Mike McKee

I used to hate writing.

It wasn’t fun. I sucked at it. So, “hate” seems to be the appropriate word choice.

Things changed, however, with Binghamton’s Writing 111 course. I had a few friends take the class during the fall semester of freshman year, and they all received A’s. They told me the class was a joke. “Easy A,” they said.

My hopes were high when I took it that spring. Perhaps too high.

I ended up receiving a B in the class…

Getting a B in a class people took for an easy A sounds a bit pathetic, no? I may have not learned how to write well, but I left knowing one thing: that I hated writing. With a fiery passion.

Yet somehow, one year later, I wrote a 90,000 word Sci-Fi novel. Talk about a plot twist in my life. Even though the novel’s story sucked, I am beyond proud of myself for self-publishing it. Why? Because…

It was the first time in 20 years that I had fun writing.

That’s something most people never get to say. So, lucky me.

For the last four years, writing has defined most of what I’ve done and who I’ve been. That novel led to me starting two newsletters, building a 7.5K audience on LinkedIn, and building a blog called Dorky Data…

And now I’m here. Writing on this new site.

Some people say love makes you do crazy things. I’d argue that writing makes you do crazy things too. That’s why I’m writing this essay. I always think about why I write, so I figured why not be meta and write about it.

Anyway, here’s why I write…

Writing Improves My Thinking

At one point long, long ago in my life (aka 6 months ago), I would have told you that my favorite topic to write about was data. Yup, I am a complete data dork. Hence why I named my old blog Dorky Data.

I wrote about all the fun data/tech topics I learned through self-study and my data analyst job. The average “non-data loving” person would read my posts’ titles and stare at me perplexed. Perhaps a bit scared at the technical jargon they sense coming their way.

But that’s the thing…

I didn’t use a lot of technical jargon. I made my ideas easy to understand and distilled complicated concepts into words even non-data dorks would understand.

And I did this thanks to writing…

Think about all the exciting novels you read in your high school English class. Or if you're like me, think about all the exciting novels you researched on SparkNotes. Many of the “classic” writers (that made some of us fall asleep in class) used words no one understood and had prose more confusing than damn hieroglyphics.

Literature in school always contained one too many big-boy words that the dictionary probably didn’t even know the definition for. That’s okay with classics because they are meant to challenge your reading/comprehension skills, but it doesn't fly in the real world.

People like you and me don’t want to be bogged down by complicated ideas full of complicated words we don’t understand.

We’re lazy. Lazy!!!

The more we work to understand an idea, the less happy we feel. That’s why writing is powerful. It teaches me how to think about ideas and distill them into easy-to-understand concepts. Sophisticated verbiage is a thing of the past. The best writers and thinkers today know how to simplify language to simplify ideas.

Writing is Therapy

I used to believe that if I wrote something, I had to share it with the world. I just had to.

Naive, young me couldn’t grasp the value in writing something no one would ever read. I thought the point of writing was to share your ideas with the world. It turns out that’s only partially true. Another point of writing is to understand yourself better. Some of my best essays are the personal ones I write for myself and myself only. Pieces locked up in the deepest vault I can find, trapped forever from the real world like a prisoner.

Writing for myself helps me understand the madness in my mind. Most of us, while we think we’re somewhat sane, know there’s a bit of craziness in our minds that would make us look cuckoo should the rest of the world discover it.

But writing help me tame the madness. It makes me feel more relaxed. Calmer.

It helps me understand life better.
It helps me understand my emotions better.
It helps me understand how to be more aware of the world.
It helps me understand my social interactions better.

Writing is the mutual friend that connects me to my mind. It’s therapy for my mind. I like to think that I can get more out of a brutally honest writing session than any $150 therapy session could.

Writing is a Powerful Skill For My Career

Whether you like it or not, everyone needs basic writing skills in the office. For most of us, no matter our job titles, there’s one thing that will control our work life: emails.

Everyone spends more time than they’d like at work writing emails, sending slack messages, or reading them. Written communication is inevitable. You can’t escape it.

That’s why having decent writing skills helps.

Even though I like long-form pieces (like novels and this type of essay), being a good writer on the job isn’t about captivating readers with fancy prose or magical storytelling adventures.

Good business writing matters for the opposite reason.

People are lazy. People are busy. People don’t want you wasting their time. Even if you know how to engage readers with your writing, that’s not what people want in the office. Instead, your coworkers, clients and customers want short messages that communicate your intentions clearly.

Here are two writing quotes I like…

“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” - Said many people, so I don’t know who to quote here

Writing a great long-form piece of content is tough. But writing a great short-form piece of content may be tougher because you need to condense your message into fewer words without losing quality/clarity.

“Whoever says the most stuff in the fewest words wins.” - Morgan Housel

I love Morgan Housel’s writing because he is a master at simplifying complex topics. And his quote here tickles my mind like good music. The best writers say what they want to say with the fewest words. We live in a world where our attention is one TikTok away from vanishing. Combine terrible attention spans with busy workers, and boom! You get a generation of workers that hardly want to read a 100-word email.

