has writing changed my personality?

answering a reader's question

A few weeks ago I asked what topics you’d like me to write about. One reader replied:

“If really pressed for a topic or idea, I guess it would be to ask if writing has broadened your view of the world and appreciation of the beauty and magic in it or have you always had that view and are trying to show it to your readers? In other words, has writing changed your life outlook or altered your personality?”

What a profound question! If only we could all gather around a table by the smoky pub fire — we might arrive at a more satisfying answer with the sting of whisky in our throats! I’ve circled this question for hours. Finally, I think I’ve arrived at an answer.

Yes.

Writing is what helped a disconnected 14-year-old discover her rich inner world.

Not one to speak up, she started a diary. Scribing in secret she named the silences and the shadows. She named also the gleaming, glittering things that pressed cold kisses to her heart.

For me, writing is about going into silent places to search for echoes. It’s about giving names to the unnameable. Writing also helped me cultivate a deep connection with the world, with its twilight and blossoms, its thorns and bogs.

Most importantly, writing cultivated a connection with my self. By writing all the untold stories out of my heart and onto the page I discovered who I am.

If I were only allowed to write one thing for the rest of my life, it would be my diary. It’s the morphing fingerprint of my soul, a private sanctuary where I can quietly, safely sit beside myself before proceeding outwards.

Something about the tranquil tending of one’s inner life makes you receptive to the outer world’s beauty: how water whispers to wave; spiced smoke in the damp, cramped gloaming; a veil of hawthorn obscuring ragged cliff and ruined stone.

For almost twenty years writing has shaped my inner world…I think that’s bound to show on the outside!

Thank you for reading! It’s hard to imagine what my personality might have been like if 14-year-old me never started a diary. Puzzling over this question, I couldn’t help but feel grateful for all writing’s given me. Good days and beautiful moments are preserved forever, and the bad can always be rewritten on a fresh page.

Kate xx