I Don't Mean That Now, But I Meant it Then: When Your Essays' Truths Change Over Time
Nonfiction writer reflects on the craft and how truths can change
Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world.
The essay was a lie. I didn’t know that when I was writing it. Didn’t know that when it was published. And I didn’t know I’d end up dating the man who, in the essay, was the one I claimed had been sexually harassing me for a year. He was sexually harassing me, but a part of me was flattered by his actions but I couldn’t admit that in my writing or IRL because I was married to a super-duper emotionally abusive man and didn’t know how to have that conversation about flirtations. Either way, the man was flirting with me hardcore and I didn’t want that because I was married. So, when I eventually got up the guts to tell then-husband about the situation, my then-husband barred the man from my life. I eventually wrote an essay about being sexually harassed.
Years later—after the essay’s publication, after my divorce, after a brief email conversation with the harasser, after another year of not talking to him, then after another re-connection email—my “harasser” and I ended up falling in love and dating for 2.5 years.
I wrote the essay about him harassing me because at the time that is what it felt like to me. In hindsight—and once out of the confines of the abusive marriage—the essay now feels like a lie.
That relationship is over, as are the complexities of dating someone who potentially sexually harassed me or maybe it was just flirting while married. But I find myself in a similar situation: I have written another essay that, in hindsight and with the knowledge of more life lived, also feels like a lie.
Here we go.
But first, I wonder, when we write creative nonfiction, how do we know we’re telling the truth? This isn’t a question about researching facts, recreating dialogue, finessing details, or putting the “creative” in CNF because I actually despise those conversations (it’s all writing and it’s all creative—check your facts or label it as fiction if you’re worried about it or just change names). But, when I write an essay about how awesome it is to live with my sister when I’m about to turn 40 and how great she is and how I never knew this until we lived together and how much I love her, and then when I’m in the process of submitting said essay for publication and adding it to my new essay collection, she gets angry because in an oddly intense moment (I hadn’t slept in 24 hours) I state a hard truth to her out loud and she spouts some mean, cruel, falsities and tells me to “pack up [my] shit and get the fuck out of [her] house,” which, GAME ON, I move out within 10 days, what do I do with the essay I spent 1.5 years writing about my how amazing my sister is?
I’m sure there’s something to say here about not rushing the creative process. (There’s actually a book by Louise DeSalvo called The Art of Slow Writing that I bought almost a year ago and haven’t had the time to read. I’m sure reading it would add some theoretical weight to this essay, but I’m taking my time with it.) Creativity can’t be rushed. Like, don’t just puke your feelings on the page and publish them wherever you can the next day to get some publishing creds. I actually used to do that when I first started writing, and it didn’t make for anything insightful. However, if an essay is solid after a few days’ worth of drafts, then it’s solid and just go for it.
When we write creative nonfiction, how do we know we’re telling the truth?
Actually, a writing mentor told me more than a few times to SLOW DOWN my writing. I was churning out multiple essays a week and getting handfuls of pubs every month. But that’s where I was in my process. Now, it takes me a few months to write an essay—if not years. One essay I got published recently, I worked on for 6 years. At one point, it was a 75-page chapbook. The published thing is 15 pages. Another essay I published almost a decade ago, I wrote in 20 minutes, edited it for 40 minutes, submitted it right then to a journal who I thought would really like it, it was accepted within a few hours, and published three days after that. Sometimes that’s just how it goes.
Whether it took SIX YEARS or three days, both essays feel solid to me. So while I don’t suggest littering the lit mag world with your first drafts or, for that matter, sitting on an essay for 30 years until it feels “ready,” I think there’s something to say for following your gut and knowing when an essay is done.
After 1.5 years of writing it, I thought the essay about my sister was done. It was, until I texted her, “I’m done with you.” So, the essay is maybe not done, but the relationship is. Likewise, I spent 2 years working on the sexual harassment essay, and it wasn’t until 2 years after its publication that the thing felt like a lie.
But for both these essays—and maybe this is the important thing to remember here—they felt like the truth when I was writing them.
That’s great, but I still don’t know what to do with the essay that isn’t published yet and that now feels like a lie.
