Introducing #PBREADS & the reason why you should create content you love

Almost a year ago, I got struck by creative fear. I was writing about what I would know, big lessons that hid a thousand meltdowns that I would conceal too well. I wrote similar stories, with different words. Always teasing on the edge of what was really happening but never reveiling the full picture. Soon people became to notice, my narrative became repetitive. It hurt. I shrugged my shoulders and said “yes, but I write about my life, it’s not my fault no prince charming comes my way and that I am no Carrie Bradshaw”. I brushed it off. Moved on. But the criticism was always on the corner of my mind. Create Create Create. Do better Do better Do better. Loser, this sucks. I was trying too hard and I wasn’t writing about things I loved anymore. I was writing to write. To write write write. Taking pictures to be liked liked liked. The aftermath was the #10happythings series, one desperate attempt to do things differently but that surprisingly connected with people. I often wondered why. Why we are all so curious about what make each other happy? And I soon understood. I understood that while we all pretend to live on highs, only half of them are real. We seek for what it is missing in other’s people happiness. In what seems real. So we can try it out and hope to feel it as well. And my 10 happy things were always the real deal. They are the silver lightning of my life. The proof that no matter how shitty a month could get, there would always be space for 10 happy things there. I noticed that for once, I was actually talking about stuff that made me a thousand percent happy. I wasn’t talking about pain, or disappointment or anything in the moody badass category. I was talking about stuff I loved, that would give me starry eyes and butterflies in my stomach. Stuff that actually meant something to me. And there are so many things that mean so much to me but that I don’t talk about. Because it is unconventional. Because it is not cool. Because nobody talks about that in this world. Yet the more I grow in this industry and the more I realize this stuff is exactly what connects with people. Just like the 10 happy things did. I started posting stories about the books I read, my body insecurities, ranting about things that piss me off like a motherfucker, the person I really am behind the gram. Creative fear might have been a bitch, but a year after, here I am full circle, being more free than I have ever been with the words I write and the words I say. The surprising thing is, I don’t think I have ever had more real conversations with my followers than now. Young women contact me to give me book recommendations, to celebrate the fact that I am brave enough to be the weirdo me online, to tell me that they feel so similar to me they think we could be great friends in real life and that? That makes me sing. That makes me dance. That makes me want to do more and more and more. That makes me so happy to be me, and nobody else. Not because of the validation, but because it led me to understand that the only way I can make a difference is by sharing the things that make me me. Because somewhere there is a niche, as vast as it is, just for people that will appreciate what I, and only I, create and write. For now, we are a small PB family but we keep growing. Just like the things that make me me. And so while I started the year promising full transparency and have lived up to the promise ever since, I want to start sharing more. So today I will start a new #PBREADS series where I will share all the books that I am reading with you guys. To bring stories others than mine to the PB narrative and talk about how they made me feel. Hoping you enjoy watching as much as I enjoyed reading.