Things behind Things behind Things (Lately)

Written in 2025.

Lately, I’ve been writing a lot. You just haven’t seen any of it.

That’s the dichotomy I keep finding myself in — the private, often chaotic, relationship between writing and publishing. It’s not that I’m withholding genius from the masses (although, maybe I am). It’s more like I’ve been stockpiling words the way some people stockpile toilet paper during a crisis: nervously, excessively, with no clear plan of what to do when the pile grows too big. But don’t mistake this for a negative. It’s actually a net positive — a sign, at the very least, that something is brewing.

I’m writing this now from a little chair in the St. Louis airport, where the carpet is aggressively patterned and the air is slightly too cold. I’ve been up since 3 a.m., waiting for a colleague to land from Phoenix so we can hurl ourselves into a weekend of meetings, events, and hopefully some decent Midwestern food. It’s funny — I used to run my own show, freelancing and consulting and saying things like “circle back” with alarming sincerity. But recently, I traded that solo act for a spot on a fast-moving, wildly talented communications team based out of the Bay Area.

I still live in Fargo, which is to say: I still live with winter. And wind. And my very expressive corgi, Norman, who remains unimpressed by Zoom calls and prefers when I close the laptop and open the front door. But now, I also live in airports and hotels, my weeks punctuated by boarding zones and gate announcements, chatting with local leaders and innovators and dreamers and skeptics and anyone else who’s found themselves in the orbit of the electrification space.

The irony is that in this season of constant movement — literal and figurative — I’ve been writing more than I have in years. Not for work. Not for deadlines. Not for a client’s approval. But because my brain feels so full, I have no choice but to empty it onto the page.

You’d think all this inspiration would mean I’m out here publishing essay after essay, churning out short stories like I’m gunning for a National Book Award. I’m not. Most of these pieces live quietly in the wilderness of my Google Drive, untitled, unfinished, feral. There’s a screenplay about a couple’s relationship unraveling on a trip abroad (no doubt inspired by my new hobby of airport people-watching and long layovers). There’s a short story about a man who thinks he’s turning into a bug, only to discover — plot twist — he was actually a bug who became a man, and now he’s desperately trying to blend in with the humans (I won’t psychoanalyze why I’m writing that one, but let’s just say: imposter syndrome, party of one).

There are essays, too — long, meandering ones about movies and movie theaters, about the way our culture shaped itself around the silver screen and then abandoned it for something smaller and algorithmic. I suspect that’s less about cinema itself and more about me missing Los Angeles and the version of myself who used to go to the movies alone on a Tuesday night, feeling like I had cracked the code on life.

All this is to say: I am, by all accounts, a writer. Even if I sometimes feel ridiculous using that word. Even if the only proof I have is a graveyard of unfinished drafts and a Grammarly score I’m oddly proud of. And like any writer worth their overpriced coffee, the hardest thing I can do is the actual act of writing.

I’ve never been diagnosed with ADHD, though if the algorithm is to be trusted (and isn’t it always?), I should probably look into it. My brain doesn’t love to sit still. It loves lists. It loves distractions. It loves to scrub the kitchen floor and alphabetize the bookshelf and organize the spice rack in the exact moments I should be writing. I’m never more productive — domestically speaking — than when I’m on deadline. Give me a writing project, and suddenly my bathroom sparkles like a Pinterest board. My laundry is folded with the precision of an Army drill sergeant. My dog is walked so frequently he starts to look at me like, Okay, that’s enough, weirdo.