From Robert Avrech's blog:
A few hours later, I receive a phone call from an old friend who is going through a terrible time in his life. He has read Seraphic Secret for the first time and he asks me:
"Why are you doing this?"
"What do you mean?"
"It's so...so...intimate. It's not like you."
"Well, I'm not me, anymore."
"It's so, so, so horribly revealing, and painful."
"Yup."
"Do you find that it's healing for you?"
.............
Luke says: People frequently feel uncomfortable when you change. I remember how uncomfortable many of my friends were when I converted to Judaism. Later friends became very uncomfortable about some of the subject matter I wrote about and how that changed me.
Writers, particularly screenwriters, are more sensitive to the turning points in a human life, experiences such as the death of a loved one, that forever change you.
Those who write hoping that their friends and family will read them are usually going to be disappointed.
I remember when I'd worked for a year on my autobiography. I offered it to my sister to read. "Why would I want to read that?" she responded. "I already know your life."
Friends and family tend to believe that they know you so well that you are not particularly interesting.
It's a foolish notion to believe that you already know someone's life unless that person is dull or is someone that you sleep with every night.
The people you pray with in shul are usually very different from the people you most want to talk about life with.
