Up: [[Life Writing]] Related: [[Metaphor]] Course: True Confessions with Alison Luterman on 27Powers Created: 2024-05-15 Updated: 2025-01-17 I absolutely love this metaphor that Alison shared in her class, ‘True Confessions’ for 27Powers. I don't think the metaphor comes from her. She referenced it as something she's often heard. The more specifically you drill your well in your own backyard, and if you’re drilling in the right place, you will hit the universal water table. But you get there through your own well. Someone asked, "Is it possible to drill too deep? To spend too much time in one or two themes?" The question to ask yourself is, *Do you feel you have more to discover? Or are you repeating things you already know?* In life writing, or maybe life in general, it’s typical that we have just a few themes that are perpetually interesting. I found this quote by James Baldwin that says it beautifully. > [!Orbit] James Baldwin > Every writer has only one story to tell, and he has to find a way of telling it until the meaning becomes clearer and clearer, until the story becomes at once more narrow and larger, more and more precise, more and more reverberating. So it’s typical to stay in our themes. The warning bell dings when you recognize a line as one you’ve written or spoken many times before. When that happens, drill deeper. Ask yourself, *What else have I not said about this?*