Maybe use a pen name?
If you need to write, getting published is the easy part these days.
Nearly anyone can write anything they wish and publish it for the world.
When (or if) you write online, consider using a pen name depending on what you are going to say.
There can be great freedom in complete anonymity.
I love you.
— Dad
Here are 14 tips from Anthony Bourdain’s book Kitchen Confidential, an autobiographical, behind the scenes expose into the semi-depraved world of food service.
They are arranged in the book as pieces of advice for the wanna-be professional cook or chef.
I think they apply to much more than that.
1 – “Be fully committed.”
2 – “Learn Spanish!”
3 – “Don’t steal.”
4 – “Always be on time.”
5 – “Never make excuses or blame others.”
6 – “Never call in sick.”
7 – “Lazy, sloppy and slow are bad.”
8 – “Be prepared to witness every variety of human folly and injustice.”
9 – “Assume the worst.”
10 – “Try not to lie.”
11 – “Avoid restaurants where the owner’s name is over the door.”
12 – “Think about that resume!”
13 – “Read!”
14 – “Have a sense of humor about things.”
I love you.
— Dad
As I have said before: Read.
You can learn so much.
Ever read a book that changed your life in some way?
I have.
Why would you not seek and crave books that can do this for you in some way again and again?
Right now, I try to read a book a week.
Writer Ryan Holiday says it like this:
Starting with Gilgamesh, we have the oral and written tradition of articulating the human experience and attempting to detail our difficulties, our triumphs, our experiences. Over these five thousand years, human beings have been struggling with problems, many of which are more significant, difficult, and life threatening than whatever you or I woke up to deal with today. So why would we not make ourselves familiar with that information and those lessons?
There is a quote: “Any fool can learn from experience. It’s better to learn from the experience of others.” That’s what reading is, particularly with philosophy and history. Philosophy at its finest is designed to help us with the difficulties of life and help us with what they call the good life. And in history we find entrepreneurs; we find soldiers; we find executives; we find lovers, fathers, spouses; we find children; we find every imaginable person in every imaginable situation, and we can learn from their experience. I think you’re an idiot to not learn from it.
I love you.
— Dad