Writing Goals for 2023

With A New Year Upon Us, I'm Already Thinking About The Future

I think I’m ready to write think pieces again. From late 2021, through this year, I consciously decided to step away from that form of writing. There were many reasons for that decision, and many causes for my rationale.

During the summer of 2022, when Black Lives Matter and videos of violence against Black folks took hold, I wrote a series of think pieces for Polygon, Nerdist, RogerEbert.com and so forth, which I consider among my best writing, on the subject of representation and the racial inequities within film and television. I found it fulfilling. But by early 2021, I felt burned out. To my mind, the think piece form is the hardest style of writing to pull off, especially when it comes to topics on race: You have to define every thought down to its essence, with the assumption that a non-Black reader won’t know the merits of an opinion you inherently hold; you rarely feel like you’re speaking for yourself, but for an entire race; the entire essay must be airtight. You can’t be 99.9% covered with a think piece. The .01% is enough to totally destroy your credibility. It’s the equivalency of walking a tightrope without a net.