As most of you probably know by now, I earn most of my living via professional freelance copywriting, brand-building, ghostwriting, and similar work.

I’m also a freelance solo writer. I don't run an agency or anything, and I’m not particularly interested in changing that. I don't have staff. I'm the whole product all by myself — my writing, my skills, my ideas, my experience — all put to work for the client.

This morning I received a message via the contact form attached to my professional portfolio. It was from a young woman offering a catalog of freelance writing services that were practically identical to my own, minus the experience.

Basically, she wanted me to hire her to do the exact same thing I already do, outsource some of my client work to her, or both. Yet one of my selling points is actually that I do everything myself and never, ever outsource any of my projects. I like to build relationships with my clients and for them to know who’s creating their assets from one project to the next. It’s all over my site, even.

In other words, she didn’t read the room.

I'm really not sure how she found me. However, I strongly suspect it was LinkedIn or a similar platform that does double duty as both a place to network with peers and a place to meet potential clients. And I get it? We’re all out there trying to make a buck any way we can these days, and I know people figure it never hurts to ask.

But I am not even in the neighborhood of being this woman's target audience. Kind of got me thinking about how often I actually see stuff like this happening.

If you're like most current or aspiring online freelancers, your circles are probably packed with other people who do what you do.

Writers follow other writers, and designers tend to know other designers. Editors swap stories with other editors. We all share advice, talk shop, and commiserate over the weirder parts of self-employment. Every so often, we collectively stare together in disbelief at a job listing offering $12 for 4,000 words.

That experience can be great for what it is. But it also creates this weird little marketing bubble where attention from your professional peers starts merging with attention from prospective clients to the point where you can’t really tell the difference anymore.

And yes, sometimes those two audiences overlap.

Usually, though? The person enthusiastically commenting on your latest post about the sorry state of freelance rates in 2026 isn't the same person with a healthy content budget to spend and three assignments that need writers stat.

Who's Actually in Your Market?

I know way too many fellow freelancers who define their markets in terms so broad they’re really not defining anything. Like, seriously, I’ll see a writer basically saying they work with “businesses that need content” or a designer targeting “brands that need great design.”

Yes, those things are technically true of pretty much every business or brand, but in a “duh” kind of way — like saying a restaurant's target demographic is “people who eat.” You need to get specific about who you’re really marketing or pitching to, and that starts with figuring out who can actually hire you.

Find the person who can say yes

For a freelance writer seeking work, that person might be an editor, content manager, agency owner, creative director, or small-business owner. It’s not “literally any warm body.”

Let’s say you have two people who call themselves freelance writers while serving completely different markets. One might specialize in technical B2B white papers, while the other is all about ghostwriting romance novels. Those two people will have portfolios that look very different. Each possesses a highly specialized skill set the other doesn’t.

This doesn’t mean they should try to sell to each other. Writers aren’t generally looking to hire other writers, especially out of nowhere. (Maybe if they’re actively looking to start an agency or something, but that’s about it.)

Look for people making actual hiring decisions instead and start thinking about what matters to them.

Think about why people need you

People hire freelancers these days to solve problems, cover knowledge gaps, and otherwise make up the difference for an existing team on a level AI just can’t. So consider what likely happens right before a prospective buyer starts looking for someone like you.

Maybe the internal team is overloaded, a load-bearing employee just left, or a massive new product is launching soon. Agencies sometimes land enormous accounts and suddenly need more hands. I’ve had many clients bring me on board because a project requires special expertise nobody on their existing team has or because their regular freelancer is booked solid until November.

What does someone facing those situations need to know about you? How can you put that out there in a way that makes them go, “Yes, that’s the one?”

Who Is Your Content Actually For?

Most of us don’t have some super-organized master plan in place when it comes to our professional content. We just kind of go to town writing about subjects we know. We cover things we've learned, questions people ask us, and whatever else might have been rattling around in our heads all week.

In other words, freelancers often wind up producing a shit ton of material that appeals primarily to other freelancers. And that's fine? But you need to be aware of it and ask yourself whether that's what you actually want to be doing.

Peer-facing and client-facing content have different jobs

Most writers I know (who also write about their craft) publish at least some peer-facing content. That could cover topics like:

• Finding clients

• Setting rates

• Productivity

• Workflow

• Difficult-client experiences

• All the many weirdnesses that just come with freelance life

But client-facing content usually showcases your expertise from a completely different direction. For example, you might discuss:

• Common problems businesses encounter with the kind of content you create

• Explain what makes a particular deliverable effective

• Explore an issue within an industry you serve

• Show how you've solved a relevant problem in the past

I write The Writer in the Wild largely for other writers, freelancers, and fellow creatives looking to strike a better balance as far as what they’re doing with their lives. Not much room there for even a great article aimed exclusively at companies shopping for marketing copy.

I’d probably put something like that in my portfolio, publish it on LinkedIn, or maybe try to find a guest-blogging opportunity that’s right for it.

Instead of trying to make everything serve everybody, consider how you might use different platforms and outlets to compartmentalize your professional presence. Then give people something worth finding when they get there.

Don’t let engagement fool you

So, let’s say you publish a real banger of a humor post about clients who schedule meetings that could have been emails. Maybe 75 fellow freelancers descend upon it right away to share war stories and multiple variations on “OH GOD, THIS.”

By lunchtime, you might well have a minor hit on your hands. (Love when that happens.)

Then two days later, you publish something that really demonstrates your expertise in a particular industry you serve. Three people react (if that).

I get that engagement is everything these days, so it’s hard not to see the first post as the better, more successful post. But consider the possibility that one of the three people who reacted to the second one is more likely to be a marketing director who spent the next 20 minutes looking through your portfolio.

All likes and comments really tell you is that X-number of people felt moved to respond to something you put out there. They don’t necessarily tell you whether the people responding (or silently reading) are actually in a position to hire you.

Prospective clients also evaluate your professional presence completely differently from your peers. They’re there in the first place to figure out whether you understand their problems, can handle their type of project, communicate well, and seem reliable enough to trust with a tight deadline and a chunk of their allotted budget.

Meanwhile, your fellow writers probably just think your meeting jokes are hilarious.

Your Fellow Freelancers Still Belong in Your Professional World

Now, I’m hardly saying you should explicitly surround yourself with prospective clients and no one else. (God knows I don’t.) You don’t have to judge every professional interaction by its likelihood to lead to future invoices, either, because how boring.

Networking with peers can be a genuinely enjoyable experience.

Plus, other freelancers can eventually become terrific referral sources or collaborators. They might recommend you for projects they can’t take or aren’t qualified for, share useful information, or remember your particular specialty when someone asks if they “know a person.”

In some cases, they may become clients (although probably not via a cold outreach out of nowhere). Professional relationships and peer kinships are well worth cultivating on their own terms. That doesn’t make every freelancer a sales lead.

Just read the room a little.

Before you approach someone strictly to try to sell them something, maybe take 30 seconds to understand what it is the other person actually does. If someone’s entire website essentially says, “Hire me to write your copy,” for example, pitching them your copywriting services probably shouldn’t be your next move.

Do a Quick “Who Am I Talking To” Audit

Curious about whether your own professional bubble has gotten a little too cozy to really serve your bottom line? Take a look at the last 10 pieces of professional-facing content you’ve published on whatever platform you use for this purpose.

For each one, consider:

• Who was this primarily created for?

• What did I want that person to know, think, or do next?

See any patterns emerging?

If you’re actively trying to attract clients right now and eight of the pieces you looked at mainly speak to people who offer the same services you do, it might be time for some adjustments.

This isn’t to say those eight pieces weren’t useful at all. They might have strengthened professional relationships, helped another freelancer who’s struggling, demonstrated expertise, or otherwise started worthwhile conversations.

Client acquisition, though? Probably not.

It’s also worth taking a look at who’s been engaging with you lately. Because an audience consisting only of fellow writers and other peers can become self-reinforcing after a while. Algorithms tend to keep showing people’s work to folks who closely resemble the ones already interacting with it.

A Freelance Presence Has Room for Multiple Audiences

It’s totally possible to have peers, collaborators, readers, existing clients, and prospective clients all involved in your online professional world at once. That doesn’t necessarily mean they all need (or want) the same things from you.

I’ve found it helps to really know which room you’re speaking to at a given time, as well as what you’re doing there in the first place.

Lately, I’ve been allowing the different facets of my online writing life to mingle a little more, as today’s internet doesn’t really lend itself to total compartmentalization the way it used to. That’s meant learning to talk shop in the places and contexts where talking shop makes sense.

And if I choose to build relationships with my professional peers and fellow creatives, it’s because I see them as people who are worth knowing and following.

That said, you don’t necessarily need fewer fellow freelancers in your professional world. You do need a clear understanding of when you’re shooting the breeze in the break room and when you’re actually talking to the folks who sign the checks, though.

