I often cry when I write…afterward too. It’s not easy to admit, confront, confess what I do. Perhaps someone who’s been a stripper will understand me. You stand on a lighted stage and drop your clothes. You’re naked. A portion of your audience applauds you because they like what they see; because you entertain them; because you’re beautiful, brave. Another portion seeks out your faults; they find fault with the very thing you do. People judge you.

A long time ago, a writing mentor told me my responsibity as a writer was to say what no one else would. I wasn’t supposed to write clean or polite or safe. I was supposed to get dirty, take chances, write dangerously. In graduate school another mentor asked, ‘If it doesn’t hurt, why are you writing it?’

In other words, writing feels painful sometimes