Kali Kambo

Lots of writing advice goes along the lines of “write for your reader” or “know your audience.” That’s the guideline for how to frame your writing, what voice to use, and what level of detail to include. 

But what happens if you’re writing for a general audience–not a specific group?

Then how do you frame your writing?

One of my college professors gave advice that I still use: Assume your reader is intelligent but ignorant.

Write with the mindset that the reader doesn’t know your specific topic, but they’re smart and can understand what you’re writing. Then it doesn’t matter what knowledge or experience they have. You’re giving them what they need to follow along. 

That’s more useful to me than writing for a specific audience.

This post was originally published on Mythical Type on June 12, 2022.

When I was in elementary school, we had carnivals twice a year, one in the fall and one in the spring. The carnivals were family fun nights, where we went to school for a few hours and played games, ate hot dogs and cotton candy, and entered raffles.

One year, the prizes were themed after the solar system. There were posters, freeze dried ice cream (remember that?), key chains–things like that. If you won, you got one of those “good” prizes. If you played a game and lost, though, you still got a few glow-in-the-dark stars, the kind you can stick on your ceiling.

Those stars were at every game, so I played and lost a few times, and still got all these plastic stars and planets.

I heard one of the teachers explain the prizes to a parent. I thought I heard her say the stars were the “constellation prize,” and it made sense to me. I could take these stars home and stick them to my ceiling in formation. I could make the Big Dipper and Orion. That was pretty cool.

It was a few years until I realized what that teacher actually said–the prize you get even when you don’t win is the consolation prize. 

Years later, this is my favorite thing I’ve ever misheard.

It sounds like a good band name. It was the name of an album, long after I misheard the phrase in elementary school.  

I use “Constellation Prize” as a name for random creative projects I’m working on, especially when I don’t have a plan for where the project is going. It’s a label I use for my own reference, so later on, I know, yes, that was a random thing I did for a bit. 

And like those random stars and planets I got in elementary school just for trying, the name fits.

If you spend any time on Instagram or Reddit looking at people’s notebooks–how they lay out pages, what materials they use–you’ll see there are essentially two groups of people.

For one group, aesthetics are very important. They use elaborate layouts, lots of color, and mixed media.

For the other group, using the notebook is most important, so it doesn’t matter how it looks. They tend to use simple layouts and simple materials–in many cases, simply a black pen and nothing else.

Both groups are using notebooks in the ways that work best for them.

But I like my notebooks messy. Here’s why:

1. My notebook is a playground

I use my notebook to play and experiment. Anything and everything can go in it–snippets of writing, lists, quotes. It’s okay if it’s random and unorganized.

2. My notebook is a rough draft

When I have new ideas, I start working on them in a notebook. It’s the place I flesh out ideas and refine them. The final outcome won’t be in my notebook, so I don’t worry about being neat during the process.

3. My notebook is my space

I don’t share most of my notebook on social media, because I use it as my own work space. It’s for brain dumping and collecting ideas, with the purpose of reviewing notes later to see if there’s something I want to work on more. By nature, it’s messy.

4. My notebook is for everyday writing

I treat my notebook as the place to capture anything, so I tend to write in it quickly, whenever, during the day. Treating it like an everyday, ordinary thing (and not something that might have to be polished to post on social media), helps take the pressure off of what I write down or how it’s organized. My pages can be filled with whatever.

This post was originally published on Mythical Type on May 3, 2020.