These days, most people in my circle who are familiar with me because of anything art-adjacent tend to remember me best as the one-time moderator of a large, now-defunct AI art group on Facebook. Either that, or I’m that weird chick who keeps rendering creepy horror and occult imagery and posting it on social media.

As a result, they also usually think of me as an “AI artist,” for better or worse.

But when I was younger, I was actually a pretty serious traditional artist. I was highly proficient at drawing and painting, even winning state-level awards for my work, receiving scholarship opportunities, and earning enough external validation to establish that I did, in fact, know which end of a paintbrush was the business end.

There’s just one slightly inconvenient detail I feel like I should confess here.

As an autistic person with strong ADHD tendencies, I never particularly enjoyed the actual process of making art, and being really good at it never did much to change that.

I loved coming up with ideas for pictures, though. Visual art gave me a way to tell the many odd stories in my head a little better, including ones I’d already written. And I loved reaching the point where I finally got to see the image in my head staring back at me from a piece of paper or a canvas.

But the many hours between those two points? Well, much to the irritation of every other artist I knew, that part was mostly just a necessary evil.

Back then, I accepted most aspects of painstaking detail-work as part of the deal because there wasn’t really another way to get the picture out of my imagination and onto something tangible back then. Meanwhile, plenty of artists genuinely loved the act of personally laying each brushstroke.

Computers, Photoshop, digital art programs, and now AI have been making that trip from Point A to Point B a lot faster for me over the years. But talking about creativity as though loving the process is practically a job requirement is certainly nothing new.

In actuality, people sit down to make things for all kinds of reasons, and it isn’t necessarily because they want to be able to call themselves an Artist™ and have others unanimously agree.

We Talk About the Creative Process Like There’s Only One Way to Do Things

A genuinely serious painter is supposed to lose all track of time at the easel, while the devoted writer cheerfully agonizes over individual sentences and word choices. Musicians are supposed to practice the same passage hundreds of times, woodworkers can lovingly sand a sculpture or a piece of furniture for literal years, and everybody emerges deeply fulfilled by the sheer act of practicing their craft.

And yeah, plenty of creators really do work that way. Most of my old art school acquaintances certainly did.

For them, the physical or intellectual process provides a huge portion of the reward that comes with making something in the first place. Developing greater technical mastery over the years makes it even more satisfying. And that’s fine.

But I start throwing side-eye once time and difficulty become proxies for seriousness. Really, I get it. Doing something manually just plain feels more authentic than taking a shortcut, and spending 12 months on a project almost invariably sounds more impressive than spending 12 days on it.

Make the work involved faster or easier, and somebody will inevitably wonder whether it still counts. But that leaves out an awful lot of creative people (and no, I’m not talking about AI, so chill).

Whether you’re a visual artist, musician, writer, or passionate tap dancer, you can absolutely care deeply about what you make without cherishing every step required to make it. Shit, you can even actively hate some of them. I won’t tell anyone.

So what are you here for?

Yes, a lot of people are all about the craft itself. But my “reason” has always been the desire to turn something imaginary into something tangible, even when it comes to writing and non-visual arts I dabble in.

Other people might create because they want to:

• Tell stories

• Communicate ideas

• Solve interesting problems

• Master difficult skills

• Connect with other people

But the more I think about it, the more I feel money and formal recognition might belong on that list, too. Creative motivation doesn’t somehow lose its purity because you enjoy selling your work or having people appreciate it.

I assume most of us probably have several of these going on at once, and if you’re anything like me, the roster changes a lot over time.

Build a Creative Process That Actually Fits You

Once you know what you actually want from your creativity, you can start building your own process to fit that instead of always defaulting to what everyone else says you should be doing.

1. Focus on the part you’d still do even if nobody saw it

Think about your usual creative routine and get rid of the audience (existing or potential) for a minute. Forget about sales, likes, praise, professional opportunities, and that one lovely person who reliably comments on almost everything you post.

What about your current creative routine would you keep doing?

Other people’s approval is great and all, but that stopped being why I sit down to simply be creative in the first place a long time ago. I still invent characters and world-build even in cases when I know I’ll likely never get around to writing the stories. Other folks might sketch constantly or play guitar alone in their bedrooms.

Whatever it actually is for you, pay attention to that part and protect it. It’s where at least some of your intrinsic creative satisfaction lives.

2. Now find the part you’re really just tolerating

Every creative practice has stages that feel like something you “have to” just slog through before you can get to the part you actually like. But how many of those stages actually contribute to anything you value?

I might spend hours on one particular part of a creative workflow strictly because it’s required if I want a finished piece. I don’t have to like it, though.

Disliking a particular stage doesn’t necessarily mean it’s time to buckle down and chug a big mug of discipline. I know it’s a cardinal sin to even admit as much, but I am literally never going to like color mixing. Ever.

3. Separate difficulty from value

Plugging away at something difficult and refusing to give up can be really good for us. It improves your skills, makes it possible to produce better work, occasionally teaches you something unexpected, and can give you the satisfaction of mastering something that might have seemed impossible before.

Sometimes, though? A task is just difficult. Full stop.

I’ve learned over the years that when I find myself taking the labor-intensive route, it’s worth also asking what I’m getting in return for all that extra effort, because it damn well better be something.

“Because this is how serious artists do it” isn’t a good reason, just in case you’re wondering. Not all by itself. Who died and made Facebook Chad the ultimate authority on art anyway?

4. Take a closer look if you engage in multiple creative disciplines

When I was younger, I used to actively work in well more than one medium, while constantly daydreaming about adding more — art, creative writing, piano, poetry, you name it. I also lumped everything together under the heading of “being creative.” For years.

But the day eventually came when I realized I wasn’t getting the same payoff out of all of them. Not by a landslide.

As I mentioned, I liked certain things about the act of painting, but often only as an aside to my creative writing. And part of me totally wishes I could knit, because I really do think the repetitive handwork would relax me, but I also know enough about myself to know it would quickly become an exercise in the wrong kind of problem-solving.

Paying attention to reactions like that helped me figure out which of all the creative options I was pursuing were really adding to my life and which were just cluttering it up. It certainly helped me figure out why I stick with certain creative pursuits while gradually drifting away from others, even examples I’m technically very good at.

5. Keep the hard parts you really care about

Becoming more efficient at what you do doesn’t necessarily mean stripping every difficult or time-consuming step out of your process. Sometimes that’s where the fun happens.

I know writers who swear up and down that handwriting their first drafts helps them think more clearly. And plenty of people enjoy mixing their own paints, editing photographs one at a time, sewing things by hand, or spending an unreasonable amount of time finding just the right adjective for a particular poem.

Could these people accomplish the same basic task faster? Almost certainly. But stepping on the gas would also remove something they genuinely value about the process.

If you’re just trying to make things look impressively inconvenient from the outside, explicitly so no one accuses you of being an AI, though? Cut that shit out.

6. Don’t apologize for making the rest easier

Any part of your process that doesn’t carry any personal value for you is a great candidate for replacement or substitution.

Seriously, it’s 2026. I know people love to shit on anyone who wants anything about creativity to be easier, but there are just so many solutions you can explore (and a lot of them are non-AI). For example, you can use templates, work digitally instead of manually, dictate, or buy premade materials.

You can also consider collaborating with somebody whose skills complement yours or automating super repetitive tasks. And you’re not being graded on any of this (probably), so feel free to keep reference materials handy instead of trying to prove all over again that you can reinvent the wheel from memory every single fucking time you need a wheel.

7. Finish this sentence as honestly as you can

And don’t think about it too hard, either:

I make things because __________.

You can’t simply name your medium of choice, though. Like, consider the way “I make things because I love writing” just kicks the question further down the road.

Why do you love writing?

Do you like inventing people who feel real? Some people just really enjoy solving aesthetic problems, while others like making people laugh or creating something today that didn’t exist yesterday.

You’ll know the right answer when you stumble over it. Keep digging.

You Don’t Get Brownie Points for Taking the Scenic Route

For most people, creative time is precious and finite. So are energy, money, and the number of functioning Wednesday afternoons the average person can reasonably expect from life.

That makes choosing where to spend those resources part of the creative process (and an important one at that).

The whole rest of the creative world might happily devote six months to mastering a technique you’d rather accomplish another way, because God knows it feels that way at times. That choice even makes sense if mastery is part of what they came for. But you’re within your rights to spend those same six months completely differently.

Knowing why you create makes it so much easier to decide which difficulties actually deserve your time in the first place, and there are plenty of roads to explore. Take the one that actually goes somewhere you want to be, and don’t you dare stop to apologize.

I’ve been pouring a decent amount of my spare time and energy into recalibrating certain aspects of my online identity lately (as one does). I can’t help but notice that I’ve become a lot more comfortable letting certain parts of who I am show online, often in their rawest form.

And yes, I absolutely mean things that I almost certainly would have kept to myself in the past.

For instance, I apparently openly call myself an occultist now. I’m not necessarily screaming it from the rooftops or anything, but it is right there where clients, readers, random acquaintances, and everyday passersby can easily find it or see it if they’re looking.

