How attending events can inform your writing & build community

“Just put stuff out there” is her motto. “By making and prototyping things, whether it is a blog or a physical event, you are going to get so much that would not otherwise come into your line of view. When people look at your stuff, they might see the application much further than you can, or they see a unique story that would resonate with others.

Even so, I was also a teenager, making decisions based on the visibility that our culture teaches us to desire. I knew that my audience wanted to feel authenticity from me. To give that to them, I revealed pieces of myself that I might have been wiser to keep private.

The one practice I kept was writing. It made the cut because I can’t deny how many good things in my life have come as a result of my putting words out into the world. It also felt like a respite: one area where I wasn’t skeptical of my identity. I’m at my most courageous on the page because interrogating my feelings with words feels justified and