Write Things: On What Only You Know

Welcome to this month's edition of the Write Things Newsletter.

We live in a world that constantly invites us to look outward. To study what's working for other writers. To follow the frameworks, absorb the rules, measure our instincts against someone else's standard. And there's value in that — up to a point.

But here's what I keep coming back to: the most irreplaceable thing you bring to your writing isn't a technique you learned. It's the way you see. The experiences you've carried. The people you've known and lost and loved. The moments that changed you quietly, without fanfare. The particular way your mind moves through the world.

That is not a small thing. That is everything.

Your writing is an expression of your perspective — your understanding of life, of people, of what it means to feel something deeply. No one else has lived what you've lived. No one else notices what you notice. No one else would tell this story the way you would.

That's not a limitation. That's your superpower.

So this month, instead of looking outside yourself for what to write or how to write it, I want to invite you to look inward. The story you're meant to tell is already there — shaped by everything you are. This newsletter is about helping you find it, trust it, and bring it to the page.

Let's dive in.

Draft

Use these prompts wherever you are right now.

You might use one to spark something new. You might use one to pull a memory you haven't fully explored onto the page. You might drop one into a draft you're already working on and see what it opens up.

Trust your instinct.

Set a timer for four minutes. Let your pen keep moving. Don't edit. Don't explain ahead of yourself. Stay in motion.

If you want to keep going when the timer ends, do it. But that small, certain window gives you something worth having: a contained space to discover.

And in that space, you may find something you didn't expect. Something specific. Something that could only have come from you.

Here are four prompts — one for each week of the month.

Week 1: Write about something ordinary you've always noticed that others seem to walk past.

A detail. A moment. Something small. Stay close to it.

Week 2: Write about a person through one specific thing they always did — a habit, a gesture, a phrase they used.

Don't describe them. Show us the thing.

Week 3: You knew something was wrong before anyone said a word.

Write what you noticed. Stay in the details.

Week 4: Write about something you understood differently once you were older.

Don't explain the shift. Just write both moments.

Craft

When we try to describe a place or a person, the instinct is often to be thorough. To account for everything. To make sure the reader sees exactly what we see.

But the most vivid writing rarely works that way.

Think about the places that stay with you from the books you've loved. Chances are, you're not remembering a complete inventory. You're remembering one thing — a smell, a quality of light, the way a room felt when you walked in. The writer gave you something specific to hold, and your imagination built the rest.

That's not a shortcut. That's how immersion actually works.

When you choose one true detail — the thing that actually stands out as you remember or imagine a place — you give the reader something to inhabit. They don't just receive the scene. They enter it. The gap between what you've written and what you haven't is where their imagination begins to move.

The same is true for character. You don't need to describe a person fully. You need the detail that is most them. The way they always set their coffee cup slightly too close to the edge of the table. The particular silence before they said something difficult. One gesture, chosen well, can do more than a paragraph of physical description.

So how do you find the right detail?

Trust what stands out.

When you remember a place, something comes first. A sensation, an image, a feeling attached to a specific thing in the room. When you imagine a character, something rises before anything else. That instinct is not random. It's your perspective at work — the way you see, shaped by everything you've lived and noticed.

You don't need to justify it. You don't need to ask whether it's the most important detail. If it's the one that comes, it's probably the one that's alive.

Let that be enough. Give it to the reader clearly and trust them to bring the rest.

Try this this month: In your next scene, choose one detail for your setting and one for your character. Just one each. Write those with care and let them carry the weight.

Focus

There's a question worth sitting with before you write — and it's not about structure, or plot, or whether your prose is working.

It's simpler than that: How do I see this?

Not how a writer you admire might see it. Not how you imagine a reader will receive it. How do you see it — what do you remember, what do you imagine, what feels true to you when you're quiet enough to notice?

This is your perspective. And like any living thing, it needs tending.

Julia Cameron, in her book The Artist's Way, describes a practice she calls the artist date — a regular, solitary outing you take with the express purpose of filling yourself back up. Not to produce anything. Not to study craft. Simply to experience the world as someone who notices. A museum. A market. A walk somewhere unfamiliar. The goal is to keep your inner life curious and alive — because that inner life is where your writing comes from.

It sounds almost too simple. But the writers who struggle most with voice are often the ones who have stopped feeding their own perception. They've been consuming other people's work, absorbing other people's rhythms, measuring their sentences against someone else's standard. Comparison is quiet and it's cumulative. Over time it can replace your natural way of seeing with a kind of anxious imitation — writing that sounds like it's trying to sound like something.

The antidote isn't to stop reading or stop learning. It's to keep returning to yourself.

When you're drafting, the question is: what do I actually imagine here? What do I remember? Not what should happen — what do you see? Let that be the source.

When you're revising, the question shifts slightly: what was my intention? Not what does this look like compared to something else — what were you trying to create? Return to that, and let it guide your decisions.

This is how confidence in your own voice grows. Not by becoming immune to doubt, but by having a place to return to. A practice of noticing. A habit of asking what you see, and then trusting it enough to put it on the page.

And here's something worth remembering: the deeper you see something — the more fully you understand it, sit with it, turn it over — the more interesting your writing becomes. Readers don't just want information. They want the felt experience of a mind that has genuinely engaged with something. That only comes from you, and only when you've given yourself the time to actually look.

Try this this month: Make time each week to nurture the artist within you. Morning pages, journalling, an artist date — whatever form feels right. The practice matters less than the intention: to spend time with your own thoughts, away from input and comparison, reconnecting with how you see the world. That quiet attention is where your writing voice lives.

Forward

At any point in your draft, there are likely scenes you've already imagined — moments, conversations, images that came to you before you were ready to write them. You don't have to arrive at them in order. Write them now. Getting them onto the page keeps you moving and often reveals more than you expected. One scene has a way of answering questions you didn't know you had about the next one.

But sometimes you sit down and draw a blank. You're not sure what happens next. You don't know what your character would do, or say, or feel in this moment. When that happens, it's worth asking whether the problem is really about plot — or whether it's about understanding.

Often, when we don't know what a character does next, it's because we don't yet know them deeply enough.

This is an invitation to go deeper. Set the manuscript aside for a moment and write about your character instead. Not a scene — just exploration. Where did they come from? What was the moment that shaped them most? Who did they look up to growing up, and why? What are they afraid of? What wound from their past quietly influences every decision they make, even now?

You may never use a word of this in the story. That's fine. What you're building is understanding — and understanding is what allows you to write a character truthfully in any situation. When you know who they are at the root, what they do next becomes far less mysterious.

Then return to your draft. The blank that stopped you may look entirely different.

Try this this month: If you find yourself stalling, spend twenty minutes writing about your character outside the story. Choose one question — where they came from, what shaped them, what they carry — and follow it.

If you'd like support moving through your draft — a place to write, share, and receive feedback in a warm and encouraging environment — I'm opening a waitlist for my writing workshops, beginning the week of May 4th.

Each session opens with a short prompt and four minutes of writing, just like the Draft section of this newsletter. From there, we move into focused technique, and then spend the heart of the session reading and responding to each other's work. Feedback is supportive by default — critical only when you ask for it. Whether you're brand new to writing or simply looking for connection, accountability, and a space where your voice is heard, these workshops are designed for you.

If you're interested, you can join the waitlist here. I'll follow up with a short form to find a time that works for you.

Join the waitlist: https://www.ihelpyouwritethings.com/writinggroups

Wishing you and your stories all the best in the month ahead.

Trevor

P.S. If something in this issue resonated, hit reply and let me know.