K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple, Stupid
My vacay writing plan inspired by High School teachers
I can still hear her voice, my high school English teacher encouraging us to apply the ‘KISS’ principle to our assignments: “and when you start to ramble just remember to K.I.S.S… keep it simple, stupid.”
Now I don’t exactly support calling oneself or anyone ‘stupid’ for any reason, but this one is able to slide through because at the core, the concept is brilliant. As a queenie of rambling, detail and lots of things to say AND EXPLAIN, I am constantly in a battle of remembering to simplify things to make them easier for myself, and for others.
But also, on the other end of this argument spectrum is the fact that some things need explanation, extra things and I like big, huge stories with details and all the ra ra sometimes. I enjoy being taking on a journey where I hear all the nitty gritty details and feel as though I am right there in the story with the person, and I am absolutely guilty of being the storyteller who is still going 3 hours later. Fluent in yapanese I am.
However if there is anything I have taken from my education degree and the time I spent in classrooms, is that I am a somewhat expert at dumbing things down and simplifying them. Firstly so that I could understand them (I need everything told to me in laypersons terms), and secondly so that I could then teach children/kids/students. In order for me to explain something simply to someone (like a 8 year old), I must first learn how to simplify it for myself.
This act essentially became the entire premise for my book. I had all these stories and crazy life experiences that linked to bigger concepts like perspective and power, so in order to communicate the reasoning behind some of those tales, I had to work to explain and simplify why I think they happened - if that makes sense? If you are ever with me in real life and I am explaining or teaching something, you’ll notice I say the ‘does that make sense?’ at least 80 times a minute. Just to make sure you are on the journey of understanding with me…
Albert Einstein echoed one of the most perfect quotes related to this: “If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.” OOOOOOHHFFF. Wowza. That man knows his shit huh.
SO. How does that relate to my writing and whats to come? I listened to a wonderful podcast with Tim Ferris and Jerry Seinfeld here, and they spoke about the legendary Seth Godin and his blog that he has written for the past 3 decades. In this chat, which is brilliant, they talk about releasing thoughts or writing things that don’t have this big and deep long written piece. That you can say things that can be done short and simple, and that we can leave questions with our audiences rather than giving them all the content and thoughts straight up.
As I listened along I began to shudder as I thought about the literal document I have saved named “Substack writings” that contain at least 15-20 half written blog pieces that I gave up half way through because they were so big, deep and huge that I couldn’t keep going. Some of those half done blogs are incredible and explore some very interesting topics, but I stopped half way and haven’t published because I have created an internal pressure that means “I must write big and deep things" or nothing at all. That is so not the case though, because I already know that some of the best things I read sometimes are short, ask one question and can be a few measly little lines that I could be left thinking about all week. Big doesn’t always mean best, and little can be just as impactful.
I am currently sitting at the dining table, listening to the crickets and eating a peach whilst looking over the Mediterranean Sea in Greece. I plan on writing during this trip whilst I am moving and going, but with no pressure on myself to share only the big things. I downloaded the Substack app which means that most of my posts will come via the phone, already something that will help me focus on writing small and with less pressure. I may upload one thought I am having, or a question I think about a lot that has yet to be solved. I am learning that simple is good and that I can get to the point if I stop expecting myself to give over so much, when the same thing can be achieved with just a little. I need to go back to being the simplify queenie when I can.
So I plan on ‘K.I.S.S’-ing my work over the next few weeks and I hope you enjoy it, and if you don’t - then thats fine too. A few big and deep ones will come along every so often for you. There will be more posts for our paid subscribers as they keep the industry of us free lance creatives going, but of course I will still continue to share whats happening along the Mediterranean Sea with PMami.
BLESSINGS TO YOU ALL FOR SUBSCRIBING!
With love, chaos & rigatoni,
PM x
