The art of writing about your personal life

...without losing friends and alienating people. Eight lessons on writing from life, plus useful techniques and boundary-setting advice from authors.

I realised the other day that I’ve spent almost half my life writing about my personal life. It began with my early contributions, as a 17-year-old, to a Dot Com era writing forum, and never really stopped.

Some writers don’t share anything about themselves at all. That’s fine – but for me almost all writing is enriched by the personal, even in unexpected contexts. I’m thinking of

Alison Roman

, who wrote about her egg freezing process in a matzo ball soup recipe in 2021, then announced her subsequent pregnancy in a recipe for clam chowder last September.

My personal life has always found its way into my writing. ‘It’s brave of you to put yourself out there – I never would,’ someone said to me a little while ago. Which was interesting because I’ve never really thought about including these intimate details as brave. Whether I’m writing about, say, my recent trip to Mexico, a life-affirming trip to IKEA, or nesting on the sofa, it’s not a heroic act; it’s simply relevant information to support my narrative. But then, as I’ll go on to explain in this newsletter, I have solid principles around how I do this.

You have to, after a while. It’s a long writing career, and I’d like to be on speaking terms with at least some of my friends and family members by the end of it. Personal writing doesn’t have to be boundary-less. Just because you write about some of your personal life doesn’t give the world a free pass to all of it, in the same way that a woman wearing a short skirt isn’t ‘asking for it’.

‘It's important to remember you don't have to share every detail nor every experience,’ offered Times travel editor and Main Character author Lizzie Frainier, on this subject. ‘You get to choose what you feel comfortable with. Maybe you're happy to write about your love life, but not a complicated friendship. Maybe you're happy to share the reason you last cried, but not your kinks.’

Nor are these policies set in stone. In fact, even the most successful writers have to revise theirs. Sara Pascoe, the comedian and author, shared in an episode of Kirsty Young’s Young Again podcast that her mother had banned her from performing sketches about her after she had revealed something personal. Pascoe navigated this ban graciously, concluding: ‘It’s good to have creative constraints’.

While, ostensibly, this is a conversation reserved for writers, the question of what, and how much, to share is one that’s relevant to almost all of us. For instance, to ‘sharent’ (share content featuring your child on social media) or not to sharent? Does bae even exist if you didn’t post about him on Valentine’s Day? Does the world need a photo of your ramen? All open questions.

How to take your writing seriously

Alice Wilkinson, author of forthcoming title How to Stay Sane in a House Share – suggested this sharing culture piles added pressure on to writers: ‘In a world where we share so much of our lives and feelings on social media, there’s a level of access and exposure that readers are expecting.’ I agree – and yet, I believe all writers deserve to do the following:

• Make conscious choices about what gets put into personal writing – and what doesn’t

• Consider the moral implications of writing about others

• Listen to their own comfort levels when deciding whether to share or not

• Think ‘writing first’ rather than sharing gratuitously

• Not get sued for libel

On that note – here’s how it’s done, with insights from my wise writer pals, and my own 16 years of writing.

Writing about your personal life: What you need to know (8 steps)