For those who actually read this Carl King Bullshit (there aren’t many) — here’s why I do it.
1 – I write primarily for myself.
2 – Then why publish it? Because the idea of someone else seeing it conveniently adds a readability standard (constraints, form). Without that, it would be free-flowing information, like my personal journals.
3 – Maybe, maybe it will help someone. It seems like it has in the past?
4 – Without writing, Carl King’s inner world is chaos: a dozen confused people mumbling at once. I think in abstract blobs and sounds, repeated patterns of nonsense syllables, layers of bouncy gibberish. Writing calms me and clarifies my thinking.
5 – My writing voice is mainly modeled after Seth Godin: economical sentences and no fancy words. I “discovered” it in 2008 when writing So, You’re A Creative Genius… Now What? You should know: I can’t talk like this. My typing is infinitely more confident than I am as a person. Talking is terrible: once I say a word, the next word is dependent on the previous. I paint myself into sentence corners. Typing allows me to construct sentences non-linearly. I can sort out contradictions and change my own mind before sharing. Or, of course, delete the whole thing before embarrassing myself more.
6 – Reading my words, it’s easy to interpret me as a superior asshole.* But inside, I’m a scared little kid trying to keep my life together. I don’t write to complain about or judge others — and many, many, many people have assumed I am personally attacking them. It’s some sort of error in tone that I haven’t solved. My writing is almost always the advice I need to hear (maybe from a parent I never had). Sometimes I do write in a dark and sarcastic style (50 Signs That Someone Doesn’t Give A Fuck About You) but it’s rare these days. I don’t think I’m better than other people. I truly believe we are all stupid. If my real-life behavior contradicts some lofty thing I’ve written, it’s because I’ve aimed for something I think is good and failed. No one is exempt from being wrong, and I’m wrong a lot. So, of course, I don’t live up to all my B.S.
7 – I enjoy writing more than any other creative process. More than music, more than filmmaking. There’s nothing that compares. I have zero commercial expectations, and I intend to keep typing this stuff forever.
Extra credit: Why does Carl King number his paragraphs? Because it helps him.
*Battlestar Galactica reference.