I’m still in the process of figuring out why I’ve done that or where I’d potentially like that particular choice to lead, because I have a feeling it’s somewhere. But knowing me, it might eventually segue into a new side hustle or some other creative opportunity. It certainly makes my various online spaces feel more like places I actually want to spend my e-time.

I know it’s occurred to me that certain types of people will see a word like “occultist,” decide I sound terrifying, and quietly show themselves the door so I don’t eventually have to do it myself.

Because as creative professionals, we hear a lot about how to make ourselves appealing, non-offensive, and universally accessible online. We hear way, way less about the potential value of becoming more specific, especially when that choice gives some people a reason to stick around and others a reason to keep it moving.

I’ve started thinking of this as “radical visibility,” and I’d like to talk to you about it today.

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What Is Radical Visibility, Anyway?

Is this actually a thing? I honestly have no idea, but I’m using “radical visibility” here to describe the deliberate choice to make meaningful, distinctive parts of your identity, interests, values, aesthetics, or creative life publicly visible, even when you also know damn well those things will probably limit your appeal.

Plenty of creatives already do this in one form or another when you really stop to think about it:

• An illustrator can openly embrace at least a portion of an odd subculture that fuels their work instead of presenting themselves as a generic commercial artist.

• A novelist might openly discuss the oddly specific historical rabbit holes they travel down before sitting down to write their fiction.

• Freelancers often allow their personal humor, aesthetics, strong opinions, or unconventional interests to freely coexist alongside the professional material they share.

For people with several distinct creative identities, radical visibility gives those worlds a chance to touch in ways that are honestly pretty cool.

Like, maybe a freelancer who writes marketing copy for brands also publishes horror stories when she’s in the mood. (Hi!) A professional photographer might seriously love death metal and like to blog about it on occasion, while an executive with the world’s most sensible LinkedIn profile might be super passionate about weekend doll collecting.

I personally love finding this sort of thing out about the people I discover or follow online. I wish I saw more of it, especially considering how much of the internet’s original quirkiness and raw authenticity is missing these days.

What You Gain (and What It Costs)

Obviously, choosing radical visibility changes the way people perceive you, which is kind of the whole point. People have a lot more information to help them decide how they feel about you. That can be good, bad, or sometimes both at the same time.

The upside

A nice, strategic visibility upgrade can offer online creatives some very practical advantages:

• You’re easier to remember. It’s almost impossible not to dissolve into the wallpaper on today’s internet, but specificity gives people something to associate with you beyond just the same “freelance writer” or “digital artist” label jillions of other people already use.

• Your people actually can recognize you. Shared interests, aesthetics, values, and sensibilities create natural points of connection with readers, prospective clients, customers, and fellow creatives.

• Your digital spaces start feeling more comfortable. Maintaining a perfectly sanitized professional persona online is every bit as exhausting as doing it in Meat World, especially when you spend a substantial chunk of your life online.

• Some really cool opportunities might find you. A visible niche interest can become an essay series, product line, creative specialty, collaboration, new service, or entirely new branch of your work more easily than you think.

• You pre-filter your audience. I’ve learned to really like the way stating certain things about myself up front inspires people who ultimately wouldn’t like me anyway to see themselves out sooner rather than later. You might, too.

The downside

And of course, any choice to share more (or share differently) comes with a bunch of tradeoffs to consider. So, before you plant some super conspicuous flag smack in the middle of your online identity, make sure you carefully consider what else might come with it:

• Potential clients, employers, collaborators, or readers might make assumptions about you based on one unusual (or maybe just unusually visible) trait.

• Audiences can be like algorithms in that they occasionally latch onto one single aspect of a person and decide that must be their entire deal.

• Public identities have a way of sticking around, even years after the humans attached to them have changed.

• Increased visibility can invite unwanted scrutiny and attention, sometimes from really irritating people.

• Authenticity itself can even become a performance if you start feeling obligated to reveal increasingly personal things about yourself or your life just to keep an audience interested.

For these reasons and many like them, radical visibility works best when it represents a deliberate choice. You can control more of that process than phrases like “putting yourself out there” tend to imply.

How to Become More Visible Without Turning Yourself Inside Out

You don’t necessarily need to fling open every door and window when it comes to your personal life to experiment a little with radical visibility. Here’s how you can turn your experiments into something actually useful to you.

Decide what belongs in the shop window

Consider what you genuinely want associated with your public identity.

That could include unusual creative influences, a popular subculture you participate in, your quirky sense of humor, an unconventional specialty, your personal aesthetic, or even some of the obscure subjects you can happily discuss all night.

Just make sure you build some boundaries around whatever you choose.

For example, as a writer, I frequently discuss firsthand experiences and deeply held values while sharing very, very little about… say… my family or the private details of my marriage. People don’t need a guided tour of your personal life to appreciate your take on a niche interest you want to share.

In other words, visibility has a volume knob. Use it.

Know what you’re willing to lose

Being super candid about who you are can definitely cost you opportunities, so make sure you know what the risks are before you dive in. Depending on your industry, financial situation, or subject matter, consequences could range from “mildly negligible” all the way to “oh, shit, canceled.”

So yes, this is something I actively do and that I genuinely find liberating. But I’m self-aware enough to understand that running a self-owned independent creative business leaves me with way more room to fuck around and find out than someone currently job hunting in a conservative field.

So ask yourself a question before you go push some hypothetical big, red button:

Am I comfortable with someone deciding against me because I said this publicly?

Feeling confident enough to post something is one thing. Being genuinely cool with what happens afterward is something entirely different.

When it comes to audience filtering, relax and let it happen

If you’re anything like I’ve always been when it comes to sharing and publishing online, you probably don’t necessarily like everyone who feels drawn in your direction. Makes this a particularly good time to ask:

Who would I rather discourage from getting super comfortable here?

And I completely get how counterproductive that probably sounds, especially considering how much work goes into building and maintaining an audience in the first place.

But I also speak from personal experience when I say that a smaller group of people who genuinely appreciate your work, humor, interests, and general sensibility can be way more rewarding than a larger audience that makes you feel like you have to self-edit constantly.

You can apply the same logic to potential clients. Genuine compatibility makes professional relationships easier and more rewarding on both ends, especially when building ongoing relationships.

So, yeah. Trust that if you start editing yourself less, there will be people out there who don’t like it and might bounce as a result. Good. You don’t want those people following you anyhow.

Leave room for change

All human beings change and evolve, even you. Realizing that and acting accordingly can save you a lot of future hassle.

Whatever you publicly claim today should leave room for evolution, as well. So, use your labels of choice all you want while they remain useful. Build projects around subjects that matter to you now to your little heart’s content. But also understand that later, you might move on.

Even though I’m hardly a spring chicken anymore, I still treat my public identity more like a living body of work than a corporate logo carved into the side of a mountain somewhere. I want to help people better understand who I am without also handing them some false guarantee that I’ll stay exactly the same forever.

Seriously, if you’ve ever stumbled across some ancient social-media bio of yours still gathering e-dust somewhere, you already understand the wisdom here on at least some level.

Give your visibility somewhere to go

I typically give my pet interests space in my online identity just because I enjoy them and want to share. Sometimes, they surprise me, though.

In the past, I’ve noticed that some readers seem more interested than average when I discuss a particular subject. Or maybe some really out-there art experiment I didn’t think people would “get” does better than expected. Every so often, something I previously considered completely unrelated to my “real” work turns out to be part of it after all.

If you notice that happening to you, offer interested people somewhere interesting to follow that thread if they’re into it. Create a portfolio category, newsletter, shop collection, occasional essay series, resource page, service, or small experimental project. It can be anything.

You can figure out monetization later, assuming you even want it.

Protect your privacy

You can (and should) publicly discuss your tastes, creative obsessions, opinions, and favorite cracker toppings at length while keeping enormous portions of your actual life entirely to yourself.

I firmly believe that personal relationships should always more or less stay offstage, at least as far as the intimate details go. No one needs to hear the details of your personal correspondence, either. And probably best not to ever discuss a whole lot about your home life, finances, vulnerabilities, sensitive family matters, or anything else you rightly consider private.

You can put radical visibility to work for you when it comes to establishing clearer boundaries with people who follow you, as well. When healthy followers fully understand what you make, what interests you most, and how you prefer to interact, they have less need to fill in the blanks themselves with “whatever.”

Of course, there will always be unhealthy people who try to blow past the guardrails for reasons of their own, because the internet remains the internet.

Sucks to be them, though.

If you’ve already been upfront about where the gates are (and how high the fences actually reach), you don’t owe people anything beyond that.

Becoming Easier to Recognize

Today’s internet is already packed to the point of bursting with countless writers, artists, photographers, designers, freelancers, and assorted creative weirdos. All of them are already competing like crazy for the limited amount of attention modern people are willing to pay to much of anything these days.

