Poking Fun at the Coffee Stains on Your Tie-Dye Shirt

It's easy for me to forget that good things are achieved through being honest and revealing yourself. Sometimes I get so caught up in trying to come up with huge new ideas to work on that I don't even realize how far out of my wheelhouse I am. I can be so quick to dismiss all the things I've written in the past, writing them off as subpar, diary-adjacent ramblings that aren't as worthy of praise as other types of writing. I think it's important for me to stop and recognize that me writing rambling posts on here that are one step removed from stream of consciousness is a valuable way to access the part of my brain where good ideas happen.

Over the last year and a bit, I've been trying really hard to branch out into more "respectable" types of writing like fiction and short stories. It's been a difficult hill to climb and I've found that I've been pretty unhappy with most things I've finished. I'm typically hard on myself in making anything, so I guess it makes sense that this is how I feel, but I also can't shake the feeling that all the stuff I've done doesn't have the voice that I want it to.

There's a certain tone that I'm able to access in my best IMU posts and in an ideal world I would be able to take that tone and lay it on top of a story, so that the result is something that is distinctly written by me, rather than me trying someone else's style on. I don't think I've been able to do that yet.

I was listening to Pete Holmes' podcast You Made It Weird today where him and his guest Ryan Holiday talked about the importance of telling a story that only you can tell as path to good art. I'm not sure if I agree 100%, but I do like the idea of applying that logic to whatever you are doing, whether it be writing, music, food, photography, or whatever else.

To return to how I started, I think that voice comes from being vulnerable and being real while you're saying something. Don't put something into a story if you don't feel it. Don't hack away on an idea because you've convinced yourself that it needs to be done this way. It's not working. Just be honest and say what you can.

There you go folks. A classic "life in general".