Today, I had a two hour meeting with my publicist and my marketing man, Mr. Anthony on a conference call. It’s as though I had three cups of Starbucks hard stuff as the details of the next few month were outlined for the long awaited launch of my first book,  Big Girls Do Cry.

All at once, I felt naked as though on a large stage with the world waiting for me to disrobe all of my defenses and bare my pain and my mistakes.  “What am I doing?”  “It is really happening?”  “Do I want to share these secrets?”  “What is everyone going to say?” “What is Frankie going to say?”

I felt a rush of excitement, then fear, then shock, a part of me wanting to back out and call it all off,

UNTIL I remembered Three Important Reasons why each of us MUST write:

1.  Writing encourages self- healing.

Each time you dig in deep to recount the past or fantasize about the future you grow and change.  This, to me, is  the mile marker by which I judge my life: Have I grown into someone a little smarter, a little kinder, and a little bit wiser than I started? Writing helps those character traits evolve.

2. Writing gives insights to others who share the same experiences.

The world is becoming more isolated as technology brings us closer together. It’s a dilemma and a dichotomy that isn’t leaving any time soon. Teen depression is on the rise due to unrealistic photos of perfection. The average female takes an average of six selfies before posting one. Adults post the hylights of their lives implying that have actually arrived accomplishing all of their goals. We know that this is a distortion but still it affects us.

In the future we see interpersonal skills weakening while this growing isolation bares fruit of anxiety, self-medicating, and suicide.

However, there is a small light trying to peek through.

When we write, risking it all, telling even the most dismal and embarrassing parts of ourselves, we provide a safe place for others to do the same. We respectfully allow others the opportunity to do the same without judgment.  We sit, weep, and wonderfully laugh with a deep awareness that we are indeed more the same than different and it is ok. No, it is more than ok; it is perfection.

3. Writing documents history and provides a road map for those who seek a deeper understanding.

My desire as a mother, like most moms,  is that my children do not have to suffer and encounter my mistakes, my self-sabotaging, my history. On an universal scale, each book outlines a  sort of map to design a better, new improved tomorrow by understanding failure, victory, and survival from a safe vantage point.  This is the process of gaining a richer value of ourselves, our neighbors and is the core process of growth and global harmony.

In summary, our personal histories, recorded, can change both our lives and the lives of others.  This is NOT an option, it is a necessity.

 So each time you hold back, grapple with the thought of judgment and rejection remember these three reasons to keep writing.  Then sip in your favorite coffee, snuggle in your favorite place and let out your heart.  Let it all out tears and laughter, pain and pleasure and every moment in between.  the entire world is waiting to hear your story.  I hope you enjoy mine.

Sign up for my story: presale begins May 3, which by the way, let me be one of the first to say:

Happy Birthday Frankie!

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