Sanding yourself down so that you’re smooth enough to fit in anywhere gets rid of the very detail that gives someone a reason to actually remember you.

Radical visibility does the opposite.

It will almost certainly cut way back on the number of people who vibe with what you’re putting out there right off the bat. But it also gives others a better chance of seeing you and immediately screaming, “Hell yes, my people!”

Because those are the folks I’m actually sharing any of this for in the first place.

At this point, I’ve been writing things for other people to read for what feels like eons. I’m also what I like to think of as a fairly personal writer, yet very little of what I’ve put out there over the years reads much like actual memoir writing.

Even my personal work usually has some other job to do these days. If I’m not explaining something, deep-diving into my latest pet idea, or offering some kind of advice, I’m probably still trying to give the reader something useful to walk away with that they didn’t have five minutes ago.

But read enough of my work, and you’d still probably get to know me surprisingly well.

You’d eventually find out what I value, as well as what irritates the living piss out of me. You’d hear all about different things I’ve tried, mistakes I’ve made, subjects I can’t resist obsessing over, and countless stances I’ve reconsidered over the years. You’d probably even develop a reasonably accurate read on my occasionally dark, very off-color sense of humor (for which I apologize in advance).

But that’s what I actually like about producing writing that’s meant to be at least somewhat instructional in nature — sharing little things about myself while also potentially helping the reader. Win-win, right?

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Useful Writing Works Best With a Real Person Behind It

This is especially the case in 2026 when basic information is as easy to come by as it is.

Obviously, search engines still exist, but now we also have generative search, AI assistants, dauntingly enormous archives of videos and social posts to comb through, and approximately 9 billion separate people willing to explain just about anything to death on Reddit.

So, yeah, if what someone actually wants is a generic list of tips for developing a better writing routine, organizing their home office, starting a newsletter, or finally learning how to watercolor, they’ve got ten at their disposal in milliseconds. But only an individual can add the personal context that comes from having actually been there.

Google itself now recommends creating “non-commodity content” whenever possible — content based on firsthand experience and unique insights or data that can’t be replicated by anyone else (including AI). You know, anything uniquely you.

Doing things this way is better for your authority cred and your readers, anyway. To list just a few examples, it can:

• Show readers where your knowledge actually comes from

• Provide valuable real-world context for otherwise abstract advice

• Alert people to exceptions, potential complications, and lessons learned through experience

• Make common, familiar information a lot more distinctive and memorable

• Help readers get a better read on the priorities behind your recommendations

Readers also get a valuable opportunity to know you a little better without needing to know everything about you. Because “personal” and “private” definitely cover very different territory, and you don’t want to learn the difference the hard way, but that’s a whole other conversation all by itself.

7 Ways to Make Useful Writing More Personal

Don’t worry. I’m not about to tell you to bust out some heartwarming childhood anecdote for your reader’s consideration before explaining how to unclog a sink. Different subjects obviously leave room for different levels of Personality™. Insert personal elements that add actual value to the information, and leave the rest alone.

1. Explain why the subject has your attention

I find personal context makes a great lead-in for quite a few different subjects.

Maybe you tried something on a whim that worked unexpectedly well or kept on encountering the same problem for years before finally figuring out a solution. I know that for me, simple conversations have been the catalysts for countless reconsidered assumptions over the years.

Zero in on the relevant part of the story you want to tell, and give it to your readers. I want to emphasize that the word relevant is doing some seriously heavy lifting here, though.

Like, if you’re writing about a lesson you learned while renovating your kitchen, we definitely need to hear about the renovation. But the entire annotated history of your homeownership journey can remain safely backstage with a tiny sandwich and something to read.

(Seriously, please leave it there.)

2. Turn your experience into evidence

Firsthand experience actually doubles really well as a miniature case study.

Let’s say you’re recommending a basic productivity technique, something I do a lot. I’d probably start by telling readers what my situation looked like before I tried it, explain how I adapted the method to fit my needs, and then close with what happened afterward.

I’d likely mention the part that didn’t work, too. Not only will that information hopefully save someone else at least one afternoon of all the swearing I had to go through, but being honest about my fuck-ups keeps me relatable.

But then you want to pull back from your own experience:

• Which parts of the lesson are broadly applicable, instead of just unique to you?

• Who might benefit from trying the same thing you did?

• Are there specific circumstances where you’d actually recommend another approach instead?

Personal stories you weave into your writing supply evidence and context. But the bulk of what you write should still be about the reason the piece exists in the first place.

3. Show people how you actually do it

I’ve noticed that a lot of instructional writing, even the really useful kind, describes an idealized version of a process that bears only a passing resemblance to how anybody actually behaves in real life. Real methods are way more interesting, though, so go that route.

If you’re talking about something you regularly do, show readers the shortcuts you’ve discovered, the tools you genuinely use (instead of just the ones that make you look cool), steps you’ve eliminated, and modifications you’ve made along the way. Really explain how your process differs from the conventional version, especially where the distinction makes a difference.

Plus, all those little choices reveal little things about you without the need to take a literal anecdote break. Trust your readers to take whatever part of that works for them.

4. Leave some of your opinions in

A lot of writers have a habit of spit-polishing instructional material until every trace of personal judgment about the topic at hand eventually disappears. And yeah, the result may be super competent, but it also usually sounds like the article came out of some beige conference room somewhere.

Well-chosen opinions really only add to the value.

So if you think a popular technique is overrated, explain why you feel that way within a context your readers can use. Introduce your preferred alternatives and tell readers why those. Point out distinctions you wish you saw other writers talking about.

How you go about this also tells people something about you. “I hate this method” definitely tells people one thing. “I stopped using this method because it created these three problems” gives them something they can evaluate against their own circumstances, though.

5. Tell readers when you changed your mind

I’m sure my parents would heartily beg to differ, but I’m not anywhere near as stubborn as I appear. I actually change my mind a lot. I also highly recommend it, especially if you want to be a better writer. It gives you the golden opportunity to candidly offer readers both sides of a lesson.

Start with what you used to believe or how you did things before. Go into what challenged your original assumption, whether it was experience, new information, repeated failure, or even just realizing there had to be an easier way to get something done. Then show how you do things differently now.

Readers get to see how an idea holds up outside the tidy world of sterile theory, while you get to acknowledge growth in a way that feels personal, entertaining, and cathartic.

6. Choose details that belong to your actual life

The books you reference, hobbies you draw comparisons from, conversations you remember, odd little bits of research lodged permanently in your brain, and examples you instinctively reach for when you’re trying to make a point all help leave your fingerprints on the things you produce.

It’s also a lot easier (and more effective) than trying too hard to develop a “unique voice.”

Draw from the world you actually inhabit when choosing examples to bring into your narrative. A few well-chosen specifics can make instructional writing feel a lot more approachable. Just don’t use too many. Seriously, every last one of us can tell a story about that one time we just wanted a quick hummus recipe but had to slog through 1,000 words of rambling about what chickpeas mean to the author first.

Or something. Nobody likes that.

7. Tell readers what you’re optimizing for

Advice makes a lot more sense once we know what a good outcome looks like to the person giving it.

Let’s use productivity as an example again.

Maybe one writer wants to maximize output because they’re trying to get a new business from idea to launch as quickly as possible. Another might want a system that just plain gets shit done while preserving plenty of time for reading, family, hobbies, or lying on the sofa watching an appalling amount of Scandinavian crime television.

Those two people need different advice. Whether or not they can both get it from your piece might be debatable, though. So when your unique values factor into a particular recommendation, say so. Tell readers why you chose one method over another, what you wanted that choice to accomplish, and how it ultimately got you there.

This helps people decide for themselves whether your advice fits their priorities instead of presenting one lifestyle choice as universally optimal. Over time, repeat readers also come to understand what you actually value as a person and a creator.

Your Body of Work Is Telling a Story

And this is the case whether you intended for it to or not. The more you write, the more of a record you accumulate.

The individual pieces you write might be tutorials, essays, reviews, stories, or posts about subjects that seemingly have very little to do with one another. But taken together, they contain pieces of the person who made them:

• Experiences you considered worth sharing

• Opinions you defended (or maybe eventually pivoted from)

• Mistakes you admitted

• Bad jokes you couldn’t resist

• Values that kept informing your advice

• Existential dread that keeps oozing in through the cracks no matter what you do

Eventually, you look back and realize you’re looking at some weird, accidental form of autobiography. I kind of like that idea, though, especially since I still haven’t gotten around to writing a real, live memoir and quite possibly never will.

Because you can spend years making work that primarily serves other people and still leave a million little pieces of yourself behind for others to eventually discover. So maybe your readers learn something useful today. Given enough todays, they might also learn who has been talking to them all this time.

If you’re like most online creators, you probably spend a pretty big chunk of your time thinking about how to get your work in front of more people in the first place.

