The Art of Crafting Tomorrow

Moving from a diary to a playbook

⏱️ Read time: 3 mins (grab some coffee)

Portrait of Fernando Pessoa, by Jose de Almada-Negreiros

"Literature, like all art, is a confession that life is not enough."
- Fernando Pessoa

Life is served raw. It’s usually a mixture of random events put together by chance. But living by chance is not enough for me.

I want to be the author of my story, writing each chapter as I see fit. In verse when dreaming, playing with words, watching them dance with my ideas. And in prose when taking action, anchoring my thoughts and goals into reality. I want short sentences when I’m impatient, and longer ones when I’m playful. I want to grasp the guiding thread in my hands and control the narrative through its tension.

Diary entries

For too long, I’ve found comfort in writing about the past. It’s familiar and safe, and the lessons are already learned.

When I write about my past, words hit the page at the speed of thunder, yet, in my mind they come alive at the speed of lightning. That’s the magic of writing, the time gap between thought and word that allows me to adorn reality with the brushstrokes of my imagination. That’s why things often look better on paper because I have the power to edit, to revise, to shape the narrative until it aligns with the vision in my mind or the image that I want to share with the world.

There is value in reflecting on where I’ve been, the choices I’ve made, and the paths I’ve walked, but I want to shift my focus from the past to the future. I want to write not just about where I’ve been, but where I’m going.

Strategy

Writing is living in slow motion. It’s a deliberate act, one that requires me to pause, reflect, and choose my words with care, and this is the idea I want to embrace as I move from keeping a diary of yesterday to crafting a playbook for tomorrow.

A playbook is nothing more than a plan, a strategy, a blueprint for what’s to come. It’s proactive, not reactive. It’s about setting intentions and making choices that will lead me to where I want to go.

So how do I write my future? It starts with clarity of vision. I must see, with as much detail as possible, the life I want to live. I must picture the scenes, hear the dialogues, and feel the emotions that will fill the pages of my story.

Then comes crafting, making daily decisions, forming habits, and taking risks. It’s about setting the stage and creating the right environment for my story to unfold. It’s about being both the writer and the character, fully immersed in the process, yet aware of the broader arc of the narrative.

I refuse to let tomorrow be a blank page filled with randomness or, worse, written by others.

I will craft my pages with intention, one word at a time, one decision at a time, to ensure that I am the hero of my story. And the story I choose to tell will be nothing short of extraordinary.

Placed on the shelf

Then, on a day still distant to come, I’ll be nothing more than a hard-cover thick book, resting on a shelf waiting for someone to pick me up and read my story aloud. This might be for eternity, so I would be very happy if I could have some company there, so I hope you try to write your story too and that someday we’ll form a collection.

-Danny

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• This week’s essay is shorter than usual, but I’ve spent 10x more time writing it. It was an exercise of removing everything that I thought was unnecessary and using everything I’ve learned about writing for the last 4 years. Thanks to

  CansaFis Foote
  ,
  Patrick O'Loughlin
  (and his
  The Feedback Freak
  project), and
  Oscar Hong
  for their kind feedback on my early drafts.