As many of you probably know, I had a stroke nearly twelve years ago. A blood clot traveled to my brain. Fortunately, I left the hospital, after two days, with no physical impairments. Since then, my doctor has had me taking an adult-strength aspirin every day. It’s kept my blood from clotting, but it’s also left me prone to bleeding and bruising under the skin if I bump into something or scrape against something. Contributing to the situation is the fact that our skin thins as we age. As my doctor recently said to me, “You’re not an old man, but you’re not a young man either.” Gee, thanks. At age 68, I don’t consider myself old, but from time to time these discolorations on my hands or arms tell me differently.

Which has me thinking of how thin-skinned—metaphorically that is—we all can be no matter our age. We all have those sore spots, the old memories or insecurities or sensitivities that can bring out an emotional response. It’s often our inclination to avoid those responses in our writing, but really we should be pushing toward them. We all have facades that we construct to protect ourselves from revealing too much, but those revelations are what writing is all about. Whether we’re writing fiction or creative nonfiction, we find those pressures that cause the facades to crumble, and to show, if only temporarily, a truer version of our characters or ourselves.

Let’s begin, then, with an inventory. Make a list of memories that make you uncomfortable, memories that evoke an emotional response. Add your shortcomings to the list, flaws that you don’t want anyone else to notice. Finally, add everything that you fear. If you’re writing fiction, choose something from your list and give it to your main character. Then construct a narrative that makes it impossible for that character to keep a painful memory, or a flaw, or a fear hidden. If you’re writing creative nonfiction, see if you can remember a time in your life when it was impossible for you to do the same. You might also write honestly about why you have a certain fear, or why a specific memory causes you to feel emotional, or what you think a flaw says about you.

No matter which route you take, the important thing is to let your emotions rise organically from the specific details of what you try to ignore or hide from the world.