Voice Lessons: How Tina Goodyear lost her personal writing voice and, many years later, rediscovered it

I have spent years teaching others to write. I have preached the power of the written word, have espoused the virtue of writing as empowerment, a vehicle for agency. I have doled out journals, pens, prompts and passion. I have prodded, encouraged, and held students’ hands as they wrestled with revision. I have helped the most hesitant budding writers unlock their voice.

And yet, decades ago, I lost my own, and with it, I lost the most important part of the writing process: the ability to share my work.

For most of my life, I wrote in solitude, in secrecy, in shame. I hid journals in dark corners of crammed closets, jammed notebooks into duct-taped boxes under guest room beds. I locked Word documents behind cryptic passwords I quickly forgot. I trapped my words in a bomb shelter trying to protect them, to protect myself. If my words escaped, I feared they would start a war.

They had done it before, in 1983 when I was 16. That was the year my words fell into enemy hands: my mother’s.

My diary’s useless tiny gold lock had betrayed me. Notebooks filled with poems and half-written letters to my best friend revealed the details of my inner life. Every word had been read, violated, while I was away on a camping trip with my honors history class. When I returned, I found my shredded words arranged into a satanic circle lying in the center of my twin bed. The streams of paper were topped off with a torn picture of my ex-boyfriend and a potpourri of dried prom corsage flowers.

My mother screamed at me, made dire predictions about my future. I was a liar. I was promiscuous. By the time I was 30 , she warned, I would become a “sexual burnout.” I was still a virgin, though. My boyfriend broke my heart because I wasn’t ready. It was all there in my diary, but my mother homed in on the words that fed her fears. The words that told her I lied about his parents being home when I went to his house.

That first night, I lay awake thinking of ways to kill myself. My words had become self-impaling bullets, exploding on impact. I felt like a criminal. My mother stayed in her anger for a long time, while my anger dug itself into my cells and covered itself in layers of shame. We didn’t speak to each other for a month or more.

Our silence was broken when my mother sent me to a psychiatrist. The doctor quickly deemed me a “perfectly normal” 16-year-old. She called my mother into the room and suggested she might have some issues of her own to deal with. We never went back. On the ride home, a strained attempt at what I later came to recognize as an apology came in the form of a family story. In an indignant tone, my mother recalled how her mother, my grandmother, had cut the face of my mother’s first husband out of every photograph after her divorce. She spoke as if such invasions were hereditary, part of our DNA.

My mother had married again, though. I couldn’t get my words back. I was sure I would never write again. Certainly, I would never share my words with anyone. If I did, I wouldn’t be safe.

It wasn’t long after, though, that I did have to share my writing. I was selected editor of my high school’s literary magazine, and my favorite teacher was the advisor. He made me see the world in different ways. I didn’t want to disappoint him. The first day of English class, he wrote a short Margret Atwood poem on the board: “You fit into me like a hook into an eye. A fish hook. An open eye.” And, I was hooked. He showed me the power and beauty of words. He freely shared his own work. I knew I wanted to be a writer, a teacher of writing, anything as long as it involved writing.

As the magazine deadline approached, I eked out a short poem, some brief metaphor for how I felt: naked, as if I were living in a barren land with no trees to stand behind, nowhere to hide. The day the magazine was published, my math teacher got a copy and decided to read my poem out loud in Algebra class. He used a mocking tone, inviting others to laugh with him, as I endured his dramatic rendition of my pain. I slid down in my seat, vowing never to write anything that made me vulnerable again.

Just a few years later, though, as an English major in college, I was required to write, and I had to let others read my work. More than once, professors asked if they could read my work out loud to serve as a model for the class. One teacher told me when grading, he saved my papers for last, because they were “more fun than work.” I was buoyed. With these external stamps of approval, I could somehow endure the matchstick of fear in my belly. I even let myself secretly dream about enrolling in an MFA program one day. Yet, even as the grip of shame loosened a bit, I couldn’t let myself think about writing as anything but a hobby. I knew what my words were capable of. I knew they could ignite at any moment.

After college, I found safety in professional writing. I could leave myself wholly out of articles about education-related topics. I began collecting advanced degrees, always avoiding the “apply now” button on MFA programs I secretly lusted after. I had several articles published, a few blog posts here and there. I helped to edit a book on competency-based education and even won a writing contest at work. People read my words and the world still rotated on its axis. Once again, external validation helped to turn the dial on the vault of my vulnerability, but it also created a clear divide between the professional and the personal. Through professional writing, I could begin to own a bit of talent, but I couldn’t let that take the form of creative writing. I stayed on the side of the fault line that required less of my soul.

