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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33160
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33160
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I'm inclined to suggest that you go with what DPT posted as a comment.

Start writing things down in some manner. If nothing else, record the facts, including the facts about your thoughts, feelings and emotions in the moment.

You don't have to share the first revision with anyone. In fact, it's normal to write a first draft or two before showing it to others.

Writing things down as they happen will serve several purposes. At least, and in no particular order, it is likely to be...

- Therapeutic. For lots of people, actually stating things, even just to oneself, can be enormously beneficial in processing what's going on. You don't need to ever share any of it with anyone for this.
- Free-form. It doesn't have to be in any publishable form. It doesn't even need to make sense to anyone but yourself. This gives you the freedom to write down your thoughts, rather than focusing on constructing a compelling, understandable, self-consistent narrative based on unfolding events in your own life.
- Documenting. _If_ you end up wanting to publish something, you'll have the raw material at your disposal. You'll be able to look at these notes and see what your thoughts and feelings were at the time things happened, _and_ you will be able to look back at it with the benefit of later experiences.

I do want to emphasize that what you write down _does not need to be publishable at all_. It doesn't need to form a narrative. It doesn't need to be only things you'd _want_ to publish, even if you do later publish something. Instead, consider it a "brain dump" of sorts, which you _may or may not_ go back to later.

Basically, **start writing a journal.** Whether you do it in physical notebooks, as a private blog, as documents kept on your own computer, or using an online word processor such as Google Docs, or by some other means, really doesn't matter (but you may prefer one over the others, as a personal choice); what matters is capturing what's going on. If you then later decide that you want to publish something, even if you end up changing details, _you now have a large set of raw material which you can use to actually construct a compelling narrative that will convey precisely the message that you want to convey._ Such a narrative is much more likely to be read, and much more likely to be interpreted in the way you intend, than thoughts written in the moment as things are happening.

Original score: 12