I don’t personally stress over it these days to the extent I used to. But I’ve definitely been known to tweak headlines, at least consider SEO, cross-post articles, and cuss under my breath at the enigma that is today’s algorithms before launching something into the world.

If I could go back in time, though, I’d start thinking more about what happens next right from the beginning. I’d especially consider how I actually wanted people to communicate with me if they did find my work and feel compelled to reach out as a result.

But in my defense, the internet used to be a lot different back when I first started publishing online (and dinosaurs still roamed the land).

Once upon a time, I had readily available email addresses and chat client handles attached to my blog. The various social platforms I was on had built-in messaging, of course. And if someone specific really wanted to contact me outside of whatever the obvious route was at a given place, there was almost always at least one more option available.

That worked fine, until it didn’t.

Because somewhere along the way, people (or at least my people) became less inclined to engage in community discussions in comment sections and more apt to just slide straight into my DMs instead. Sometimes solely because they like discussing the things they read one-on-one with the actual creator instead of in public.

I used to think that was a people problem. But I actually had a communication system on my hands that wasn’t serving me the way I wanted it to anymore. Maybe you do, too.

Every communication channel you might be using teaches people something about how to engage with your work and connect with you as a creator (should they decide they want to). Worth thinking about if you don’t want your audience to simply decide for you.

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Every Communication Option Sends a Message

These days, it’s probably anyone’s guess as to how a particular creator actually wants people to engage with their content or go about getting in touch.

One creator might display their personal email address underneath every article and message, because they’re cool with all the email all the time. Another may encourage readers to leave comments while linking out to a contact form specifically for business inquiries. Maybe a third keeps their private messages open everywhere but rarely answers them.

Each of those people is telling people something different about how they prefer to communicate, even if they didn’t necessarily set out to. That said, your communication channels are part of your brand, and they’re an important part of setting the norms you want people to turn to for guidance:

• If your favorite part of writing is seeing readers actively discuss your ideas with one another, make sure your comment sections feel like the obvious place to do that.

• If you’re actively interested in freelance work, media appearances, or licensing opportunities, set up a dedicated contact page that makes this clear.

• And if it’s something else I didn’t even think to mention here, same rules apply. Make it the obvious choice, possibly by explicitly telling people, “Use this, please.”

Because I’ve had to learn the hard way that choosing the “wrong” communication methods wasn’t the biggest mistake I ever made on that front. It was accidentally encouraging interactions I wasn’t looking for and didn’t particularly enjoy.

Give Every Communication Channel a Job

I’ve spent a decent chunk of the last year actively revamping my online presence and rethinking how it works, and one of the more useful things I did was assign each of my individual communication channels a specific purpose.

For example — for me —blog comments are where some of the best conversations potentially happen, so I far prefer those when it comes to casual, everyday conversation and interaction.

Readers can ask questions, challenge ideas, add their own experiences to the mix, crack weird jokes, or even just tell me they really enjoyed reading something. And I always did love the way those conversations always eventually became part of the article itself and added to its value. Future readers could learn from what others were saying, join in, or discover perspectives I personally would never have thought to include myself.

But when a simple comment doesn’t seem like a private enough way to reach out, I personally prefer professional contact forms to email or instant message — especially for editors, potential clients, interview requests, permissions inquiries, and similar opportunities.

Making that switch has been helping me:

• Discourage spam, because if one more stranger slides into my DMs uninvited to try to sell me their app or e-course, so help me

• Keep my reader correspondence organized, because I’m really not a natural at that

• Protect my privacy, because it’s becoming increasingly important to me, especially as I get older

• Show I take the things I put out there seriously and clarify what kinds of opportunities I’m open to

• Set and manage reader expectations upfront, so I don’t have to keep explaining why I don’t mentor people for free or chat with people I don’t know

It’s also proven to be a solid way to subtly encourage people to interact with me in the ways I like most (yay, comments) and maybe rethink the ways I don’t like as much more often (DMs, I’m looking at you).

So far, so good.

Encourage the Conversations You Want to Have

Back in the day, simply talking things out in the comments seemed like second nature, but things seem different now (at least for some creators).

These days, an article gets published, and someone has a thought or a question. But I’ve noticed that rather than add it to the discussion where everyone can benefit and potentially join in, that same person might decide to just fire off an email or private message instead.

Then I’ve got a conversation on my hands that only two people will ever see. And if more than one person does that, I’ve also got email homework I never asked for (and in all likelihood won’t actually do).

I like, prefer, and miss public discussion.

It helps other readers decide whether an article is worth reading and gives people with similar experiences a chance to join the conversation. Sometimes people even answer each other’s questions, and I love that for them (and for me). Plus, public conversations give me a better idea of how the stuff I put out there actually lands.

So I try to make that the path of least resistance these days, as well as actively invite comments and respond to good ones.

Make Boundaries Part of the Design, Not the Response

In addition to people choosing DM or similar over public conversation in recent years, I’ve also had trouble with boundaries.

Every once in a while, someone won’t necessarily have a response to my article, but they will catch that I’m a professional writer and decide it can’t hurt to send me one of those “hey, can I pick your brain for a sec” messages. Some even expect immediate replies, because of course they do.

I’ve also had people (mostly on social media) decide out of the blue that I might “really get them” and file that away for future reference. And before I know it, someone I’ve never met is crashing out in my Facebook inbox in the middle of the night because they “just had a feeling” about me.

I’m learning it’s a lot easier to prevent misunderstandings like those in the first place than it is to try to walk them back to Boundary-ville later. Clarity and an intuitive ecosystem are your friends here. Think:

• Clear contact page

• Simple FAQ

• Contact forms (preferably with explanations as to what they are and aren’t for)

• Maybe a short sentence explaining that responses aren’t guaranteed

I’ve found features like those act as signposts that help answer questions before people even know they have them. They also take uncertainty out of the equation for people who genuinely do want to respect your preferences.

Naturally, there will always be people who ignore even the clearest directions and wander cheerfully off-script and into the flowerbeds anyway. It’s way less likely to happen by accident, though.

Audit Your Communication System

Not sure whether your own approach needs an update or not? A quick self-audit takes maybe 15 minutes tops and can save you at least a handful of big headaches later.

Start by taking inventory of every place where people can currently find you online (e.g., website, newsletters, socials, Linktree, etc.). Then ask yourself a few questions.

“If someone discovered me today and wanted to get in touch, what’s the obvious next step?”

Is it reading another article or subscribing to your newsletter? Do you want the person to message you (and if so, about what), or would you rather they just leave a comment? Decide what path you actually want them to follow and make sure that option’s actually the natural choice.

“Do all of my communication channels have clear purposes?”

Or is everything simply just another way to reach you? Tell people up front what each is for. Consider eliminating anything that truly isn’t fruitful at all.

“Am I encouraging the conversations I genuinely enjoy having?”

If your favorite interactions happen in your comment sections, point people there. Most people actually like to be told what they should do next and will happily comply.

And if you’re looking for freelance clients, speaking opportunities, or similar? Make sure it’s as easy to figure that out as possible, preferably within a few seconds if someone’s looking.

“Do my boundaries exist anywhere outside my own head?”

So let’s say you’re… I don’t know… me. You know you don’t offer free consulting or mentorship, but your readers don’t. Or maybe you know you rarely to never answer direct messages on social media. Does your audience?

People can’t respect boundaries they don’t know about.

“Am I maintaining a communication channel just because it comes with the platform?”

I’ve noticed most platforms are really generous with the buttons these days — message, chat, connect, and all that jazz. None of those features are obligations, though.

If one channel in particular consistently generates unwanted homework, creates audience confusion, or encourages conversations that really belong somewhere else, you’re within your rights to close it or otherwise redirect people toward something that works better for you.

Your collective communication system should support the creative life you’re trying to build, not give you more to stress over. If it’s not doing that, it’s time something changed.

Every posted email address, contact form, FAQ page, and direct message setting teaches people something else about how you actually prefer to interact with folks. It’s best to intentionally manage those expectations, rather than let other people (or the platforms you’re on) do it for you.

So maybe take an afternoon and audit your communication ecosystem real quick. Make sure any open channels have an actual purpose attached to them, and make your favorite kinds of conversations the easiest to actually have. Give awesome professional opportunities a nice, clear way to reach you, too.

It’s taken me way too long in my life as a creative to realize setting boundaries isn’t necessarily about becoming less approachable. They’re about making it easier for wanted, quality conversations to find you in the first place.

By now, we’re all aware of the fact that Substack just rolled out a couple of new AI transparency-related features. One is the new AI detector powered by Pangram. The other is an optional "How I Make This" statement creators can draft to explain how (and if) AI fits into their workflow.

Guess which feature is sparking more conversation (and understandably so).

Multiple frustrating professional experiences showed me some time ago that AI detectors are absolute bullshit. They’re famous for producing false positives and just generally reminding us all that robots can be super wrong when it comes to a lot of things.

They're also foolable.

