On telling real stories
All my children are enamored with stories. If you're telling a good story, they will sit patiently for anything. I believe I could brush their teeth for a half hour as long as they were gripped by the story I was telling them.
Tonight I told Callie stories about everything -- how I started the lawnmower, how I got my job in Egypt, how we decided to move to Utah. I told her how Avery was a baby when 9/11 happened, and what 9/11 was all about.
In telling these stories, I realized a certain irony about my blog -- though I'm a prolific blogger, the most important stories, I never write. The real stories, I never tell. I hide behind the mask of professional writing. I hide behind the "safe yet interesting to some other professionals" topics. Meanwhile the stories that matter, that grip my children into a curious, serious trance, that have actual significance for me, I never tell.
This is what this personal blog is all about -- it's about telling the real stories of my life, and the made-up stories as well.
The writing may be sloppy and unstructured. That's okay, as I'm not so much focusing on the ideas as much as the stories.
The stories may be spiritual, or daddy stories, or husband stories. But I promise that they will be the real stories.
About Tom Johnson
I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, agent skills, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my AI courses for more on the latest in AI and tech comm. If you're looking for info about documenting APIs, see my API documentation course.
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Finally, I want to note a couple of things. I usually write the first drafts of my posts myself and then use AI to improve accuracy, clarity, and detail in places, so my writing is a mix of human and AI. (Hopefully that's not too off-putting.) Also, the opinions I express on my blog are my own perspectives, not those of my employer.