I wrote everyday for 20 days. Here's what it taught me about honest writing.
For the reader tired of polished perfection, influencer culture, and the writers brave enough to show up anyway. This is the kind of writing I can't stop coming back to.
The writing that pours it all out.
Lately I’ve been writing every single day. Twenty days in a row.
Some days I open the page knowing exactly what I want to say. Other days, I just sit there staring at the blank wall in front me, noticing the tiny globs of imperfect paint job from when we remodeled this house a few years ago.
Waiting and waiting for something honest, something real to surface.
It’s made me wonder: what actually makes a writer worth reading?
What makes me want to stay when everything else is begging for my attention? What makes me want to click the “save” button and actually pulls me to sit down and read it later? (Let’s be honest, how many things have you saved in your digital folder that you never come back to it?)
Is it that they have perfect grammar? Use of punctuation? Expert advice delivered like a neatly packaged lesson like they know something we don’t and got it all figured out?
Definitely not that.
The writing that holds me … the kind I return to— are written by people sitting on the other side of the screen willing to pour it all out.
They don’t care to present themselves as a know-it-all expert in their field.
They don’t posture themselves as authorities.
They don’t have all the answers.
They aren’t A.I. polished and vanilla laced.
They aren’t smoothed down until there are no edges left.
They aren’t putting on performances.
The kind of writing that makes me pause in my tracks is the writing that is shaped by lived experiences. They sound human.
They sound like someone real who is breathing on the other side of the screen— thinking in real time. They share what’s true for them even if it’s messy, incomplete or risky.
They don’t always offer hindsight tied with a bow. They offer their full presence while they’re in the middle of it.
They invite me to sit beside them while they make sense of something they don’t yet fully understand or have the language for.
These are the kinds of writers who lead with their humanity first.
They aren’t afraid to let you see them as they’re wrestling with something out loud.
They don’t resolve everything for your comfort and hold your hand through it.
They share what’s true for them without trying to make it universally relatable.
They accept the risk of being misunderstood.
They trust the right readers will stay and the wrong ones will go.
They share their thoughts with honesty. They don’t care about making sure they appeal to everyone. I notice how quickly I tend to disengage from content that offers wisdom without a story. Encouragement without context.
Insight without skin in the game.
I want to connect with stories. Writing that feels inhabited. Lived in.
Real stories about an ordinary day, observed with honesty.
What caught your attention. What unsettled you. What you couldn’t shake. How you moved through it. How do you view things? What’s your perspective?
I think as a generation overall, many of us are tired.
Tired of striving to be perfect or pretending we have clarity when we don’t.
For years now, our feeds have been filled with ‘perfection’, crisp images styled like magazines, edited into something that feels aspirational and distant while we’re all scrolling in our oversized t-shirts, messy pineapple buns, slouched necks, legs that haven’t been shaved in 4 days and double chins trying to feel less alone.
It’s relentless chase of a dangling carrot and I think many of us are quietly exhausted by it.
We’re tired of polished.
We’re weary of the posed and the poised.
We’re no longer nourished by what looks good yet feels empty and hollow.
We’re craving meaning.
We want real connection.
We don’t want authority, we want presence.
We don’t want answers, we want sincerity.
The kind of writing I want to read whether on here or Instagram or anywhere else doesn’t try to flash me shiny things to impress me. It doesn’t boast. It doesn’t flaunt.
It doesn’t rush to teach me something or conclude.
It simply tells the truth as carefully as it can then leaves room for me to feel something, to perhaps recognize a part of myself that maybe I haven’t seen in awhile, or to walk away with my own quiet understanding.
It doesn’t compete for attention.
Writing like this is a courageous thing to do.
Maybe this is the part where I start writing the way I want to read.
With fewer conclusions.
Letting the writing be shaped by what i’m actually living, not what I think should sound good.
Sharing my wrestles out loud.
With trust in the reader and patience in myself.
With the knowing that not everything needs to be resolved.
No lessons tied up neatly with a pretty bow on top.
No certainty I can hand over to you.
Just presence. Just honesty.
Because some things just need to be said while they’re still dancing and alive.
So here’s to leaving more real somethings on the page and trusting that whoever needs it will find it. 🍵
Warmly,
P.S. If reading this reminds you of writers you love to read from, spread the love and share their Substack below and why you love reading from them. What makes you stay? What makes you linger longer?
