Visceral, Cryptic, Truthful

If I had to put the writing in three words, those are the three. They are in that order on purpose.

Visceral

Visceral means it goes through the body before it goes through the brain.

The practical version: physical over abstract, always. Not "I was anxious" but the thing your hands were doing. Not "it was a hard year" but what was in the sink. Abstraction is where writing goes to die, because an abstract noun asks the listener to supply the feeling themselves, and most of them will not bother.

I learned this from Modest Mouse and had it confirmed by Action Bronson from the opposite direction. One uses roads and weather, the other uses food and brand names. Same principle: put an object in front of the feeling.

Sometimes cryptic

This is the one that gets misread as being difficult on purpose.

Some things do not survive being said plainly. Not because they are too deep — because the plain version is inaccurate. Say it straight and you have produced a tidy sentence about something that was never tidy, and the tidiness is the lie.

Cryptic, done right, is precision rather than evasion. You build the shape of the thing out of its parts and let the listener assemble it, because assembled understanding is the only kind that lands.

Done wrong it is a hiding place, and I know the difference because I have done it wrong. The test: can I say what it is about if somebody asks? If yes, cryptic was a choice. If no, I was avoiding something and calling it art.

Always truthful

Truthful is not the same as literal. Details move, timelines compress, two people become one person. That is craft, not deception.

What it means is that the emotional content is not fabricated. I do not write a feeling I have not had because it would sound good. I do not invent a harder version of my life for texture. I have not had the biography that sells, and borrowing one would be the single fastest way to make this worthless.

It is also why the money page exists, why the budget is published to the dollar, and why the page about turning thirty-six lists what it costs as well as what it gives. If I will not tell the truth on a website nobody is forcing me to write, the claim is worthless on a record.

Why the order matters

Visceral first, because unfelt writing fails no matter how true. Cryptic second, because it is a tool and tools are optional. Truthful last because it is the constraint everything else operates inside — the one I do not get to trade away for a better line.

Plenty of good writers would trade it. That is a legitimate way to work and it is not mine. After ten years on one record, the only thing that makes the ten years worth anything is that the thing at the end is actually mine and actually true.