Why I’m Here
I was asked to write the final poem in my high school yearbook. That was the moment I decided: I'm the writer. That's the thing.
Twenty-something years later, I lead brand and content at a startup. I write Q&As for executives I haven't interviewed. I approve copy I don't feel anything about. I ghostwrite op-eds for people I haven't talked to about the topic. Slack messages pretending to be briefs, real briefs pretending to be Slack messages.
Somewhere between the content calendars and the OKRs, I stopped writing. Not for work... for me.
I miss the messiness. The late-night stuff that goes nowhere but still feels like progress. I sat down a few months ago, terrified that I'd lost it completely, and wrote a song in one sitting. It was good. I knew it the way you know a sentence has the right beat before you can explain why.
So the thing is still alive. It just needs a place to go.
This is that place. No content pillars. No SEO. No "5 Ways to Whatever."
I'm going to think out loud here about creative work, leadership, what happens when the person shaping a company's voice can't find his own. Some of it will be rough. That's the point.
And maybe, occasionally, a guitar metaphor.