I've already written about manifestos. A little in Les Papiers, and at length in my book Organons (now available in paperback on Amazon, by the way, still haven't got around to translate it in english though).
But this week, I came across a post by Kel Rakowski where she lists the STANDARDS of her publication. And YAS, yet another way to write a manifesto!
I think it's brilliant to officially lay out a list of your writing standards.
First, on a human level, it's great to understand the principles behind the publications I read. It answers the question: do we share the same values? And from a creator's perspective, I think it's not a bad idea to take a couple of minutes and reflect on what you're actually doing when you write.
It helps resolve conflicts that make us procrastinate, rekindle the flame through first principles, and make decisions that aren't always easy.
It's also a great MARKETING tool. Yes, I'm putting that word in bold, because it's a word that scares people. But in reality, knowing how to market yourself, how to sell yourself, is mostly about knowing who you are, what you do, and what you do NOT do. So a list of your standards is something you can display on your 'about' page, publish in Notes, or share on other platforms. See the last paragraph about the human benefits of doing this to understand the potential of the virtuous loop.
And it's FUN.
So well, my blog is still too young to make this list totally official, it will probably change A LOT, but... some principles I will follow no matter what, because they are at the core of how I think about writing, especially online.
This is this list :
- make it personal : i've come to realise and appreciate really personal writing, funnily, personal makes it more universal and useful
- don’t format my voice : I think in both languages, I use weird expressions, I make mistakes, and that makes it all more personal (so I guess this is the same principle as the one above)
- fuck format : this is rather new, but yeah, I want to just... write more. and that means being less attached to 'the rules of writing' (hence why this blog is not edited, and lenght-diversed)
- link, link, link : ideally, I would link to one person and at least one of my other pieces of writing everytime I publish, this is the way of the healthy web
- make it interesting for me : if I don't find it interesting, I don't pursue, if I don't find it fun, no more either, I need to get something out of it all (seems so obvious when I write it down now, but I am a high masking autistic woman level of people pleaser, I have done a lot of things I didn't want to do)