A friend asked me a great question recently: how do you know when to put a difficult life event out there in the world, either on a blog or as a submission to a publication? She asked wonderful questions about motives: what are we doing when we share the hard stuff?

My first motive in writing is sometimes exploratory and sometimes to vent. When I’m upset about something, I mull in a journal. But I also take notes as a writer. I notice the details that accompany the cataclysms because I know I’ll need those details later for essays. I also record the details because they anchor me to life when my feelings get huge and threaten to blot out the texture and complexity of a day.

I write first drafts from anger, or confusion, or lost-ness, or a desire to make a feeling go away. I think I keep…