Seriously, there's an entire content writing subcategory out there now that revolves strictly around “humanizing” AI content enough that it slips past these dumb-ass detectors with ease, and it's absolutely a learnable skill.

Most serious writers have also had to learn it to make sure they won't totally flunk a scan if some suspicious client decides to push their deliverables through a detector. I myself no longer write exactly the way I used to, because I don't want clients thinking I sound like an AI when I'm not one, but that's a whole other conversation.

Really, the main advantage of adding an AI detector here or anywhere is to give people some sense of control over everything going on, even if it's a false one. Because if someone really doesn't want you to know they use AI? You won't. Period.

The “How I Made This” statement, though? Well, that actually struck me as a genuinely useful idea.

Because readers have every reason to care about how the content they enjoy is made, and creators gain real advantages when they decide to clarify their process up front. No, adding a statement won't answer every question someone could possibly ever have about your work, but it does support solid trust-building.

I take my wins where I can get them these days.

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So I Went Ahead and Added a Statement

Filling out the little box where my transparency statement was meant to go took all of a couple of minutes.

I even decided I liked the general idea enough to expand on it.

So, I ultimately added the same statement to the About pages for both of my newsletters, as well as my personal blog and Medium profile. Basically anywhere I post long-form content that counts as “writing.”

I wanted people to be able to access it along with the rest of the essential info about my publications instead of waiting for it to pop up after someone was already wary enough to run a scan I may or may not actually pass.

Because I've always been transparent about my fascination with AI and the fact that I find the technology genuinely helpful.

I’m also already 100 percent transparent about the fact that I use it to create, edit, or refine illustrations and merchandise designs, often even including info about the models and engines I use. I’ve also discussed the fact that I talk to AI about various things before — everything from branding strategy to skincare to movie analysis.

Extending that same transparency to my writing felt like a natural next step.

I'm not going to sit here and say I think every creator has to use AI the way I do (or at all), as I don't actually care how other people make their stuff. I don't expect people to agree with my choices, either, although I will say I’m probably not for you if you expect creators to turn their noses up at AI across the board.

I am saying that I don't think people should have to guess what those choices are.

I’ll provide the information upfront. People can decide on their own whether or not that's something they want to support.

Transparency Has Always Been Important

But it's downright essential now that AI has entered the chat and decided to put down roots.

Because creative work has always involved tools that change pretty much everything about how people create. Think word processors, digital cameras, search engines, and all the rest of it. Others might beg to differ, but really, AI is simply the latest addition to a very long-running list.

It's the uncertainty it also brings to the table that makes it so different. Because while readers know AI exists, they also have very little real idea how individual creators are actually using it.

One writer might use it strictly to brainstorm titles or bust out a rough outline before drafting every word themselves. Another might use it to outsource the entire writing process from start to finish. Both technically "use AI," even though their actual workflows don't have much else in common.

I really like the way a transparency statement fills in that missing context voluntarily, without people having to ask or push content through some bullshit detector to feel better about consuming it in the first place.

If I wanted to bullet out some benefits, I’d point out stuff like:

• Building trust instead of forcing readers to ask questions

• Setting clear expectations right up front

• Giving people enough information to decide whether your approach actually aligns with their values and preferences

• Demonstrating confidence in your work instead of opening yourself up to the wrong kind of speculation

• Distinguishing your unique workflow from the countless other ways people might choose to use AI

• Starting the conversation with facts instead of a bunch of guesswork

Nobody has to believe you, and a lot of people might not.

But it seems reasonable to assume that if someone trusts you enough to subscribe, follow, or otherwise keep returning to your content, they probably also trust you not to just up and lie about how you make what you make.

How to Write an AI Transparency Statement Readers Will Actually Appreciate

A decent transparency statement doesn't necessarily need to answer every question someone could have. All it needs to do is give readers an honest picture of how AI fits into your creative process, preferably at a glance.

Explain how AI helps

"Yes, I use AI" could mean almost anything these days, so tell readers what that actually looks like for you as far as specifics.

Maybe you use it similarly to the way I do — for brainstorming, research, outlining, image generation, or possibly just organizing your thoughts before you begin writing. Maybe you use it completely differently or refuse to touch the tech with a 50-foot pole.

Whatever your approach is or isn’t, help people sort it out by including concrete examples they recognize.

Also cover what's all yours

Your readers are just as interested in the human side of your work. So if all of your writing, opinions, editing, creative judgment, or personal experiences are entirely your own, explicitly say so. Help people zero in on where the technology stops and you begin.

Answer questions you know readers have

Right out of the gate, a transparency statement should answer the questions you see people asking the most, but without morphing into a whole-ass dissertation on the subject.

Focus on details people genuinely want to know instead of trying to anticipate every possible criticism or edge case in advance. If people want to discuss things further or follow up with more questions, they will.

Talk like an actual human being

Seriously, you're not drafting a legal disclaimer or a corporate policy document here, so write this the same way you’d explain your process to a friend over coffee. Use clear, conversational language that’s easy to follow and understand.

Skip the buzzwords about "leveraging AI-powered solutions." Literally nobody likes that or thinks it makes the person doing it sound smart.

Avoid absolutes you might have to roll back later

Creative workflows evolve pretty fast these days, especially when it comes to tech that changes as quickly as AI does, so use your statement to describe how you work today. Avoid making sweeping promises about how you'll work forever, as you can't possibly know that.

If your process changes six months from now or next year (and it probably will), it's easier to tweak a short statement than have to explain why an old one no longer reflects reality.

Publish it wherever readers connect with you

Once you're done, consider using your statement wherever people usually discover your work — newsletter, blog, portfolio, personal website, Medium profile, etc. Readers appreciate (and need) consistency, and making that information easy to find shows you're comfortable with transparency.

The mere existence of AI is changing the way we creatives work in 2026 and beyond, whether we actively want to think about that or not. Readers are naturally going to be curious about where these tools fit into the work they spend their time supporting as a result.

I'm hardly saying that posting a transparency statement will settle every debate surrounding AI or even stop people from questioning your work, because people gonna peep.

It doesn't really need to, though.

It's more about proactively giving readers the straightforward answers they deserve instead of forcing them to fill in the blanks themselves. Trust-building is hard, but transparency has always been one of the easiest ways to get people there.

This is just one more opportunity to use that to your advantage.

I’ve been earning a living with my words for a really long time at this point. Yet one of the most valuable things I’ve learned in my life (professional or otherwise) has surprisingly little to do with writing.

It’s actually about people.

By now, I’ve dealt with clients, coworkers, editors, customer experience reps, contractors, business owners, and all the other colorful characters life inevitably tosses into our orbit at whatever point. Some of those interactions have been effortless. But others have left me staring at the ceiling at 2 AM, mentally rewriting a conversation that ended hours earlier, because this is when brains think of the perfect comeback.

Experience has taught me something those imaginary conversations never did — that most relationships become easier once we stop expecting people to behave according to whatever script we’ve written out for them in our heads.

That said, the lessons I want to share with you in this post didn’t come from leadership books or business seminars. They arrived the slow, hard way — through countless misunderstandings, awkward conversations, successful collaborations, and enough trial and error to fill a whole damn book of my own.

(Maybe I’ll write one, I don’t know.)

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People can’t (and don’t) follow the script in your head

Every one of us moves through this world with invisible expectations in tow, whether we admit that to ourselves or not. Let me count the ways (some of them, anyway):

• The plumber should immediately understand the problem.

• The customer service representative should appreciate how polite we’re being.

• The client should recognize the immense amount of effort we put into a project.

• The friend should somehow know what we meant instead of responding only to what we actually said.

And speaking as a dyed-in-the-wool, stubborn ass myself, I get it. When reality doesn’t match that internal screenplay, frustration (and possibly blind rage) isn’t ever far behind.

I’ve found life gets much easier when I remember that everyone else is starring in a movie of their own, though.

All of the other people I deal with day to day have information I don’t have, worries I can’t see, and interpretations I never intended. Once I finally got that and stopped trying to force reality to follow my private script, unknown to anyone but myself, I had a much easier time working with the people actually standing in front of me.

Professionals are still people

A lot of us think of professionalism as something that grants some magical degree of immunity from ordinary human emotions.

It doesn’t.

The world’s best, most personable electrician can still feel accused when approached about a problem with a new fixture he installed. An experienced editor can still feel discouraged by a harsh email, and even a really professional freelance designer can have an exhausting day.

Expertise doesn’t replace a person’s humanity. All it can do is exist alongside it. Eventually recognizing this, even if it took me a while in life, has saved me more time than trying to prove I was technically right ever did.

Because respect isn’t about flattery or pretending someone never makes mistakes (or shouldn’t make them). It’s about remembering that every interaction involves another human being’s imperfect nervous system. So, if making someone feel a little more respected helps us solve the problem faster, it might be a better investment than winning an argument that never needed to happen in the first place.

The customer isn’t always right anymore

I know a lot of us (especially those of us who are of a certain age) grew up hearing that “the customer is always right.” But whether that was ever completely true is debatable.

