Season of Writing II: Humor

November 2022 - December 2022

In May 2022, I shared a small goal on this blog: to write five personal essays by the end of June. Before that, I had a tendency to write intermittently and hop around with my subject matter and form.

In focusing on a single type of writing, I hoped to do a few things:

1. Begin the process of finding a writing niche

2. Get back into the routine of posting consistently

3. Establish some amount of accountability

While I fell short of my goal to publish all five stories by the end of June (the last one dragged into September as other preoccupations demanded my time) I did get them done:

• “Wearing Sunglasses to the Hat Store”

• “Tales of a Kid Entrepreneur”

• “What Would Happen if the Patriots Played Football Against the Cast of Remember the Titans? and Other Imagined Scenarios”

• “Going to the Dump With My Grandfather”

• “Adventures in Love and Student Journalism”

For my second "season of writing," I'm going to post three new stories between now and the end of the year. Originally, I was going to set a goal with a longer time horizon — a dozen stories by September 30, 2023. But I think, for me, shorter goals and more frequent check-ins are better.

Here's how many stories I've posted to this blog, year-by-year, over the last nine years:

• 2022: 5* stories posted

• 2021: 1

• 2020: 6

• 2019: 3

• 2018: 1

• 2017: 4

• 2016: 6

• 2015: 3

• 2014: 2

*Year is incomplete, and I'm not counting the two meta "Season of Writing" posts

With a few writing seasons spread out over the next year, I think my output will be greater than what it would've been with one larger, year-long goal.

The focus for my second writing season: humor. The first story will be out next week. Thanks for reading!

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Stories Posted

11/29/22 — “Trade Schools Are a Fantastic Option for Many High School Graduates (But Not My Son)”

12/14/22 — “Let's Drop the Whole JFK Assassination Thing, OK? By a 1960s CIA Operative”

12/20/22 — “I Bet I'm Not Looking So Bad Right About Now, Am I? By Mark Zuckerberg”

1/11/23 — “A Memo From MTV's VP of Programming Regarding 1,004 Episodes of "Ridiculousness” (published on McSweeney’s)

1/30/23 — “I’m About to Relate to Your Story by Telling My Own Semi-Related Story” (published on McSweeney’s)