I write a lot.
Ten published books and another coming out this year.
Five currently unpublished books, plus about a dozen unpublished picture books and another half dozen partially written novels and memoirs.
I’ve also been the humor columnist for Seasons magazine for 11 years and have written columns and articles for many publications over the years, including Slate, Parents magazine, the Hartford Courant, and more.
Also, of course, this blog, with a post every day without missing a day for more than 19 years.
That’s a lot of words, and it doesn’t include the hundreds of stories and speeches I have performed on stage or the things I have written for my businesses.
When you put your words into the world, you never quite know what may happen. Sometimes, I write something that I am sure is genius, and it barely gets a nod from my audience. Other times, I write something that I consider fine but not earth-shattering, but it somehow explodes on the internet.
You just never know, which is why I tell all creators to keep making stuff. Be relentless in your efforts to put as many things in the world as possible, whether those things are words, paintings, videos, podcasts, asparagus plants, songs, jokes, loaves of bread, 3-D-printed pencil boxes, wood carvings, floral arrangements, wallpaper designs, or whatever your particular jam is.
Make lots and lots and lots of stuff.
You never know what might happen.
Recently, I received an email from someone who said this:
I just wanted to let you know that I loved your article from 2017 called What Am I Thinking? It’s been hanging on our family’s fridge since 2017. My kids are now 21 and 17, I guess it time for me to take the article off the fridge!
I have no idea what that article is about, nor do I recall writing it. But I published something — probably in a magazine — that has resided on someone’s fridge for eight years.
What an honor.
Another reader recently wrote to me, telling me that a blog post I wrote may have saved his life.
It was astounding to read those words. I never write anything, thinking it might make that kind of a difference in someone’s life.
Last night, I performed at a Moth StorySLAM in Boston.
I won, by the way. Hooray.
As I was leaving the venue, a woman stopped me and said, “I loved your story. By the way, are you the author of “Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend?”
“I am,” I told her.
“I loved that book,” she said. “I read it when I was a kid, and that book made me fall in love with reading.”
I published that novel in 2012. It was initially written for adults but crossed into the young adult market, where it is still read today. Clara and Charlie’s middle school actually include it in their curriculum, not realizing that the author sends his kids to their school.
I had no idea that my adult novel would someday find its way into the hands of kids, and I never could’ve imagined that it might help a young woman fall in love with reading a decade ago.
We sold the Ukranian rights to “Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend” just this week, bringing the total number of languages in which the book has been published to 23, which was also beyond my comprehension when I wrote it.
You just never know.
So make things—lots and lots of things. Be relentless and unwavering in your efforts, even when no one is paying attention. Write your words, paint your paintings, grow your vegetables, build your things, invent your inventions, bake your muffins, knit your mittens, play your songs, and do whatever else fills the world with things that once didn’t exist.
Some will tragically be ignored.
Some will be noticed by a few.
Occasionally, you’ll make a splash.
Either way, remember that you never know what might happen, which is why you should never stop.
