Take the compliment you goddamn loser.

Reaching for something worthwhile.

A penguin punches another penguin in the stomach. Art by me.

At a post-improv class hangout a few months ago, our teacher Rebecca paid me a compliment and said she had signed up for my newsletter. I, being ever humble and the best boy in class, did not want to hog attention and said to the table, “To catch the rest of y’all up, I have a writing newsletter. It doesn’t matter,” and promptly shifted the conversation back to whatever it is improvisers talk about (horny fantasy books and comedian Tim Robinson). But on reflection, that small moment was less a showcase of humility and more an example of my habit of dismissing myself. 

There’s a sketch in the 2000’s fake cop show Reno 911! where a man's house is on fire. The man asks the firefighters to go save the only copy of the novel he’s working on. Eager to do so, they first say, “Please sir, give us a brief description of the novel.” The writer reluctantly talks about his story, which the respondents on scene recognize as a rehash of the movie Frequency. "If it's got a great ending, I'll go in there and get it," says one of the fighters. The writer’s confidence fades, and he mutters repeatedly, “It doesn't matter.” Everyone tries to build the writer back up, and the sketch ends with a firefighter saying, “You know what, if you can't get excited about your work, why would you expect anyone else to?”

The conventional wisdom among artists is to create your art regardless of what people may think of it. While there is virtue in that, there is also maturity in admitting that you want your art to be seen and accepted by others. More than anything, art is the act of sharing a part of who we are with the world. When we publish a work, no matter the scale, it is as though we are jutting a hand out into the darkness, hoping that someone finds it—and then pulls us into an embrace. It is bold, then, for us to be openly excited about our work as we lose the safety net of retracting our hand and saying, “Psych, this actually wasn’t a big deal to me.” But it’s too late. People have already seen the hope in our eyes. Soon, we’ll have to buy a leather jacket and pick up a smoking habit, lest word gets out that we are somehow uncool.

My all-time favorite book is Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. It is a harrowing story of a young unnamed Black orator, who finds himself spiritually eviscerated by various political movements. His story tackled topics that I, too, was experiencing when I read it during my junior year of college. The pages arrested me, at times difficult to turn, as I felt seen in my exact experiences. I had been stumbling alone in the dark, and in that book, I found refuge, a shining hand grasping mine and pulling me from a cold void that I was starting to call home. 

Now imagine if Ralph Ellison came back from the dead, punched me in the stomach, and said, “You’re dumb. This shit was light work for me. This book sucks and doesn’t even matter.”

Granted, it’s an unlikely scenario, but we do a disservice to ourselves and people who may enjoy our art by not standing by our work even in brief and seemingly inconsequential moments. To me, art is the assertion that there is something valuable in the way we process the world. Whatever assertions I have, they may be things I disagree with later. Even still, who I am now is something worth capturing and understanding through my art. And even if just for the seconds it takes to hit send on a story, I’d like to believe what I have to offer is worthwhile. As often as I can, I want to keep my hand extended and not pull it back. 

Take the compliment, be excited, dummy.

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More words to read!

Habits and craisins, craisins and habits.

Your words seem desperate.

Dealing with a blank page.

Extremely excited to be back once again. And incredibly grateful for supporters, new and old alike! Thanks for being here. If you enjoyed this letter, please do share it with someone you think may get something out of it! Much love, gang.