TA #150: 👆 The single biggest thing I've learned about writing

Boston, Sunday, November 19, 2023

Hi, Squash Blossom.

It's Thanksgiving week here in the US. The end of the year creeps closer. It's dark by 4:30 in the afternoon. So I'm in a reflective mood.

Instead of the usual marketing and writing insights, I'm giving you something a bit more... contemplative? Personal? Thankful?

Something like that. If you're here only for the straight-to-your-veins education, maybe skip this one and read about when to use AI instead. Or this about brand voice.

But I hope you keep reading. It's got drama, pathos... and you get a speaking role, too.

It's a good one.

* * *

What might you give a bookish child who wants to be a writer?

Here, in 2023, you'd gift them a monthly subscription to ChatGPT4.*

*(I'm JUST KIDDING. You would NOT do that. Do not do that. DO. NOT. And sorry for the shouty-caps but TO REITERATE... I WAS JAY/KAY!)

Anyway!

What might you give a bookish child for Christmas? The answer for my parents—like guardians of bookish children everywhere—was a blank journal. It was a one-year diary with 365 pages dated for every day of the calendar year, starting on New Year's Day.

The cover had a graphic of a smiling sun. It had a metal lock and tiny key that caught with a satisfying *click*. Like a tomb.

Printed on the cover in a font size you could read from the sky was the word DIARY. Ah. That explains the lock and key.

I'd watched enough James Bond with my brother to know that broadcasting a private diary with the word DIARY was a dumb move.

"Why didn't they print something less appealing to throw off nosy people?" I wondered as I unwrapped it. "Like BEET RECIPES. Or B2B DRIP EMAIL CALENDAR."

Just kidding about the drip email thing. But even 8-year-old me saw the folly in labeling something private... "private." It's like labeling a document of passwords... "PASSWORDS."

Still... the anticipation!

I thought of DIARY as my ticket to my new life as a Serious Writer.

Serious Writers kept diaries. Serious Writers write every day. Serious Writers shut the door to their room and sit on their twin-sized bed... letting the words jump up and grab the monkey bars and swing hand-over-hand along the lines on the page.

New me! New momentum! HERE FOR IT.

I! CAN'T! WAIT!

* * *

It was a week to January 1. The first day of DIARY. The first day of my new Serious Writer life.

Time to choose my favorite pen (a felt tip) in my favorite color (green).

Time to workshop my first entry.

All that week I rooted around in my mind for options, flipping through choices like my dad was now flipping through television channels with his new Christmas clicker. You could change the TV channel while sitting on the couch!

You think AI is something? Well, this tech was revolutionary. He called it a "channel-changer."

(I'm changing channels, too, I thought, workshopping that entry.)

* * *

Now it's January 1. Day 1 of Serious Writer-me. I felt the thrilling crack of DIARY's binding as I flattened it open. I breathed in the scent of the green marker—a whiff that connected me to writers around the world, uncapping our pens and putting ink to page.

I wrote in big, loopy letters:

"Hello! Happy New Year!"

Then a few sentences later:

"I want to be a writter. O.K?"

Actual excerpt.

There. I had set my intention. Satisfied.

I closed DIARY and locked its little lock and hid the key inside the head of a Barbie.

Days passed. I wrote every day, after school. It was my daily devotional. My practice.

Shake the key out of the Barbie head. Unlock. Write. Relock.

I was an outwardly reserved child with a rich inner life. Writing was a thrill and a relief.

* * *

Or was it? To be honest, things quickly fell apart. The devotional became the drudgery. I had nothing to say to DIARY. I had nothing to tell myself, I guess?

January 28: "I have to clean my room. Bye!"

January 31: "Do you like my new pen?"

By February 10, I started gluing in pictures of chimpanzees. Just to fill the pages.

By April, I'd forgotten about DIARY. Some months later I remembered and thought to open it. 

I'd lost the key.

Actual chimp from actual diary.

* * *

You probably know why I was bored, right?

Let's re-examine the evidence:

Exhibit A: The smiling sun graphic on the cover, suggesting light and joy.

Exhibit B: The lock, meant to trap my words inside. The key, meant to keep everyone else out.

I was bored because exhibits A & B are in violent disagreement.

Words need light to thrive.

Joy in writing comes only from unlocking your words and sharing them with others.

For me, anyway. 

And for a lot of us who write to understand ourselves. To shed a little light. To connect with others. To feel less lonely and alone.

To feel less like the kind of freak whose first impulse it to pop off the head of a Barbie to hide a tiny key.

Joy in writing comes only from unlocking your words and sharing them with others.

There was no joy because there was no others.

* * *

"Stories are like one person saying to another, 'This is how it feels to me. Can you understand what I'm saying? Does it also feel this way to you?'" —Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day) (h/t Jay Acunzo)

In Everybody Writes, I talk a lot about writing to one person—whether you are writing a landing page, a newsletter, or a B2B email drip campaign (LOL). I've talked about finding your Doris many, many, many times—in blog posts, on stages.

I can't shut up about all that because it's the most important thing I've learned as a writer: Write to one person.

Eight-year-old me was bored because there was no one person in DIARY. There was no audience. There was no one to write to. No Doris.

No you.

This is how it feels to me. Does it also feel this way to you?

* * *

I found DIARY years later, still locked.

To break into it, I procured a pair of wire cutters off the dark web and hired an offshore hacker.

Just kidding.

I used an ordinary pair of kitchen shears to snip the cardstock hinge connecting the two sides of the lock. (A hinge made of paper. Weaker security than the PASSWORD folder.)

Rereading DIARY again now, I noticed all the things we just talked about... the early hope. The bored 8-year-old. The chimp photos which now make me LOL because what was that about...?

But now I notice something else for the first time:

Exhibit C: The "O.K.?" at the end of my first entry. That "I want to be a writter. O.K?"

You could view the questioning "O.K.?" as a need for validation. A lifelong gaping pit in need of affirmation backfill that what I want to do is right and true.

So... stereotypically girlish. Such youngest child energy (me)... always needing reassurance.

But you could also view it another way: Not seeking permission... but asking for a response. 

Praying for it, willing that someone, somewhere—maybe you?—is reading this, right now.

And maybe you understand what I mean. Maybe you feel it, too. Maybe I'm less alone. Maybe we all are.

"This is how it feels to me. Can you understand what I'm saying? Does it also feel this way to you?"

* * *

It's Thanksgiving week here in the US. And so this is all my letter of gratitude to you. For being here with me. For reading. For caring. For understanding. For being on the other end. It matters.

Happy Thanksgiving, if you celebrate. Thank you for being here.

Or said another way...

I appreciate you. O.K.?

QUICKIES

Green Bean Casserole: Content Marketing Genius. Before green bean casserole was a Thanksgiving mainstay, it was content marketing genius. (Includes the crazy ROI of this dish.)

17 Things Your Email Newsletter Needs Right Now

Why is everyone so into Taylor Swift?

Related: Are you on Threads? Let's connect there.

DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS

Eavesdropping in the AI break room. (h/t Irina Leoni)

EVENTS

📅 Nov 29: Webinar Days. I'm BACK for the 4th or 5th (?) year with my pals at TwentyThree to dig into trends in content marketing. Cost: $0.

📅 Dec 7: Content Summit with PlayPlay. I'll be talking about brand storytelling. Cost: Also $0.

* * *

Thanks for reading this far.

Thanks for your kindness and generosity.

Stay healthy.

Breathe.

🫡 See you again on December 2.