BRUTAL HONESTY.

I love honesty. I love books that are honest. I read somewhere that the type of honesty I'm talking about, that bold and blunt and raw honesty, is something only found in teenagers. That we grow out of it, leave it behind in our youth, and later cringe to think of it.

I don't like that idea.

Because I like being honest, 100% true, in my writing. If I'm not, what's the point? Though I'm still not that far from teenage-dom (I turn 21 next week-ish) I'm already worried - if it is in fact true that we lose that particular type of honesty - of losing this thing that I love so much, of looking back on the more personal things I've written now and cringing at them.

I don't want to lose it. I don't want to stop writing it or reading it. I love those books that are so honest, that show me something I'd forgotten or hadn't realized, that seem to reflect a little bit of what I think in the deep-thinking and sometimes hidden part of my brain. The authors whose books I love most aren't the ones who write the most exciting or even interesting stories -- they're the ones who have that knack of truth, who are able to be wonderfully, brutally honest in the best possible way. I love that.

And it's the type of writer I want to be. If it is true that everyone has that brutal honesty, that we just lose it as we get older, then maybe I'll just have to work a little harder at it. Pay attention a little more.

So what do you guys think? Do we lose the honesty as we get older? Do we even have it to start with? Or do some have it and others don't? WHAT'S YOUR OPINION?