Independent contractors can and do choose who they want to work with — usually exactly why they become independent contractors in the first place. Skilled tradespeople often have waiting lists, freelancers quietly compare notes amongst themselves, and businesses sometimes decide a customer’s patronage simply isn’t worth the stress they cause.

As a one-time humble retail worker employed by somebody else, I had no choice but to deal with every customer who walked through the door, no matter how shitty they were to me. Now that I’m a freelance creative at the helm of my own business, this is no longer the case, and I make decisions about who I will and won’t work with accordingly.

I’m not saying that’s a reason to start tiptoeing around everyone. I am hoping it will serve as a reminder that relationships work both ways. Being respectful, patient, and reasonable doesn’t just make someone else’s day easier. It also makes people far more likely to want to help you again the next time you call.

Just saying.

Intent and impact are two different things

One of the hardest communication lessons I’ve learned over the years is that people don’t experience my intentions. They experience my words.

I may think I’m just being concise while someone else hears impatience. I may believe I’m asking a perfectly reasonable question while another person hears criticism. The opposite happens just as often. Someone might send me an email that feels uncomfortably short because they’re busy, making it really easy for little old sensitive Shannon to pick up on irritation that isn’t actually there.

So, yeah, intent counts for a lot. But it may or may not correlate to actual impact.

It’s usually worth leaving at least a little room for clarification before definitively deciding what someone meant. That’s helped me sidestep more than a few misunderstandings over the years.

It’s also worth paying attention to feedback when you actually get it. Because no one is better at telling people I perceive as disrespectful to go kick rocks than I am. But if I keep hearing the same feedback about myself or my communication style from a crap ton of different people (or all people)? I know there’s probably something to it.

The common denominator in all of your interactions is always you.

Someone’s emotional reaction can be pretty useful

Because it tells us how a particular statement or conversation actually landed, regardless of our intent. That doesn’t automatically mean the other person is correct, nor does it automatically mean we’ve done something wrong. It simply gives us another piece of information to work with.

So if someone I’m communicating with feels frustrated, defensive, embarrassed, or confused, I can either pretend those feelings don’t exist or acknowledge that they’re now part of the situation. One approach usually leads to progress, while the other mostly just leads to longer conversations that feel like they’re going in circles.

Guess which one is which. I’ll wait.

Arguing with reality is a waste of time

I’ve spent decades of my one life wishing people were more logical, more patient, more self-aware, and just plain better communicators in general to know how little that actually accomplishes.

Reality doesn’t suddenly decide to cooperate with my wishes because I have really good reasons for why it should. Neither do people.

Because people misunderstand things. They overreact, and they have blind spots. Sometimes they’re absolutely delightful, but a lot of the time, they’re running on three hours of sleep and an alarmingly questionable gas station burrito.

Whatever the reason may be, the situation in front of you is what you’re dealing with, for better or worse.

Work with that. It’s literally all you’ve got.

Assume there’s something you don’t know yet

Whenever I catch myself building one of my little butthurt internal stories about someone else’s motives, I do my best to interrupt it with one simple thought:

There’s probably something I don’t know yet.

Maybe the person misunderstood me. They might be overwhelmed or have received different information than I did. Maybe they just plain forgot, as I myself have done many, many times.

You shouldn’t necessarily give everyone the benefit of the doubt forever, because that’s a shitty approach, too. I am suggesting that you delay judgment long enough to gather a few more facts before you decide you know what’s going on.

Decide what outcome you actually want

Before responding to someone, I try to ask myself what I’m actually trying to accomplish in the first place:

• Do I want this broken appliance repaired?

• Do I need a critical misunderstanding cleared up?

• Am I looking for a refund, an apology, a productive working relationship, free Tater Tots with my next order?

Well, then I’d better think about that before I open my mouth and let loose just because it would feel good in the moment.

Sometimes reaching a goal requires taking a different path to get there. Because it’s so easy to spend all our energy proving we’re right without really noticing we’re also drifting further away from the outcome we originally wanted in the first place.

Teaching myself to keep the destination in mind, even when I’m super pissed off, helps me keep my internal GPS on track. Because hell yeah, free Tater Tots.

Every interaction leaves an impression

Most people won’t ultimately remember a single email or one passing conversation, when it comes right down to it. (Probably, anyway. Whopper emails for sure exist.)

They remember patterns, and those patterns will ultimately dictate their takeaway impressions of certain people. They are how one person could eventually become:

• The person who’s consistently respectful, even when they’re angry

• The customer who stands out because they always communicate clearly

• The client who’s a damn delight to work with through every single project

• The contractor who always follows through and stands by their work

Impressions like those solidify over time, and they often also open doors we never see. Someone might recommend your name or squeeze you into a busy schedule when literally anyone else would get a no. Maybe someone gives you the benefit of the doubt when it’s really critical because your track record has totally earned it.

They can close doors, too.

Very few of those things will ever happen because of one interaction. They happen because dozens of ordinary ones gradually added up. And honestly, how you handle the sticky ones probably says more about you than how you are when everything’s perfect.

Living with other human beings has always been a little messy, and I don’t think there’s even an outside chance that will ever change, because people. We all bring our own histories, assumptions, blind spots, personalities, and occasionally questionable communication skills into every single interaction we have.

Once I finally understood that and stopped expecting people to behave like flawless professionals, perfectly rational customers, or mind readers who instinctively knew where I was coming from as a result, my experiences with others became a lot less exhausting.

They also became far more productive overall.

People are complicated. Learning how to work with that complexity is ultimately about recognizing reality, treating others with a little grace, and remembering that almost everything we accomplish in life almost always depends on cooperating with another imperfect human being at some point along the way.

I’m hardly proud of it, but that’s a lesson my pig head has had to learn more than once. I suspect I’ll keep finding new ways to learn it for the rest of my life.

As some of you may be aware, I turned 50 earlier this year. And while you’d think being 50 wouldn’t logistically feel much different than 49 or even 45, it really does somehow.

I officially don’t think of myself as “young” anymore or even “young-adjacent.” I don’t completely see myself as “old” yet, either. But I’m well aware that my life is probably well more than half over by now, with a lot of possibilities off the table altogether.

But I value things a lot more than I used to. And I think a lot more carefully about how I spend my limited resources, including even small portions of my time and energy.

For example, I’ve started mentally estimating how many more times I’ll realistically be able to do certain things, like rewatch my favorite movies or revisit my favorite books, before I inevitably drop dead. I ask myself a lot of odd questions these days as a result:

• How many autumns do I have left to experience, and how many winter holiday seasons will I decorate for — 40, 30… 10? Fewer?

• How many more times will I get to revisit Twin Peaks, or Mad Men, or Outlander, or Vikings?

• Do I still have enough time to eventually become fluent in German? What about Norwegian or French?

• If I started a new 10-season television series or 9-installment book series today, would I actually finish it? How long would it take? Would my time be better spent revisiting a series I already know I like?

• Which of the experiences on my life wishlist are still fine languishing in the “someday” section, and which ones should move to the front of the line?

Somewhere along the way, I started calling this little exercise (and the choices it results in) my Death Tour™.

I know. Sounds morbid as fuck.

But if you actually know me, you also know that it’s really not like that. This has actually morphed into one of my better habits as far as making wise time management decisions and just plain appreciating life a lot more.

The other day, I realized my Death Tour mentality has even started influencing my creative life.

For years, I approached my various creative projects and dreams the way I know a lot of us do. I felt like real creatives entertained every interesting idea. Every rabbit hole was worth exploring, and every new hobby-focused whim had potential I needed to develop.

So, another epic book series, another language, another new skill from out of left field, another art project? Why the hell not?

Well, I guess 50 is why not.

I’ve always technically understood that I don’t have “forever” to become who I want to be or do the things I want to do in life. But 50 is far enough past what I think of as my salad days and close enough to the end of my life (even if I live to a ripe old age) that I want to be more intentional about my choices.

Because people do sometimes drop dead out of nowhere in their 50s. That could easily be me. So, does this — whatever “this” may be in that moment — really deserve a portion of one of my remaining creative seasons?

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When Time Stops Feeling Infinite, Your Priorities Change

When I was still super-young, I was absolutely one of those curious people who collected interests with the same spontaneity they would souvenirs or knick-knacks for a curio shelf. Every new fascination seems capable of fitting somewhere into my long, long future. I logically knew “the future” wasn’t infinite, but I also knew it was probably vast enough that it might as well be.

That’s changed a little bit at a time as I’ve realized life’s a little more complicated than “work hard, cash in” and learned what’s really important to me as a result.

And that’s certainly not unique to me.

Researchers who study motivation across the human lifespan have learned that as people become increasingly aware that time is finite, they also place greater value on experiences that feel personally meaningful. Psychologists call this socioemotional selectivity theory, but the experience they’re talking about is very natural and instinctive.

You just start making choices differently.