That’s another reason I write, to save people from the “terrifying” struggle of reading confusing messages at work.

Honestly, writing doesn’t play a huge factor in my current role. However, I know that my future jobs will benefit from the writing superpowers I’m developing now. I’m thinking long-term, trying to build some exponential growth, baby.

Writing Reminds Me of Who I Used to Be

While doing a “Digital Spring Cleaning” a few weeks ago, I discovered a word document called 66 Days of Sober Journal.

Inside were 20,000+ words I wrote over the course of 66 days, where I dumped my feelings and emotions to share how I felt while taking a break from alcohol. (I was never an alcoholic, but like many college students, drinking and partying interested me more than studying).

I remember the sober challenge making me feel healthier than ever before. And I remember learning that I didn’t need alcohol to have fun in college. But up until reading the journal, I forgot how vulnerable and emotional I felt at that time of life. Reading the journal let me relive moments from my past that I forgot happened.

I remembered something important about life while looking through my old journal: People constantly change over time.

We change, grow up, and move on every single day.

Some changes are small. Like switching departments at work or rearranging your room. Some changes are big. Like moving to a new state or finding a new romantic partner or switching careers.

But change comes with a cost…

Change makes it easy for us to forget the person we used to be. If you were to ask me what I was like in middle school, I wouldn’t be able to give a solid answer. Do the same for my high school experience, and I would only remember the sports I played. It’s sad, but I don’t remember much about the boy I used to be. And that’s looking back only 10 years.

Imagine how much more I can forget in 20 or 30 years…

I don’t want to forget. That’s why I write.

It gives me a digital vault full of essays, ideas, thoughts, and emotions that I can explore in the future. When I write, I’m creating a snapshot of the person I am that day. I give myself the chance to look at my past and understand what mattered to me at different times of life.

I used to be the type of writer that hated to read his own work. It felt cringy. So, I never did it. I forgot many details of my novel from four years ago because the last time I read the entire thing, start to finish, was while editing the final draft. Even after I published the book and received a copy of it, I never opened it once.

Now, I read my writing as often as possible.

It helps me not forget who I am and who I was.

Writing Attracts the Right People

This website is my personal Binge Bank.

I first learned about Binge Banks while listening to one of my favorite podcasts How I Write (hosted by David Perell), in an episode about storytelling with Shaan Puri.

The latter explains that a Binge Bank is a collection of content stored in a singular place for people to consume it, one piece after another, for hours on end. Not everyone will actually spend hours on my site reading through every single essay I write. But some are crazy enough to do it.

My Binge Bank is the “Library of Mike” where people can get to know me without having to physically talk or connect with me. It’s like a digital meet and greet where you discover things like:

How I think
What I’m interested in
What I value
How I can give value to others
And more…

Here’s why I believe in having a Binge Bank…

There is always someone interested in you. Someone who wants to learn more about you. A Binge Bank gives them a place to do that, without them having to wait for you to answer their calls, emails, or showing up at a coffee shop.

There are many ways to meet people, make new friends, and make new business relationships.

The old-fashioned way is to do it in person. You walk up to someone, start a conversation and voila, a new person added to your network. This still works today, and everyone should do it.

But thanks to the internet and social media, we can do the digital version of an in-person meet: You click on someone’s profile. You DM them. You text or chat on FaceTime… And voila! A new person added to your network.

Meeting people online is easier than in-person because you can leverage your time more effectively. In the amount of time you talk to one person face-to-face, you can have 5+ text conversations instead. Now, texting, emailing, and social media surely isn’t a replacement for in-person communication. But it gives another way to meet new people.

The beauty of a Binge Bank is that people can get to know me without me having to talk to them.

That last sentence may sound like something an anti-social loner would say. But I promise it’s not the case with me. This site is not my only way of finding new people. It’s an extra method that most people don’t have.

Sharing my ideas and beliefs here allows like-minded people to reach out and connect with me. Writing attracts the right people to me.

Thinking About The Future

Confession time: I’m all talk when it comes to writing.

I can spend days telling people how I love writing so much I do it every day. But I don’t actually write daily. Sometimes not even weekly. The truth is I have a feisty, on-again-off-again relationship with writing.

Sometimes, I want to spend hours mixing and mashing words on the page (like the first few days of writing this essay). Yet sometimes, the thought of sitting at my desk, tapping letters on my keyboard, disgusts me (like the last few days of editing this essay).

Some months, I will write daily.
Some months, I will hardly write at all.

That’s the truth. I’m no more consistent with writing as your average Gen Z kid is satisfied with their career choice.

But, there’s one beauty to my inconsistency…

Even though I stop writing for periods of time, I always come back to the craft. No matter what. I will always write again some day.

Since this is the first essay I’m posting on this site, it makes me wonder how consistent I will be this time around. I have the motivation and reasons to write. But now it comes down to “will I have the will to write?”