Tell me a secret.
Before I get to my thoughts about the PostSecret event at AVAM this afternoon, I am asking anyone who happens across this post to leave a secret in the comments. Don’t think too hard – whatever comes to mind first. Take just a moment, use a fake email (secret@laurenflax.net) and name (secret). For those of you who know me, I am totally uninterested in matching secrets to the personalities in my life. (I’m even disabling google analytics for a day or two.) What I’m going for here is 1) seeing what is really out there orbiting my world and 2) offering the space to shine a light on something that has been hidden. It’s amazing how things change once you get them into the light. If you’ve never had the experience of making a secret public, just plain go for it. Comment away.
Onto the event: it was terrific. Frank Warren is so disarmingly warm and humble in person that after an hour in a room with him, it is hard not to find renewed appreciation for what he has created, or to borrow his words, what was already out there that he just tapped into.
As I writer, I think about secrets all the time. I can’t write a character honestly unless I know that character inside and out, secrets, shames, joys, and all. I think that is why as writers we have to commit to letting the events and people from our own lives transform once they hit the page, because the truth is that we just don’t know each other that well. A truly honest story happens when we start to fill in the gaps. What gets filled in is our own truth and our own secrets. Details may change here and there, but what makes our stories real is telling our own secrets, over and over again. As I’ve said so many times before, fiction is telling the truth absent the burden of the facts.
But, back to Frank (and how cool is it that a man whose life work is secrets is named Frank?): the highlight for me were his thoughts on PostSecret creating its own community, and his enthusiasm for using technology to create new communities. It is hackneyed at this point to talk about using social media, blogs, and so on to bridge the gap between people, but it got me interested in looking at it from the other direction, examining the community created by a project.
So, I’m curious about the community I’ve created around my blog. I have some regular traffic now, and I know some of my readers, others I don’t. I want to know you better – not where you are or what you do, but the truth of your story, your secrets.
This brings me back to asking for your secrets. It’s a humble request, a loving dare, and an offering of sacred space all wrapped into one. Go for it.
I accidentally saw my uncle naked when I was twelve.
You should post some here, too.
If I do or have already, in the spirit of anonymity, it will or did have the same lack of identifying information.
But, to keep things rolling: in high school, I swiped my parents’ pot.
Next?
I do good things for strangers and never tell them.
I haven’t seen my brother in almost five years and I feel my life is better for it.
Sometimes, if I buy clothes in a bigger size, I cut out the tag.
The last day of my first real job, my boss gave me a very big and inapporpriate kiss goodbye.
I think I got fired for coming to work with a hickey.
I like to steal small, unnoticed things.
For those who tried, I’m sorry I’m not gay.
For clarity’s sake, I mentioned in a tweet that I made a list of secrets, and there are four. Well, I did, and there are. But, lest anyone think I am padding my comments, those secrets are not on here.
I’m extremely adventurous. Yes, like that.
I misbehave on Wednesdays.
I can be very manipulative, even though I try my hardest not to be.
I’m a punk.
Sometimes, I wish I was as strong as everyone thinks I am.