Chameleon Magazine

 This article challenges the common writing advice that says, “Don’t write about yourself.” The author argues that this advice is often misunderstood or misused to discourage personal storytelling. Instead, they make the case that writing about yourself—your experiences, emotions, and perspective—can be incredibly powerful if done with intent, craft, and empathy.

The point isn’t to avoid writing about yourself, but to write about yourself in a way that resonates with others, transforming the personal into the universal. The best personal writing doesn’t just say, “Here’s what happened to me,” but rather, “Here’s something you might feel, too.”

Ultimately, the article reframes self-centered writing as self-aware writing, encouraging writers to embrace vulnerability and authenticity—not as indulgence, but as connection.

Why I Will Absolutely, Definitely, 100% Not Write About Myself (Until I Do)

Look, I get it. The internet is already drowning in people writing about themselves. Their morning routines. Their oat milk preferences. Their thoughts on death, dreams, and shampoo. So I’ve made a firm decision: I will not write about myself. Not here. Not now. Not even accidentally in the footnotes.

This post will be a clean, clinical analysis of narrative structures, societal narcissism, and how the cult of personality has become a digital skin condition we all pretend we don’t have. This will not be a confessional. I’m not here to emotionally undress. I’m wearing triple-layered narrative armor and a sarcasm helmet.

Now, where were we? Ah yes, not me.

Let’s talk about you. Or them. Or humanity, abstractly. Isn’t it fascinating how people are obsessed with telling their stories? As if their unique journey through artisans coffee shops and unresolved daddy issues is somehow groundbreaking. Let’s be honest, most memoirs are just therapy sessions with better fonts.

But me? No, I have restraint. I have dignity. I have—

Sorry, just had a memory of the time I tried to write a novel and accidentally cried into my keyboard because the character said something that reminded me of my childhood hamster, Bertrand. He was wise. Stoic. Had one eye. We don’t talk about Bertrand. But that’s not about me. That’s about trauma as a literary device.

Anyway, let’s pivot to craft. Writers should focus outward, on the world! Observe! Chronicle! Detach! Don’t navel-gaze like that one time I stared at my own reflection in a coffee pot for fifteen minutes after a breakup and realized I’d never truly loved anyone more than the idea of being misunderstood.

But I digress.

The point is—and I must be clear about this—the best writing is not about you. It’s about what you see. What you imagine. What you fear. What keeps you up at night wondering if your mother was right when she said you were too dramatic to own a slow cooker. Wait. No. I mean “you” as in people. Not me. I’m not even in this sentence. This is a ghost sentence. A third-person hallucination.

So, to recap: I am not writing about myself. I refuse. I stand tall, impersonal, unsentimental. I have transcended ego. I am the narrative equivalent of a cucumber.

Which reminds me of the time I threw a cucumber at a literary agent who ghosted me after requesting a full manuscript. But that’s another story. Not mine. Definitely not mine.

THE END.

(Or is it just the beginning of me admitting I never stood a chance against writing about myself?)