How To Write About Another

1) Determine the individual’s position in your life, whether or not they are actively in it. Preferably, be confident that they will be in that position for the foreseeable future.

2) Decide whether you will be writing privately or publicly about them.

3) Schedule a time and location to write.

4) Find a place to write, such as a digital document or analog notebook.

5) Go apeshit.

- a) Guideline #1: Write whatever the fuck you want about them. Tear through the paper when you push against the pen. Write your worst and best fantasies about them (could be one & the same). Write until you feel the flow stop and your mind and body are satisfied. If your mind and body are not satisfied by the time you need to focus on something else in your schedule, endeavor to schedule a later time that same day to finish the flow.

- b) Guideline #2: Be completely truthful. If the piece doesn’t feel right, as if there is a sentence you are reaching for but aren’t quite sure it is justified, take into consideration that you may be hiding truths from yourself that you are not yet ready to face.

- - Example: Writing a love poem for a person whom you say you love but it feels like a chore, and you get the feeling you are not able to write a piece of your soul into it. Alternatively, you are cramming in a line about the subject of your alleged affection into a poem about general love to “prove” your love for them.

- c) Guideline #3 (related to the above): Don’t be afraid to write what needs to be written. You may feel a tightness in your body, usually in your chest, shoulders, or head waiting to be relieved. Wanting to cry while writing typically means the truth is near and needs to be realized and released from your body and onto the figurative and/or literal page.

If you are only writing privately, STOP HERE.

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If you would like to write publicly:

6) Prune the piece you wrote in private with attention to the prospect of an audience.

- a) Write what you can first. Don’t get stuck on not-quite-right words or msipellngs. Write down the one you can think of and keep going and fix it at a later time. The priority is the flow.

- b) Try not to use the same word several times in a piece, especially in close proximity. A thesaurus is a good tool for this.

7) Bear in mind three possibilities:

- a) The subject may find your writing and be able to deduce that the piece is about them. They may get upset and shittalk you to others.

- b) Mutual friends and/or acquaintances may find the piece and consequently find you unlikeable. This is unlikely, but good practice to mentally fortify yourself against it. Do not be preoccupied with the notion of only being seen as good or right or justified, since doing so may conceal the truth.

- c) No one will read it nor care. Having others care is not the priority; confronting your own truths and processing is. The void may not respond back. Be okay. This is for you.

8) Although you have written truths, accept that your truth is subjective, and may be argued against.

- a) If it is, indeed, argued against: do not be afraid to stand your ground. And make an allowance for the probability that you may not be good or right or justified. Decide whether that matters to you or not.

9) Once ready, submit the piece to your publication of choice.

10) Savor being brave and open enough to receive praise and/or criticism.

11) Wait.

12) Repeat.