Writing Your Life Story After 40 with Author Tara Ellison

Finding Your Voice Through Writing

Tara's path to becoming a writer wasn't straightforward. "Writing was always a part of my soul," she explains. Originally dreaming of an acting career, she moved from Australia to California. But acting presented an unexpected challenge: "I wanted to be seen, I wanted to participate, but I also was afraid of being seen."

It wasn't until her 30s that she discovered her true calling. Taking courses at UCLA, she found joy in sharing her stories. Writing became her lifeline during difficult times: "I just started writing stories about dating as a single mother in LA, some of them sort of loosely based on things that had happened to me, and others were just stories that I had heard from other people."

The Power of Writing About Hard Things with Humor

One of Tara's gifts is her ability to find humor in challenging experiences. "You have a choice at some point, even when you're young... I could be really upset about this, or maybe if I make a joke about it, then maybe it's less painful."

This approach has served both her healing and her writing: "Having humor as part of it just creates a little bit of a gap... there's just a little bit of room to kind of play with it, which sounds strange given the nature of what we're talking about, but for me, it really has helped me."

Writing to Connect with Others

The most rewarding aspect of sharing personal stories? The connections it creates. "One of the really most fun things is that by sharing this, being vulnerable and sharing things that are sometimes hard...other people will share their stories with me very freely," Tara shares. "We already have a bond...we're completely different, but we really relate with this."

Key Elements of Powerful Personal Writing

Through her journey from personal journaling to being published in The New York Times, Vogue, and The Washington Post, Tara has learned vital lessons about effective storytelling:

• Write for Yourself First:Write the story for you. Let yourself be vulnerable on the page...you can decide later if you want to publish and share it but initially write it for yourself.

• Tell it Like You're Talking to a Friend: Write as if you're telling the story to a girlfriend. That's something that I find helps to demystify the process.

• Skip the Fancy Language: Write the no-frills version. What I mean by that is you don't need to use flowery language or make it perfect, you just need to connect with the story you need to tell and get it on the page.

• Study What Moves You: Read widely. Look at the stories out there that you've loved and see what it is about them that connected so deeply with you. What kept you reading until the end?

• Find the Universal Thread: Find the universal element in your story - the part that we can all relate to no matter how different our circumstances might be. What is the wisdom that you have learned from the experience?

The Healing Power of Processing Through Writing

For Tara, writing has become a powerful tool for processing complex relationships, particularly with her mother who is now experiencing dementia. "I still want her to love me," she shares with vulnerability. "These conversations with her now feel very precious... I'm trying to talk to her about things in the past and have some sort of reckoning before it's too late."

The Gift of Midlife Creativity

Tara sees midlife as an especially potent time for creative expression. "We have this opportunity to restructure things in midlife, and that's what's so exciting about it. It's not really a do-over, but it's another chance to grow and to kick into gear."

Your Story Matters

Whether you're writing about:

• Complex family relationships

• Major life transitions

• Personal transformation

• Healing and growth

• Midlife discoveries

• Relationship insights

Your experiences contain wisdom that could help another woman feel less alone.

Start Writing Your Story Today

• Choose one experience you feel ready to explore

• Write as if telling a trusted friend

• Don't worry about making it perfect

• Let yourself be vulnerable

• Trust that your story matters

Remember Tara's wisdom: "We all have stories. We have so many stories... helping people birth their stories, even if they don't do anything with it, even if it's just to have the process of writing it, to facilitate some sort of healing over an event, or processing some grief... that feels very special."

Connect with Tara Ellison:

Tara Ellison is an author and essayist. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Modern Love column, The L.A. Times, Harper’s Bazaar, The Washington Post and elsewhere. Her novel, Synchronized Breathing, is a saucy take on dating in L.A. after divorce. She is currently working on a collection of essays centering around love and loss. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys her work as a volunteer with marine mammals.

Coaching: Work one-on-one with Tara as your writing coach to addresses your specific writing needs and develop direction for taking the next step. Email Tara to book a session: taras1stnovel@gmail.com

• Website: taraellison.com

• Instagram: instagram.com/taraellisonwriter

• Twitter/X: x.com/Tellisonauthor