Thanks for the Advice. I’m Still Gonna Do It My Way.

I’ve been talking to the same so-called mentors for years.
You know the type.
They mean well.
They’ve “been around.”
They’ve “got connections.”
They’ve always got a finger on the pulse — or at least they think they do.

And for four straight years, their pulse has been on the wrong body.

One year it’s:
“You’ve gotta write a horror movie. Horror sells. It’s hot right now.”

Next year it’s:
“Have you thought about something elevated? Like Jordan Peele but cheaper?”

And now it’s:
“Micro-budget, super personal, festival-friendly trauma-core. That’s what’s hitting. That’s the new thing.”

Funny.
Because I’ve been writing those stories for years —
the personal ones.
The ones only I can write.
Not because they’re trendy.
Because they’re mine.
Because I lived them.
Because I bled them.

And now it’s a “trend”?
Now it's a hot take?
Thanks for catching up.

That’s the problem with pattern recognition.
It always looks backwards.
It tells you what was working —
never what is working.
Never what will work.

And if you try to build a strategy off yesterday’s data,
you’re already behind.

Let me be clear:

I don’t write horror because I don’t like horror.
Not really.
The ones I do like? They barely count as horror.
They’re dramas with shadows. Grief with a mask.
But I’m not here to chase the genre.
I’m here to chase the truth.

The stories I write —
the ones I keep coming back to —
they’re the ones that wreck me.
That scare me because they’re too real, not too fictional.

And every time someone tells me to pivot, to brand, to “crack the market,”
I smile and nod.

And then I go home and write what only I can write.

Because that’s my currency.
That’s my edge.
That’s the thing nobody else has —
not even the mentors.

So sure, keep your patterns.
Keep your insider tips.
Keep looking at the last wave and pretending it’s still rising.

Me?
I’m gonna stay on my board, eyes on the horizon.
I’m gonna trust the thing that hasn’t broken through yet —
because it’s not supposed to look familiar.

If it looks too familiar, it’s already dead.

You want a life that matters?
Make the stuff only you can make.
Tell the stories no one else has the scars to tell.
Say the thing you’re afraid might be too real.

And let the trend-chasers eat each other alive trying to predict the next thing.

You’re already building it.