Writing My Self: Wearing My Heart on My Sleeve

Wearing My Heart on My Sleeve in this Era of Life Writings

“On some meta-level, all narratives are written through the self, and the self is also written through narrative.”

Early in my writing life, I was told that I wrote too much about myself. A colleague once remarked that I was always “wearing my heart on my sleeve.” The observation was accurate. My essays, poems, stories, and even my academic thesis often circle back to me, my memories, doubts, questions, and desires.

I often wondered: Was I being self-indulgent?

Later, I realized that much of my writing involved posturing and projection. Yet, I also came to understand that writing from the “I” was my way of entering into dialogue. As Australian academic Keri Glastonbury reminds us, “All narratives are written through the self.” Whether we admit it or not, we leave our fingerprints on every sentence we write.

Personality, Insight, and an Honest Voice in Life Writing

“I have, it seems, an inability to separate personality from insight.”

My writing has always been emotional and personal. My reflections draw from daily life. My book reviews become spaces of self-actualization, revealing what I have learned and how I hope to use it. My devotional writing, in prose and poetry, traces a faith that is still growing and maturing.

I have avoided being prescriptive in my devotions. In the fiction I am currently developing, I gather memories of family moments and shared experiences. As I have aged, I have also drawn from senior citizenship, offering reflections shaped by concerns about health, career, and finances.

I take responsibility for my perspective. I say: This is where I am standing. This is how the world looks from here. I cannot pretend neutrality if I am to remain honest.

Everyday Autobiography in the Digital Age

“A ‘rabid’ culture of self-publishing the self exists…”

We now live in an era where life writing is everywhere. Blogs, vlogs, tweets, reels, newsletters, and personal websites function as public diaries. We narrate our meals, heartbreaks, achievements, and doubts in real time. We no longer wait for permission to publish. We write ourselves into existence online.

In doing so, we reshape what it means to be both author and reader.

Because of this, I no longer feel guilty about writing so much about myself. There has been a cultural shift. We are all participating, in some way, in recording our humanity digitally.

In ancient times, people left monuments, temples, and tools. Today, we leave data, posts, and archives. This is our digital mark.

But important questions remain: How do we read these lives? How do we value them? How do we listen without turning stories into mere entertainment or data? The noise is real. And self-placement must be deliberate.

Fiction, Style, and Writing the Heart of the Self

“Maybe fiction-writing is some kind of ‘parallel process’…” — Tom Cho

In confession, the self is open and vulnerable. But self-revelation can also happen through disguise, through metaphors. Hiding the self in fiction sometimes allows deeper truth to emerge. Indirect, careful, and stylistic storytelling often reveals more than direct disclosure. Through restrained tone, symbols, and images, language carries the imprint of our existence.

Life writing is not about telling everything, but about finding the right form for self-revelation.

Teaching, Reading, and the Dialogue of Lives

“Trying to find the perfect ‘heteroglossia’…”

As a teacher and reader, I have learned that life writing is relational. When I read a memoir or a personal essay, I am not simply consuming information. I am entering someone’s life.

But this encounter is possible only when I bring my own life into the text.

In Bakhtin’s notion of heteroglossia, many voices converge. In digital spaces, stories speak to one another. My journey may mirror someone else’s. My struggle with language may echo another’s.

It is not only me who is learning.

This demands responsibility. I can speak only from what I know. I must not pretend authority over experiences I merely presume. My story is mine, but I must remain open to parallel stories.

The goal is not praise or ego-boosting, but genuine dialogue.

Self-Publishing and the Politics of Personal Storytelling

“DIY publishing impulses which place value in the individual…”

There is a political dimension to self-publishing through blogs, zines, newsletters, and independent small presses. Now, cultural gatekeeping is not confined to “mainstream” channels, and storytelling ceases to be purely commercial. Many writers who feel they are on the margins of mainline publishing are now able to appear before us, their lives open for easy archiving.

I maintain a blog and a website for this reason. More than personal projects, I view them as my own small act of cultural preservation, within the realm of my experience.

Writing from the “I” as an Act of Care

This website, WordHouse, has this motto: “I care about your ideas.” I aim to listen very closely to anybody writing from the “I” as they make sense of the world. I believe that our human system has never leaned toward abstraction, however much philosophers have philosophized about being. There is always that movement into reflection from living itself.

Every time I encounter a personal narrative, I am faced with a choice: to skim, judge, romanticize, or truly listen. Each story is a history, so I need to read it slowly in order to respond thoughtfully.

Alongside another, this is the way of approaching a narrative, a kind of friendship that demands nothing in return but respects another. No life stands alone. Every “I” exists within a chorus of other voices.

My life is not exceptional, but it is the only life I can truly speak from in order to honor other lives. Life writing is my way of listening and trying to make sense of our days.

Our present digital culture overflows with stories. The challenge for me as writer is not merely to speak louder, but to speak more truthfully. I'm not trying to build a self-monument, I'm merely attempting another bridge for more meaningful connections.

Works Cited

Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Edited by Michael Holquist, translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist, University of Texas Press, 1981.

Cho, Tom. “Maybe Fiction-Writing Is Some Kind of Parallel Process.” Meanjin, vol. 70, no. 2, 2011, pp. 84–89.

Glastonbury, Keri. “Writing the Self: Life Writing and Autobiography.” TEXT Journal, vol. 14, no. 1, 2010, www.textjournal.com.au/april10/glastonbury.htm.

Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. 2nd ed., University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

Vivian, Bradford. Public Forgetting: The Rhetoric and Politics of Beginning Again. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010.