✍🏽“What pen do you use?”

Hello friends,

A short mid-week one😜 off the top of my head,

You’ve probably (or probably not) heard of Stephen King. He’s like one of the world’s most best-selling authors. He’s written so many books that I personally have never read, and he’s also featured in plenty of movies/films. Therefore, he attends lots of writers’ conferences where he does Q&As. Sometimes, a young, well-intentioned, budding new writer asks the question “Mr. King, what pencil do you use?” This question makes him sigh.

The pencil isn’t important. The notebook isn’t important. What’s important is the writing! And using the same pencil as an author you admire won’t make your own writing any better, said he.

You might not be a fan of Andrew Tate, for good reasons too, but something he once said was true. A couple of gym-enthusiasts were asking him what gear he wears to the gym. And he was like, the shoes don’t matter. The vest or sweatshirt you wear to the gym doesn’t matter. The gear you put on going to the gym definitely doesn’t matter. Go to the gym in your slippers and shorts and do a proper workout. Wear sneakers and a branded t-shirt, still do a proper workout. And he finished by saying (rather unrelatedly), what’s the point of what you wear going to the gym if you can’t fight?

And so on my end, a couple of supportive friends have asked me what platform is best for a newsletter, where do I edit and write my stuff, what’s even the point of a newsletter, and such questions. All in a respective way, and I admire them for taking interest in something I’m passionate about. But an honest answer of course is that I still don’t know what I’m doing. There are millions of platforms for hosting newsletters, and myriads of sites to write and edit blog posts. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter much - as long as you deliver your writing to an audience. The point currently is to write, not how you write.

And true to King’s words, copying another person’s gym routine won’t make you as buff as him/her. Copying another person’s writing technique won’t make your writing as good/bad as theirs. Wearing the same gym gear as some celebrity on the net won’t make your gym routine any better.

And this applies to so much more things in life that I feel many youth (or people) are “coping” from others. I believe you can emulate the people you look up to, but doing exactly as they do, just because theirs worked, won’t make it for you as it did for them. It can in fact hinder your creativity.

And especially when starting out in a new endeavour, we should probably care a lot less about finding the perfect equipment, and focus a lot more on just doing the work🙂.

Hope your week is going wonderfully so far!

✍🏽Reagan.