Writing Letters to my Lost Children

Recently I wrote a short piece called "Six Letters to My Lost Children", about our experiences going through failed IVF cycles over the past five years. It's raw, it's very personal and it was quite emotional to write. I suppose it was part of my personal grieving process. I won't be posting it publicly anywhere, at least in its current form, mostly because it includes the names of our friends (just in passing, because they were there for us through the process) and I don't want to publish anything about them without their permission, nor do I really want to seek their permission to say even nice things about them in this context. It's mixed up in all that personal emotional stuff. I'm quite pleased with the writing, so I am simultaneously proud of it, wanting to show it off, and also rather guarded about it, because of its emotional weight.

So it raises a few questions. One, is it actually any good, or was it just very emotional for me, clouding my impression of it? Two, if it's any good, should I try to fictionalise it and have it published? Three, if I try to fictionalise it, changing the names and details to protect the innocent, will that bleach out all of the emotion, thereby rendering it into bland, unpublishable cardboard? It's a dilemma. If it's good because it's raw, then it needs to stay raw to stay good, but if it's too private to publish as-is, then it needs to be edited.

In the end, this is probably something that needs to stay private, unless I can find another way to write with the same emotion about it and still maintain the privacy of my friends, my family and myself.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I did show it to Debbie, though.
PPS - It was quite cathartic.