By then, my secret dream of pursuing an MFA, of becoming a “real” writer, had long since fallen away. When asked, I would never use the word “writer” to describe myself. How could I? I didn’t have any readers. I let the wounds of my mother’s invasion follow me well into adulthood. As a result, I couldn’t allow myself to feel seen and heard, to get helpful feedback and encouragement. For a long time, I didn’t write creatively at all.

Then, in the midst of the COVID quarantine, I lost my job and somehow found my voice again.

In my mid-50s, new employment opportunities did not come easily. Out of despair and boredom, I started a daily journal habit. That led to a dream of finding a community of writers, of sharing my passion with others. I googled MFA programs once again. I had the time and the resources, but I couldn’t muster the will to apply. A familiar shame crept over my shoulders like an old worn blanket. The thought of volunteering for such scrutiny, to give others permission to critique my words, stirred some latent terror. I knew I wouldn’t find the supportive environment I craved.

That’s when I stumbled on a writing center near my new home called Project Write Now. Or maybe it stumbled upon me. After speaking with the founder, I signed up for a six-week memoir class. The first time I shared a response to a writing prompt with the group, my words were met by nodding heads and smiles. The Zoom screen didn’t catch on fire. No one laughed. No one shamed me. My words were wriggling free from the prison I had created. I let them slowly seep back into the world.

That initial class led me to investigate a spin-off of Project Write Now, a kind of alternative MFA for novel and memoir writers called book inc. The next class was to start in a few short months. After talking to past participants and scouring the website, I sensed it might be a supportive environment. The program promised accountability, which I needed. It required commitment – an entire year of writing, a promise to write at least 500 words a day. I thought of it as the daily vitamin I had been promising my doctor I would start taking. As the first day of class grew closer, I viewed it more as a gymnastic event, the uneven bars or the pommel horse. I knew the first step was to run directly toward it despite the fear, to simultaneously grab on and let go. The final step would be to trust the soft cushion a community of writers would offer me as I struggled to stick the landing.

Not only did I join, but I agreed to lead the Memoir Incubator. As a Peer Artist Leader – a title reflecting my status as an equal rather than an all-knowing teacher – I took on the onus of leading by example. I couldn’t let my fellow writers down. By default, I couldn’t let myself down. Over the course of the year, as we wrote in community and checked in every two weeks, we talked openly about our resistance. I discovered my fear around sharing wasn’t unique. My mother’s impact may have stoked the flames, but many other writers struggled, too. As I prepared for our bimonthly meetings, I immersed myself in reading memoir and books about the craft of writing. I found wisdom and comfort in the revelations and fears of revered authors, Dani Shapiro, Mary Karr, and Marion Roach Smith. I learned that memoir is not a “tell all.” I could control what I shared, but I could also let go of some of the shame.

By September, I crafted 140 terrifying pages of my own story. Sharing was part of the curriculum. I had to exchange my manuscript with others in my reading pod. How could I ask others to share if I couldn’t do the same?

My pod members agreed to exchange hard copies of our drafts, which proved even more difficult than just hitting the “send” button. Files could be deleted, password protected, but hard copies could get lost in the mail, could be left out on coffee tables, and fall into the wrong hands. I had to learn to trust. When I watched the postal clerk toss my manuscript on a pile of packages, I felt as if I were sending my first born to college all over again. I had to let go. I even laughed at how long I let a childhood wound control me.

By the time it was my turn to receive feedback, I was no longer afraid. book inc’s philosophy was steeped in positive psychology, a strengths-based approach. There was no “This doesn’t work. Fix it,” only “This really works. Keep doing more of it.” We read each other’s works as readers rather than literary critics. We asked questions instead of giving advice. We applauded each other’s bravery and commitment.

At age 56, I finally found a safe audience to share my creative work in a way I don’t think I would have found enrolling in a traditional MFA. In reading others’ stories and in finally sharing my own, I learned I was, despite my mother’s warnings, strikingly normal. I also learned I couldn’t control what happened to my words once they were set free. That wasn’t my business; it was up to the reader.

My mother’s intrusion had nothing to do with my writing, of course. It had everything to do with her own fears about motherhood, about life. It also had to do with love, with wanting to protect me, to keep me safe. I know now she never meant for me to stop writing. When I finally let go of my mother’s voice, my own came back. With readers, I became a writer, at last.

---

Tina Goodyear is a writer and teacher living near the shore in New Jersey. Currently, she is in the midst of revising her first memoir draft, From the Neck Down.