“Writing is easy…just tear your heart out.”
Advice to “increase engagement” and “get more readers” can be cruel.
“There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” It’s not clear where this quote originated, but it’s been around for a while.
I’ve also lost count of the number of writers — on Medium and elsewhere — who share some variation of this maxim as a newly discovered truth.
Over and over, contributors are urged to dig deep into themselves and share what seems scary.
The time a parent committed suicide. Abusive relationships. Hitting bottom emotionally.
There’s no denying that these stories draw attention.
But frankly, this advice feels reckless.
It’s like someone who jumps off a rock into a river, gets an adrenaline rush, and urges everyone around to do the same. So the next person dives in. Who wants to be a chicken? And the next…and then someone stumbles or hits an obstacle.
Maybe it doesn’t end this way. Maybe everyone jumps and celebrates a victory. That’s what we’d like to believe.
