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3 Fast Things
I’m currently at my mum’s and her partner’s place on the Sunshine Coast. Far out it’s so nice to get out of the city and have some space to frolic about in.
I think I have a coffee addiction and I’m not over the Moon Dog Brewery about it.
Umm, my buddy who works for Qantas just added me to his staff travel which means I can travel domestically and internationally for a fraction of the price you pay. I’m not bragging but I am better than you.
1 Slow Thing: Why I'm Not Writing My Own Book
After not receiving any curious responses to my last email, I’ve decided to answer the question that literally no one has asked me.
Why am I writing someone else’s story and not my own?
The answer is straightforward, we shouldn’t be here too long.
I kept a pretty solid diary in high school. A little too good really. I actually went through it a few years ago and ended up burning it alive so no one could ever read the detailed outline of my degenerate youth.
To complement my records, I had a shoe box full of handwritten love letters from bonghead boyfriends. I assume these were responses to my much better written mail. The sort of correspondence I’d pour my heart and soul into before signing with blood and spraying with my mum’s perfume. This was obviously all incriminating and I burned it to hell as well.
Sadly, I don’t know how to access and destroy the trails of desperate teenage dirtbag years I digitized on MSN. Meaning all those essay-length conversations are probably out there embarrassing themselves on Microsoft’s servers.
I’d love to get my hands on the much more innocent prose of my childhood, which I left on Creative Writer, Microsoft’s 1993 word process for kids. But I assume that’s all on an old bulky hard drive in landfill. Its brilliance will likely be uncovered in 1.3 billion years by a colony of smurfs or something, but this period of writing was probably the most indispensable for me.
Not because I’d blow all my Saturdays writing dumb stories and adding pixelated clip art, but because I so clearly recall one afternoon where my dad emerged from his farm work and said something encouraging to me.
While wrestling to release his muddy boots from his feet, he looked over at me releasing my muddy stream on consciousness from my mind. And he said something to the affect of, “Wow Jess, you love writing. I bet you become an author when you grow up.”
I was a bit of a mediocre kid. Not ever getting impressive results in any field. In fact, I don’t remember ever being excited by anything enough to be good at it. Or vice versa.
I was certainly not doing anything well enough to compel an adult to embolden me about it. So I remember when my dad gave me that acknowledgement, it felt quite special. The goal to become an author entrenched itself in my identity.
I just really enjoy writin’, ya know? I feel like I can write how I talk and that’s always come naturally to me. The problem is that the other part of what makes a writer a writer hasn’t ever come naturally to me. And that’s having a story to tell. Or perhaps an ability to deliberate on anything particularly useful.
I don’t have strong opinions on important topics. I don’t grasp world issues in any sort of way that I feel comfortable reframing into my own take. I’m not that interested in my day-to-day life or self-reflections. I certainly haven’t had any sort of life experiences that are worthy of more record than a blog post.
I just feel like I can communicate effectively with writing, but I struggle to know what to communicate most of the time.
So to wrap this up, I don’t have any sort of sick-in-the-face knowledge to impart on anybody, I don’t have a story I’m excited about and I don’t want to keep trying to find it at this point.
I thought for a long time that my blog might have been able to become my book but uh, no. There is nothing I can say about becoming a less timid freak that some other privileged white girl hasn’t already said.
So my ambition is to now find other people’s potentially life-changing stories to tell. I work much better when I have smart people to riff off and I am much more buzzed about the prospect of co-writing with a comedian than I have been about writing anything on my own.
And that’s that. Ending it there. Appreciate you reading. I really do.
Watch
This week’s video: Interview with James O’Connell
Upcoming Shows
Friday 24th Feb - Breaking Comedy Club
Friday 10th March - Barrie Hotel in Chippendale (new room, by The Laugh Mob)
Recommendation
Listen: My boss Mark Manson was on Tim Ferriss’ podcast recently and Mark discusses lots of interesting things about being such an interesting person. Plus my team mates and I get a jazzy little mention.