Unlocking Creativity: Elissa Altman Reveals the Radical Power of Saying ‘Yes’ in Memoir Writing
I think that it’s hard and complicated to see oneself in the pages of someone else’s book. It almost doesn’t matter what the writer says, because what it does to the subject is it metaphorically takes their car keys away; it takes the reins out of their hands. We are, every one of us, very invested in our own patinas, in our own veneer that we create for ourselves. We want to be looked at in a certain way. We want to be thought of in a certain way. That is part of the human condition. You can delude yourself, but this other person is writing about how they see you and how the world might see you, and it can be undoing and shocking, and that’s a very difficult thing to swallow. It’s never easy.
