How to Get Started on Writing Your Deepest, Most Honest, Most Personal Essays

We all have those things we know we want (maybe even have) to write about, but find difficult to get into. Here’s how I push myself to start getting those deeply personal essays onto the page.

I’m a multi-hyphenate writer-artist-poet-performer-filmmaker, which means the possibilities for what I choose to do with an idea generally feel expansive, but also sometimes daunting. Over time, I’ve found that my creative ideas that want to be personal essays are the stories and experiences that make me desperate to — pardon my French here — work my shit out on the page.

Poetry tends to be where I go to process my feelings or wonders of my soul. Journalism — where I process my relationship to other people the rest of the world. Theater — where I explore interpersonal dynamics. Film — humor. Fiction — the snarky voice I’m too timid to use IRL.

And personal essay? It’s where I turn when I need the space to let the page reflect back to me who I am, and what it means to have experienced that which I have — personally — experienced.

I also use the personal essay as a place to really, truly, gut-wrenchingly slow down a moment, and allow it space to air out and breathe — like hang-dry laundry,…