Personal Essays Disguised as Advice

Tiny Beautiful Things: Personal Essays Disguised as Advice

“Every story I write creates me. I write to create myself.” ―Octavia Butler

Lately, you can find me in my kitchen cooking and crying. While I am at times chopping onions, they are not the culprit. In an effort to read more, I’ve taken to listening to audiobooks while I cook. There are only so many hours in a day, so it’s a kill two birds with one stone situation. I just finished listening to Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed. While I seared steak or baked a terrible batch of cookies, Strayed had me laughing, crying, and wondering just how she managed to take the details of her life and make them universally resonant all while answering a specific question via an anonymous advice column.

Let’s back up. Most people are familiar with Cheryl Strayed by way of her bestselling memoir, Wild, which recounts her trek through the Pacific Crest Trail after the death of her mother. I’ve never read Wild or seen the movie based on it. I became a fan of Strayed’s through her podcast Dear Sugar. On the podcast, Strayed and her cohost, Steve Almond, answer letters from listeners looking for advice on a myriad of life’s most challenging topics. I like to listen to Dear Sugar while walking on the beach or before I go to sleep. Through the podcast, I learned that Dear Sugar was originally an advice column featured in The Rumpus, which Strayed wrote anonymously for two years under the name Sugar. It wasn’t revealed to readers of The Rumpus that the advice-giving Sugar was Strayed until just before Wild was released in 2012. Strayed’s book Tiny Beautiful Things is a collection of her advice columns from The Rumpus.

I purchased the audiobook of Tiny Beautiful Things assuming it would be similar to the Dear Sugar podcast. I was wrong; it was better. The podcast is a conversation—a good conversation—full of in-depth advice offered both to the askers and the thousands of listeners, but the book is a whole lot of something else.

Her column for The Rumpus is not a conversation. It’s not really even Cheryl Strayed. It’s Sugar, an anonymous, late 30-something woman writing the equivalent of an eloquent personal essay each time she answers a reader’s call for advice. Strayed narrates the audiobook. Each time she would finish reading a letter asking for advice, and begin her response, I’d be at over my stove with a confused look on my face wondering how whatever details Strayed was revealing from her own life could possibly have anything to do with the reader’s question, or how it would answer said question. I was never disappointed or left wondering for long.

I quickly realized that while Strayed would, in a roundabout way, get to offering advice, Dear Sugar was not really an advice column. Dear Sugar was a magical space where each week Strayed composed a beautiful personal essay about experiences from her own life. Some of these experiences were so personal and shocking I nearly burned myself or my food while lost in her words. I remember sinking to the floor in shock and tears while cooking tacos one night when Strayed’s response to the simple question of “WTF?” was so raw and overwhelming tacos no longer mattered. Strayed put her (albeit anonymous at the time) life on full display—the good, the bad, and the oh, so ugly. She admitted to cheating, stealing, and doing drugs. She wrote without shame even when telling tales most people would shame her for. I’d say more, but if you are a writer of personal essays or memoir, I encourage you to read Tiny Beautiful Things for yourself.

Exercises to Help You Write the Hard Stuff

When answering letters from readers, Sugar/Strayed seemed to open up about extremely personal details from her own life so easily in response. This is one of the things I struggle with most when writing personal essays—putting the hard stuffs of my own life down on paper. I can think of them, but I often cannot write about them. I wondered if the very nature of letter writing (versus essay writing) made divulging these details easier. If the writing fell under the guise of giving advice, of helping someone out, maybe, just maybe, the stories would flow.

Of course, most of us do not have a stack of letters asking for advice that might push us to share ourselves on the page. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t write a letter or give advice. About a year ago, I took a live online seminar led by Strayed. During the seminar, one of the first things she asked us to write was a letter to ourselves in an effort to open up and free our creative selves.

This first exercise is inspired by Cheryl Strayed. It’s your turn to write a letter to you asking yourself for advice. If this sounds too silly, then you’re exactly the writer that needs to complete this exercise. Don’t shake your head at me. I’m serious. Do this:

• Write a letter to yourself from your wise inner sage. Begin your letter like this:
  • Dear [insert your name],

This is your wise inner sage. This is what I know about the stories you need to tell and the wild awakening you need to have and here’s my advice for you:

Next, instill some confidence in yourself. Butter yourself up a bit. Then unleash any harsh truths the writer in you needs to hear. Let your advice flow; set your writing free.

• Additional option: Maybe you don’t struggle with opening up on the page or writing down the hard stuff. Kudos to you! (I’m rather jealous.) However, I bet there is something that is holding you back from taking the next steps in your writing, whether it be to begin your first novel, submit an essay to a journal, or read at an open mic night. I have an assignment for you, too! You get to write two letters. Do this:
  • First, write to your own “Sugar” and ask for advice on whatever you want to do next in your writing and why you’re not doing that very thing.
  • Next, write a letter in response and give yourself the answer(s). Again, don’t shake your head at me or say, “Elle, if I knew the answer to my own question, I’d already have solved the problem.” Would you? Really? Really? Now I’m throwing you side-eye. I believe you do have the answer, but you just haven’t told yourself the truth yet. Now is your chance.

I hope you’ve come away from the first exercise feeling open and ready to share more of your stories on the page, because I’m going to challenge you once again. Another struggle I share with many creative nonfiction writers is knowing which stories from life are the right ones to share. If I’m honest, what I’m really questioning is: How do I know which of my life experiences are important enough to write about?

In Tiny Beautiful Things, Strayed shares huge pivotal moments from her life. They range from her mother’s death and her father’s abandonment to divorcing a man she still loved and the abuse she dealt with as a child. Yet the majority of her advice-essays were not about these massive moments of change in her life. Many are about small moments, like finding two emaciated kittens in the wall of her closet, various jobs she took just to pay the bills, and a disagreement she had with a friend. While out of context these moments may sound trivial, Strayed was able to craft her response essays in ways where each snippet she shared from her life connected to the reader’s question. No matter what tale she was telling, I was hanging on every word.

How did Strayed accomplish turning seemingly banal happenings into riveting tales? Well, she might be a magical word wizard, but, in reality, that just means she’s a gifted storyteller. To summarize some of Strayed’s advice on how to choose what to write, you should:

• Trust your feelings and ideas.
• Write what you want to write.
• Remind yourself that your story is enough.
• Write with courage.
• Risk vulnerability.
• Dig for the truest story in every story.
• Be brave.

How does one be brave and write with courage? By being brave enough to write with courage. Give yourself the grace to not be perfect or even good at it when you first begin. Like most things, it’s a skill that takes practice and time. Until you actively start trying to do it, you’ll never truly start practicing, and you’ll stay stuck. Take a moment and think about all the places our stories come from—our joys, sorrows, wounds, and journeys. What do you feel most called to write about? Trust yourself; write that.

Still feeling unmoved, unsure or simply lacking in an idea? Maybe I can lend a spark for you to light a fire (with words, of course). Do this:

• Select one of the following sparks and write whatever comes, but write with courage and tell the truest story.
• Write about:
  • What you don’t remember.
  • The thing you can’t forget.
  • A time you broke a rule or a code.
  • When you knew it was over.
  • What you were actually thinking.
  • The hardest thing.

I hope I gave you some things to consider and, maybe, to write about. Whatever you’re currently working on, I wish you well on your storytelling journey. Keep these words of Franz Kafka in mind, “Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”