How to write about your life online

Without wanting to vomit after.

I’ve been writing about my life online on and off for roughly 14 years (excluding the early teenage years of Xanga and Blogspot, when I was largely speaking to myself). It’s been an interesting exercise in learning about myself and other people. The way someone reacts to a piece of writing about your life says a lot about how they see you; the way they react to a piece of writing that mentions or alludes to them says a lot about how they see themselves, yes, but can also force you to interrogate your own perception.

There is, of course, no right way to confess your life’s stories for public consumption, and I often envy people who seem to have no limitations—writing so freely, for example, about specific relationships in their lives without any seeming regard for what those people will think. And by freely, I don’t mean maliciously (though that certainly exists) but in a way that never softens the edges of honesty.

That can result in some really great work, and I think I did this more when I was younger (oh, to be naive), but it often left me in a state of anxiety or, at times, trying to repair a relationship I never even intended to hurt. I’ve learned that there’s a way to write honestly online without being harmful to your personal life or wanting to vomit (though a little queasiness isn’t always a bad thing—more on that in a sec). Below are my rules of thumb.

Never write for revenge.

This is a big one. If you’re a good writer, it is all too easy to eviscerate the people who’ve hurt you, and boy, is it tempting. I’ve had many angry essays floating around inside me that feel delicious in the heat of the moment. But writing (publicly) out of anger at someone you actually know never does what you want it to—it doesn’t take away the pain, and it mostly just leaves you feeling anxious and sad.

Of course, anger can be a great driver for creativity, and it can absolutely fuel your writing in other ways. A falling out with someone or a toxic familial relationship can plant the seed for a larger idea, but when it stays granular and hyper-personal, it doesn’t go well for you or the reader.

Don’t be cavalier about people’s feelings.

In my early twenties, one of my dearest friends was dating a guy I didn’t like. He felt controlling, hiding her from the world, so I rarely saw her. I missed my friend, and the situation creeped me out. So what did I decide to do? Write a very thinly-veiled essay about it, truly believing that it was just harmless self-expression and that she wouldn’t care. As I said before, what a trip to be so young and naive!

This friend and I had never fought in our decades of knowing each other, and we haven’t fought since, but it (understandably, I now realize) ruptured our friendship for a while. It taught me that just because you’re passionate about something that you know other people will be able to relate to doesn’t mean you should write about it. It taught me not to be careless with the feelings of people I loved. It taught me to write from a less selfish place. That situation guides me now before hitting publish on anything—just because this seems fine to me, how will the other person receive it? If I have doubts, I hold off or rework it.

Learn to decipher between good nerves and bad.

The subheader of this post implies that you should never feel uneasy about what you’re putting out into the world, but that’s not entirely true. There’s a difference between publishing something that sends you into a full-day spiral of second-guessing and publishing something that makes you a little nervy because it’s so raw.

One of the qualities of my writing that I’m proud of is its honesty. I’ve talked about suicidal ideation, recovering from anorexia, falling in and out of love, and the brutal lifestyle that comes with chronic pain. I always feel a little nervous when I open that window to the world, but I also feel strong and proud that I have.

It’s when the nervousness dominates before or immediately after I’ve hit publish that I start to question if what I put out there is really safe for me—by which I mean safe for my mental health and well-being. Just because a story is good on paper doesn’t mean it’s good for you to reveal it. The more you write, the better you’ll get at gut-checking what you can publish while staying sane. I’ve scrapped or deleted my fair share of posts once I realized the after-effects were just not worth it to me.

Care less about the crowd.

I just told you to care about other people’s feelings, yes, but what you shouldn’t care so much about? What Jim from high school or Jenny from your first job think about your writing. This past weekend, I published what amounted to a love letter to my husband—a concept that I knew would be inherently nauseating to certain people. But I didn’t care because I knew where it came from—not a place of wanting to brag but one of immense joy breaking through deeply embedded cracks of pain. I wrote it for myself, for B, and for the people who always get it—who appreciate and don’t run from earnestness.

If you’re going to write well about your life online, this POV is absolutely key. Somebody somewhere will always think you’re annoying, self-involved, not very good at writing, whatever. Learning to care less about the crowd will help you stay true to yourself and free you up to do much better work.