I purposely wanted to try writing different types of stories.
I wasn’t sticking to a rigid timeline, as in, “OK, let’s try narrative personal stories for the next 6 weeks,” but I found that once I started with a genre, I tended to stay there for a bit. Like a mindset.
I didn’t have a schedule of story types, but looking back, I can roughly group them as follows:
- Observational opinions (I’d call it Seth Godin style).
- Self-improvement / Personal Development
- Narrative personal stories
- Success in today’s work culture, team building, leadership, and professionalism
The easiest for me to write was, by far, the observational opinions. I guess I have a lot of opinions that I’d like to share.
The hardest was the narrative personal stories, especially the ones where I dug in and shared the emotions of the time (maybe still?). I kept saying to myself, “Don’t worry, nobody reads it anyway.” But almost surprisingly, I think these might be the most satisfying. I’m sure a connection exists between the difficulty of the inwardness and the satisfaction of getting it out.
One exception is the story about working on the iPod with Apple. That flowed out like water down the falls — once started, it could not be stopped. First, I’ve told that story (in person and standing at the front of rooms) several times, so I’d already had its basic structure. But also, I’m still really angry about it. It happened 20 years ago, and I cannot let it go. It feels like yesterday. I can recall the emotions of that moment in a heartbeat. No professional part of me can see anything other than ineptitude, fear, and short-sightedness. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Of course, none of us know the result of paths not taken, but the ripple effects of that single dastardly decision reach far and wide.
More to come…
