If you can write a coherent sentence and are willing to work hard, you can write a personal essay, each and every one of you. And most likely get it published too. Yes, a number of you may be rolling your eyes right now, but it’s true. You’ve got a shot at this. And the personal essay is the one genre of writing I can say this about.
Seeing a novel to completion and into print is somewhat similar to water torture, and memoirs don’t exactly sail into bookshops directly from your desk, and writing and publishing poems is an obscure business at best, but the market for the personal essay is large and varied – and editors are looking for material. Hundreds of my students’ essays have been published in hundreds of newspapers, magazines and books. Nobody is getting rich on this, but they’ve become published writers.
Quite simply: a personal essay is about an experience you’ve gone through that’s given you insight. It can be a huge ahah, a life changing experience, or it can be a journey to wry patience. The most important thing is that you felt strongly about whatever you went through: anger, frustration, pain, fear etc. A personal essay can be deeply serious or funny and trivial. I’ve written essays on everything from grieving for my mother to pitching fits over how I look in clothes ordered on-line.
The trick is to write it short. Anywhere from 500 to 1200 words, and I recommend staying around 750 words if you want to be published in a newspaper. Yes, I know that there are literary essays that go on for thousands of words, and yes, they get published in the New Yorker or Atlantic Weekly. But if you’re just getting started and have never published anything yet, stick with the short essay.
I started writing personal essays when I had a monumental case of writers block. I’d published two novels for adults, a young adult novel, and four children’s books, but I felt absolutely adrift and depressed about writing. I couldn’t write, so I didn’t feel like a writer anymore. One day I wrote a light personal essay about how new shoe styles always look weird to me until about two years later. The Christian Science Monitor published it. My block melted.
“The essayist investigates the world by looking first into his own heart.” Joseph Epstein
Write a list of the current issues in your life. Anything from trivia (your car making funny sounds, your cat throwing up hairballs) to huge life changing events or problems that you’re going through right now. Jot down whatever comes to you. Don’t edit your list. No one will ever see it. Choose one issue and write about it for five minutes. If you get stuck or the subject dries up on you, choose another topic and write for five minutes.