Related side note: I was on a panel at AWP once that was about endings and someone in the audience asked the panelists’ opinions about epilogues. I went first (I think—I could be lying here because I don’t actually remember, but I know I wasn’t last), I boldly stated my hatred for epilogues because if it’s that important, just have it be a part of the main story. (Granted, I write essay collections in which epilogues are irrelevant and we just call them “the last essay in the book.”)
The panelist next to me had just read a selection of her amazing memoir. After my opinionated rant, because I think opinionated rants are entertaining at AWP, I looked at her and said, “Oh shit. You have an epilogue, don’t you?” She said yes and thankfully laughed. Then she discussed how after she wrote her memoir, a present-day thing happened that was relevant to her in-revising-stage book, so she added an epilogue. Okay, that makes total sense.
Can an essay have an epilogue? Should I just throw a dinkus (that’s the three asterisks thingy) after the ending as it is now and add a new segment that says,
***
“All that said, I have recently come to learn that my sister sucks ass in a not-fun way.”
***
???
***
I actually don’t know the answer here. My current boyfriend—a solid dude without a history of sexually harassing me—thinks I could write a plot twist/Part II at the end of the essay. Adventurous me thinks I could scrap it and write a much more complicated essay. I might go with the latter, but here’s where we circle back to the aspect of time: If I were to work on the essay, like, today, when I’m still infuriated with my sister because just yesterday she started text-sparring me to the point that I had to block her number, I wouldn’t be able to hold the complexities within that essay. I would just bitch about her. I would write an essay that—perhaps—a year from now would also feel like a lie.
Third option: Go forward with the essay as it is and at some point, write another essay. Because the essay I wrote about those 1.5 years that I lived with her—like the essay I wrote about that year that a client was writing essays about his attraction to me and paying me to edit them—what I wrote felt like the truth. She was amazing. He flirted with his hired editor. Perhaps I need to remember all of these things.
I think that’s the solution here. Write your truth as you know it. Sit with it. Revise it. Go with your gut. And when publication happens, and if years from the pub date you feel like the essay is a lie, then write another truth.
Actually, Epilogue:
Things change.
In the 3 months since I wrote the first draft of this essay, my “current boyfriend—a solid dude without a history of sexually harassing me” broke up with me and will no longer talk to me, my sister and I have reconnected and have hung out a few times, and my “harasser” and I are re-becoming integral people in each other’s lives. Am I thankful I sat on this essay for 3 months and had the opportunity to reflect here at the end about whether this essay would ever feel like a lie? Sure. I like the truth.
That said, if this essay had published sans this epilogue, the essay still holds true for me because this is about complexities. How things shift. How each moment we live is our truth and the next moment might contradict that truth. It’s entirely possible that 3 months beyond this publication I’ll have a different partner. Or a re-partnered ex. Or no partner. Or a-not-really-a-harasser best friend. Or a sister who is a best friend. Or a sister I never want to speak with again.
But the truth in this moment remains: Writing is its own moment, its own testament to life lived. Then life shifts. Then we write more. And then we continue writing to (re)discover our truths.
As a writer, there is nothing more truthful than that.
At least for now.
 | A guest post by
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Yes, our truths and perspectives change. But I think, if I looked back on my writing in a decade's time and couldn't see change (in my writing voice, but also my opinions and ideas), I'd be more concerned. Reading this, I felt somewhat crowded in by the details of your personal relationships, which rather obscured your theme & larger ideas. I don't write lots of CNF myself, but I do write memoir, and if you're still at the venting stage, I'd question the material's readiness to be an essay or a public article. This is one of the many insightful principles in DeSalvo's "Writing as a Way of Healing" (which I've read many times).
There are tortoises and hares in the world. I'm a tortoise. You're a hare. Speed is admirable, but so is tortoise wisdom. Instead of saying, "there! finished!" so quick, try out seeing a relationship in perspective. Maybe you've taken the first step with this essay. Maybe you don't want to break up with everyone. Maybe you don't want to break up with yourself. (And your mirror, your sister.) And maybe there are momentary truths and long truths. So what would your long truths be?