I keep thinking about this post from writer Brendan Leonard about the new year. Leonard, an author, cartoonist and overall outdoorsy everyman is a fantastic follow. He started doodling graphs and charts like how to get more Instagram followers or this pie chart about who’s a good boy? Leonard has found his niche and carved out a great following. His style and ideas fall under the category of “It’s so simple I wish I had thought of that.” He finds humor in everyday experiences.
Leonard also wrote a post for Outside Online a year ago that wormed its way into my daydreams. It was about the lessons he learned from eight years of writing an adventure blog. Like many success stories, it was full of failure. Of trial and error. A paragraph from his post resonated with me long after I had moved on with my day:
“I don’t know if those stories would ever have gone anywhere if I hadn’t just done them myself, without caring whether 100 people or 100,000 people read them.”
A couple paragraphs later he solidified his point:
“The one thing I’ve learned from making myself write something every week is this: You can’t hit a home run every week. Maybe you can’t hit a home run every month. But if you keep writing, sometimes you bunt, sometimes you strike out, and sometimes you get a walk. But if you get to first base, there’s someone out there who might need whatever it is you wrote, on that day. Even if the rest of the internet doesn’t seem to notice.”
I really struggle with the reception to my creative endeavors. When I make an image or write an article or shoot and edit a video, the pit in my stomach when I hit post is almost enough to stop me from doing it. I wonder if anyone will like it. I wonder if the image I posted on Instagram will get the same amount of likes my last one did. The one lukewarm response or email from a reader pointing out a mistake is enough to outweigh all the positive mentions in my mind.
This might seem contrary to my chosen profession. Since high school I have been writing stories and making photos to be consumed by the public. For a decade it was at newspapers. I put myself out there daily. Still, the feeling of something not being good enough never went away.
I think that’s why Leonard’s post was so memorable for me. His realization that not everything he did would be his best wasn’t crippling. It was freeing. The idea he could just write and free himself from the expectation of other people caring helped him just write for the pure fact he enjoyed it.
I want to do that.
My life has trended toward photography and videography in the three and a half years since I took my current job at the City of Eugene. I’ve always considered myself an enthusiast photographer, and I’ve enjoyed the process of learning and bettering myself. I even updated my portfolio with a lot of images I’ve made. I’m really proud of it.
I still, though, consider myself a better writer, and I wanted to get back to my roots and write for myself.
So it’s to that end I’ve set a goal of writing 12 things on this space in 2020. I won’t obsess over readership. I won’t endlessly plug this. A simple tweet and Facebook post to the link every month. That’s it. I’m doing this for me. If anything I choose to write about resonates with someone, great. If not, well, the internet is a vast space of opinions and you can find what you’re looking for somewhere else.
I’m going to write about things I know and am interested in. I’m in marketing now, so the need to put a label on this or give it a name is a nagging one, but I’m going to resist the temptation. I want to flit around from outdoor pursuits to sports to travel to maybe even doing some original reporting on something that catches my enthusiasm. I want my words to reflect who I think I am: honest, authentic, sincere, enthusiastic. Maybe even a bit funny.
Leonard posted something at the start of the year that yet again encapsulates his genius. The post and graph were about “18 Things Much Easier than ‘New Year, New You.” I promise my writing won’t become an ode to this guy, but he made a point I have slowly learned — and will continue to learn — as I set new goals, plan new activities and think about how to realign my work priorities.
Not quite as catchy as a big bold statement about taking a complete 180 approach, but I’m going to try it. One post at a time.
