a unique paint palette of memory, imagination, observations and questions about the world and our place in it. 

Each is unique to that writer, therefore each combination we mix from them even more so.

Yet, when literal paint is being brought on a palette to a blank canvas, no painter stops themselves mixing their colours with ‘I can’t possibly use that shade, my mum/friend/grandparent/teacher would be angry’ or ‘X would see this colour differently’ or ‘I don’t have the right to use this one’. 

Empathy creates people we’ve never met and whose lives may look very unlike our own saying ‘I felt like you knew what it was like to be me’.

Last week, I talked about why we write and why we read: not objective truth, but subjective truth. To feel what it’s like to be another person. To see each other in the dark. Because here’s the thing about true storytelling: we’re being vulnerable with our own truth. Putting the reader in the sensory details and the physical and emotional internal reality in our head. Imagination creates empathy. Empathy creates people we’ve never met and whose lives may look very unlike our own saying ‘I felt like you knew what it was like to be me’. Whether that’s fiction or memoir, it takes vulnerability. Vulnerability is strength. It can be hard to prioritise vulnerability over defence mechanisms. It can be hard to reveal the complexity, the messiness of who we truly are. Because the world hasn’t always told us that’s okay, let alone healthy and positive.

It is healthy and positive. Not just for discovering who characters are on the page. For giving ourselves permission to show up off the page.

We’re not so different, any of us, ever. So let’s all do what we can to have each other’s backs on all our paths to becoming our true, full, complex and multitudinous, selves.

Writing Magic Realism with Dr Rachel Knightley and Alex Davis Events starts Tuesday 6 May

Come and Write This Week

(If you’re not in the UK, find your timezone here.)

Writers’ Gym Mini-Episodes: Every Monday, Every Podcast Platform
Between series, we’re sharing weekly mini-episodes on writing and creative confidence building. Find us wherever you get your podcasts. Click here.

The Writing Room | 11am-1pm Monday 21 April
Free for everyone on my mailing list (if you’re reading this, that’s you!). No expectations, no readings, just an open chat box and ten minutes’ (totally optional) chat together at the end. Click here.

Writing Workout and Feedback Workshop | 6-7.30pm Tuesday 22 April
Adding to our programme of regular workouts at the Writers’ Gym, this friendly group workshop is the perfect place to hone your writing – and how to get the best out of feedback. Click here.

Coffee & Creativity | 1-2.30pm Wednesday 23 April 
Quality writing time and excellent company! Grab a coffee and have a mid-week chat, a write and then another chat with your fellow creatives. Free for members: type your discount code where indicated. Click here.

Writing Room EXTRA | 3-5pm Thursday 24 April
Members only: please check Voxer messages.

Writing Magic Realism | 1pm-2.30pm Tuesday 6 May
From literary and genre fiction to poetry, film and TV, magic realism expresses a deeper truth to the everyday. It lets our themes and emotions take physical form, and allows the worlds we live in within our own minds to become real places in the worlds we create. Click here.

The Writers’ Gym is part of Rachel Knightley Coaching: creative confidence for life, work and art. www.rachelknightley.com

You don’t have to be a member to join a Writers’ Gym session: visit here. But if you’d like to access our weekly programme for free, and receive 30% off all our other events, ask about membership at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com