So tell me, what are the areas closest to your heart? What aspects of your life in general do you find yourself sharing in writing? Do you enjoy reading/writing personal essays? Who are some of your favorite essayists?
I could spout about various things close to my heart like education and beauty and adventure, but when I look back through my notebooks I find much uglier themes recurring: obsession over food, frustration with hypocrites, and fear of my future. My freewriting is often whiny or angry.
That said, when I come to the page with a specific subject in mind, I wax introspective about names and titles, come up with crackpot (and often intentionally humorous) theories, or preach about the importance of consistency. Some of these see the light of day; others rightfully stay hidden from the world.
A well-written personal essay can be grand. My personal favorites – David Sedaris and Laurie Notaro – are both very funny. I suspect that’s because it’s just so easy to find tragedy in the everyday that unearthing comedy from the same materials is a rare gift. Granted, not everything Sedaris and Notaro write is funny, but those occasional serious pauses are all the more meaningful for their rarity.
Alas, though I like to write personal essays, I often don’t know how to end them.
Sometimes writing personal stories about the darker side of our experience is a good way to work things out and get ourselves to a positive place. Caroline Knapp, one of my favorite writers, struggled with alcohol, anorexia, and depression. She wrote about all of them, but was never a “downer” about it.
That’s great that you write essays – and if you don’t have an ending, it doesn’t matter. Sometimes endings to essays just happen; often they don’t. The magic is in the former. But doesn’t it feel good to write them regardless of how they finish?