We recently connected with Moe Houston and have shared our conversation below.
Moe, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
That’s a great question actually, since the towards the end of 2023 coming into 2024, I was sparked once again. I want to say I was hurt by a number of things and I think the pain caused me to feel like I should write again. I was in a writers block for a long time. I just could not find the passion to go about writing. I also felt like I gave a lot of my time to things to perhaps build upon my story. I like to call my writers block a time of actually having things to write about. 2023 was a tough year for me and even coming into 2024 I have had to make a ton of adjustments to feel whole again. Writing was a big piece to this, I always felt better about myself when I wrote my feelings down and put them into a story. Pieces of this will probably go into my new book that’ll come out in the next year or so. Can’t say too much on it yet though haha, but yes this I would say pain keeps my spark alive. The outcome is happiness, if that makes sense at all? Yeah? I hope so hahaha.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am a Self-Help Author and I have published a book called “Time Flies Finding Yourself”. A little piece of me is that I wrote this at the beginning of my 20’s and now i am gearing towards the end of my 20’s it’s time I dive into a sequel of this story that I wrote from my early age. The most exciting thing about being a writer is that anything I face in life can be turned into another page in the stories that I write about. A ton of people have came to me and told me that my story was so relatable but they never knew how to express that in words and that I made them find those words and thoughts they were looking for. Something like that melted my heart once I heard it. It’s those kinds of people that make me continue to keep going. Which is why I think this interview is special by saying; in due time I have another story that’s coming to the market soon!
Something I also believe when discovering my brand, please note that I don’t sugar coat and I will never paint the picture that I know everything, I am just giving my experiences and how I navigated through them with the hope that people like me can avoid a lot of the obstacles I had to cross. We don’t need to struggle if we have recourses out here to help us do that. Whether that be writing, therapy, friend groups. Anything that can take you out of the funk you’re in. In my writing, I say that in my own voice. I don’t have a “true” writers voice. I write as I would speak, in my normal tongue.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Listening; empathy, communicating. These 3 are probably my best because if you genuinely want to me listen to something you’re doing or playing. I will give you my 100% undivided attention and treat you as if you’re the only person in the room. If you need me to show up I will. I also have empathy for anyone’s situation that arises. I think this is one of those special qualities because sometimes people don’t want an answer they could just want someone that’s understanding of the situation and possibly a hug and that’s okay. Which brings me to my last quality which is communicating. A lot of people I have met recently says they have this skill which is very ironic because when it comes down to it, I think people miss the mark on this. Even sometimes me too, but I am always throwing the olive branch to give the safe space for people to communicate more on what they need from me and vise versa. Communicating your feelings to people that DESERVE it, is what I found to be most important. Often I will keep my mouth shut to those that I don’t feel like will grasp the communication piece.
The advice I would give to folks early in the journey on developing these is do way more listening than speaking. Listen to all of those around you and I mean really listen and then form your own opinion given the opening ear you gave yourself to others. When you have thought about your process as to how you should go about something and talked with your village about it. You can do anything but just spend most of your time listening and it makes your speaking that much more valuable, because you just don’t speak for nothing. You speak when you need to, that is way more powerful.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
Ahh.. I have thought about this a lot while creating my new book. I have always said that we aren’t made to work this world alone. I have always wanted to collab with a more creative writer that could give me more tips and spins to take my story to the next level. I have read some stories that two brains came together and made an amazing book/story. So I feel like one day, maybe even in this book I could bring someone along that could help.
I think the people I am looking for are also coming from my genre of writing style. I don’t want to pull someone that doesn’t get it? You know? I would rather show than teach and we can bounce great ideas to make the story that we could write together or how to help an individual project. I think it’s helpful to have someone with you that is also facing the same things you are facing. The power in numbers, nothing greater.
If they wanted to connect with me, I would suggest by email but you can also find my instagram/facebook as well!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/moenotmaurice
- Instagram: @MoeNotmaurice
- Facebook: Maurice Houston
- Linkedin: Maurice Houston Jr
Image Credits
Photographer | Dominic Berlinger – @Dominic.robert_
