It's hard to believe.
At least, it is for me.
This is officially the final week of the MAP Year Project (gasp!).
One full year of writing and publishing ~600 words per day in this daily column format. I'll probably write a longer essay about the experience, but for now here are some things I've learned along the way, in no particular order.
While this doesn't apply to everything in life, it applies to much of what I've uncovered here. For example, it only took me, oh, I don't know... 350+ consecutive days of writing to accept that narrative nonfiction is what I'm naturally inclined to create, and that it is, in fact, a real, publishable category in the marketplace.
Go figure.
Writing real stories, in ways that bring people into an experience, does something that instructions and frameworks just simply can’t: help us metabolize what we consume. There's a whole lot to be said for living your life and writing about it. And I don't just mean as a sort of public journal, either. At least not all the time. Or, I guess do whatever feels good to you.
For me, I've been trying to make it so you can picture what it’s like to see and care about the dots before they get connected.
It sounds intuitive, but every social media site and software platform out there right now seems to be trying to blur those lines as much as possible.
Product: narrative nonfiction stories on identity, creativity, relationships, work, and adventure.
Distribution channel: if you're reading this, it's extremely likely you're doing so in your email inbox.
Marketplace: I primarily use Substack as a means of getting my "product" seen by those who may be interested in it. Then, if they're in the market for such a thing, they sign up to start receiving my writing via email.
Sorry for yelling there...
I created this challenge for myself because, unsurprisingly, I like writing.
That said, asking yourself "what happened," and then describing how you figured out "what it means," is... hard. I've found it's also far more effective than just jumping ahead to what something "means." Still, there are days when I sit down to write and feel an immense amount of really-not-wanting-to-do-the-damn-thing because I know that to do it well will take longer. To write a story rather than a statement just objectively takes more time. Sure, I could simply throw together a sentence or two that says something like "someone at the coffee shop today reminded me to pay closer attention to how I show up for the people in my life."
I mean... yes, I suppose I could do that.
I do make the rules here, after all...
But that's not what I set out to do. And—to my knowledge—that's not what you signed up to receive, either. Sometimes, my commitment to doing this well (or trying to) has meant late nights. And it's definitely meant missing out on social events. This entire year-long project has occupied a wholeee lot of brain space and, at times, eaten into how I'm able to show up in other areas of my life.
—AND—
I said I was going to do something and, thus far, with seven days to go, I have done it.
That, dear reader, feels incredible.
Alright, let me just tell you how it is.
You know, no bullshit.
*deep breath*
OK—in many ways, I feel like my writing has improved tremendously throughout this year. I feel like I've developed a firm grasp of which details matter, in what order, to construct a scene for both of us to enjoy; you and me. I've worked hard at shrinking this thing I've internally called "the translation gap" between what you read and what I meant. For the most part, I feel great about my progress there.
However—
Titles, subtitles, and headers are not among the areas in which I feel like I've improved all that much, if at all.
Whenever I've tried to come up with better ones—stronger ones, more evocative ones, ones that spark insatiable curiosity—they feel both icky and worse than what I'd put there originally as a placeholder. So I've come to accept that I've developed a particular voice and writing style all my own, and fighting against them in certain areas is futile—such is the case with titles, subtitles, and headers.
This one's a bit of a paradox, and I'll do my best to explain it without getting too high on my pretentious writer's horse.
In order to get comfortable being myself I had to be ok with being bad. And I'm not just saying that as some performative gibber-jabber, either. More than that, it took some swerving before I found my lane, so to speak.
But... (ok, get ready... there's really no avoiding this one, sorry) I definitely wouldn't have found my lane if I hadn't climbed into the driver's seat.
183,057 words.
That's how much swerving has gone into the MAP Year Project. Over the last few years, the things I've written about have varied. At first, I thought I should write about marketing since I knew a lot about it and figured folks would find it valuable. I tinkered with outdoor stories from my guiding and education days. Then vulnerable essays seemed like the thing people clicked with. And any time the words "male," "masculinity," or "loneliness" showed up in a title, it got views. That must be what people want, right?
Maybe.
Who knows? Not me.
A big reason I created the MAP Year Project was to prove to myself that there was space for all of it—all of me. I wanted to see if I could write about normal, boring, nothing-special daily life and make it interesting. If I could have fun doing that, I felt like I could do anything else.
It worked.
And to those who've been reading throughout, I can't thank you enough for being here. I'm especially grateful for the messages and feedback I've received along the way. I'll be promoting this more widely soon, but I just finished rebuilding theunobstructed.com with all I learned from my MAP Year, including from stuff you've shared with me. So thank you.
Narrative nonfiction... huh?
Who'da thunk.
Did the MAP Year change anything for you?
onward.
For more on this daily column and The MAP Year Project, read the backstory here. And if you know someone who'd appreciate this, pass it along.