That said, I’m fully aware that every substantial new project I might daydream about taking on is probably asking me for more than just a free weekend. It’s going to demand months of my attention, if not years. It’s also going to burn increasingly limited mental energy and creative gas I won’t be able to apply to something else.

In some cases, that project might require me to sacrifice things that already really mean something to me — like my carefully guarded evenings, my weird gardening experiments, or all those peaceful little moments when my best ideas usually sneak up on me.

Do I want that? Maybe.

But quite possibly not. Especially at this point.

What the Death Tour Taught Me About Creative Work

Young Shannon assumed I’d eventually become fluent in countless languages, completely master every creative medium that ever interested me, write piles of every kind of book there is, and somehow also keep up with every fascinating subject I encountered along the way.

Only someone with their entire life ahead of them could ever be so naively optimistic.

To be fair, I’ve actually done pretty well at chipping away at my very ambitious little list over the years. But God damn.

Every “yes” comes with a matching “no”

Every worthwhile project costs you something besides just your time. Choosing one idea will require you to set maybe dozens of others aside (at least for now). We just rarely notice those invisible trade-offs because we’re high as balls on the yes we just committed to.

I think the Death Tour helped me make peace with that. I don’t worry about every project I’ll never tackle anymore. I’d rather give my full attention to the one in front of me. Then we’ll see where we’re at.

Stop sitting on your favorite ideas

I used to treat my most treasured creative dreams as if they rightfully belonged to some distant future version of myself who would somehow have more confidence, more readers, more money, and her shit way more together than I do. Then I’d go spend my actual time on something safer and less important while I kept right on dreaming.

But I’ve learned to actually pay attention if a particular dream or idea sticks with me. So many have come and gone over the years, and usually pretty quickly. The ones that don’t are pretty special and almost always turn out to be worth the investment.

Today, not some hypothetical tomorrow that might never come.

Sometimes “passion over planning” makes sense

A lot of my favorite projects haven’t necessarily made good business sense or earned me much (if any) Cheddar for my trouble, and in a lot of cases, they still don’t.

Some of the work I’m most proud of actually started with raw curiosity, not a carefully calculated plan (because what the hell are those). I’m not necessarily saying that strategy is worthless or that no one should ever worry about performance, especially when it comes to anything professional.

I’ve simply noticed that my curiosity-based passion projects are usually the ones I personally reflect on with the most pride, even if no one else really “gets” them. It’s rarely the ones that made me the most money or scored me some fleeting viral moment.

Quit auditioning for imaginary judges

As creative people, we can spend an astonishing amount of energy trying to impress people we’ve never met and who possibly don’t even exist. We imagine some invisible panel of judges evaluating every effort before steering us toward whatever seems the most respectable or impressive.

Turning 50 has made that particular knee-jerk tendency much easier to ignore, though, at least when it comes to my personal work. I’m far less interested in building a résumé for a hypothetical audience these days than I am in building a body of work that genuinely reflects who I am.

Leave some wiggle room for the unexpected

Becoming more selective about how I spend my time and creative energy hasn’t meant adopting some set-in-stone idea about who I’ll be for the rest of my limited days. In fact, some of the interests that matter most to me now weren’t even on my radar a decade ago, and I hope I can still say the same thing a decade from now.

I try to stay open enough that genuinely meaningful new interests still have room to surprise me. Because there’s a massive difference between chasing every shiny new object and welcoming the occasional fascination that truly changes your life or outlook for the better.

Finish more than you start

New ideas are exciting because they put the magic of possibility and potential back on the table. But finished work is exciting because it exists. Like, it’s really there — out there in the world.

I’ve noticed myself erring on the side of completing more of what I start these days for that reason. Like a lot of dreamer types, I have an entire wasteland of unfinished projects in my creative past, and I’m not too proud of that. I wish I had more new skills, greater confidence, or simply the satisfaction of seeing more ideas all the way through to the end to look back on instead.

But what can you do? Get up tomorrow and choose to do better, that’s what.

Let some dreams stay dreams

When I was younger, I was really into classical piano. I didn’t necessarily picture myself writing music one day (although I didn’t rule it out, either). I did picture myself learning and mastering many, many other musical instruments in addition to piano. These included some really out-there, random choices, like the bagpipes.

I still love music. And I guess I still technically play the piano, although I haven’t physically sat down to do so in some years. But I also deliberately refocused the bulk of my creative energy on writing a long time ago, followed by art and design as a secondary pursuit.

Some ambitions naturally fall away over time because others simply become more important. I used to see the idea of accepting that as tantamount to giving up, but I don’t anymore. More like setting priorities and getting real about what matters most.

I might still take up the didgeridoo one day, though. You never know.

The Projects Worth a Season

My Death Tour concept started as a slightly offbeat way to think about the future. But somewhere along the line, it made itself useful. I don’t ask how many projects and new experiences I can squeeze into the years ahead anymore. Instead, I’ve started asking which ones truly deserve to come along for the ride in the first place — something I really needed to do.

Accepting the certainty that I won’t get to do everything has made me more excited about the work I do choose, not to mention less scattered in general. Every season spent chasing an idea that genuinely fascinates me feels like time well invested, whether it eventually becomes a published article, a strange piece of artwork, or simply another chapter in the wonderfully messy creative life I’m building.

I’ll take that over a tidy, over-long checklist any day.

As writers on platforms like Substack, Medium, or similar, I feel like we collectively spend most of our energy worrying about attracting readers in the first place. I don’t think enough of us think nearly as much about what happens once those readers are actually there.

Publishing online creates this weird illusion for anyone who does decide they like what you’re doing enough to stick around. Someone could spend months reading your articles over breakfast, laughing at all your crappy jokes, recognizing your writing style from the first paragraph, and remembering stories you’ve told long after even you yourself have forgotten them.

Eventually, they’ll probably even start to feel as if they know you, and from their perspective, they kind of do. But from yours, they’re more like a username you’ve seen a few times in your comment section.

Your mileage may vary, but I’ve never quite gotten used to that.

I’m not one of those creators who has tons of hyper-engaged “fans” or anything. But when someone does decide they dig what I’m about, I feel like whoever it is really latches on and things get weird fast. They might suddenly start asking deeply personal questions, offer unsolicited life advice, or decide they’re entitled to ongoing private access just because we exchanged a couple of comments once.

When it does happen, it’s a lot, and I have to assume I’m not the only one who feels that way. I’ve also had to learn the hard way (meaning “it took a couple of unsettling e-stalking experiences for me to really get it”) that writers benefit from understanding where healthy engagement ends and something else begins.

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Why This Happens in the First Place

Psychologists call one-sided connections like these parasocial relationships, although the general idea existed long before social media. Readers have formed similar bonds with novelists, newspaper columnists, radio hosts, and television personalities for generations.

You don’t have to be famous, well-known, or even particularly successful for this to happen to you, either, especially online.

Our brains are hard-wired to treat conversational writing as a social interaction, with every article or post becoming another meet-up with the same familiar voice. Over time, readers build a surprisingly detailed picture of the person behind the words. They eventually learn to recognize your sense of humor, remember your opinions, and even develop the ability to anticipate how you’ll respond to certain topics before they even come up.

Meanwhile, you’ve been writing for hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of hypothetical people at once. Readers experience an ongoing relationship with your work. You experience a growing audience made up of individuals you’ve never actually met.

Thankfully, Most Readers Never Cross That Unsettling Line

Healthy readers engage directly with a creator’s work. They engage by asking thoughtful questions, sharing their own perspectives, and even respectfully disagreeing. And the conversation pretty much always stays centered on whatever bright idea brought them into your space on a given day in the first place.

Very loyal readers might take that enthusiasm a step further. Those are the folks who will read almost everything you publish, follow you across multiple platforms, remember older articles, and happily recommend your work to other people. And really, every writer is fortunate to have readers like these.

But boundary-crossing readers eventually shift the focus away from the writing and toward the writer behind it. They’ll start treating you more like a close friend, therapist, mentor, student, or personal project at some point than they will a creator whose content they really like, and usually sooner rather than later.

That may not even feel all that bad at first, but before long, you’ll find yourself staring at an unhinged comment or instant message that wanders far, far away from whatever it is you wrote, wondering how on earth a discussion about punctuation somehow became a debate about your entire life.

Been there. At best, it’s uncomfortable. And at worst, it can leave you on the verge of calling the police. (Yes, really.)

Practical Ways to Keep Reader Connections Healthy for Everyone Involved

As a fellow writer, you’ve probably been told lots of times that being authentic automatically creates healthier relationships with readers. Sadly, I haven’t really found that to be the case.

Yes, authenticity is often what sparks a connection in the first place. Honest stories, a recognizable voice, and genuine enthusiasm are exactly what make someone want to come back next week to see what else you’ve written, so it’s a big part of what goes into eventually building a following.

Access is something entirely different, though, and it’s not something to casually give away to anybody who wants it.

You can be warm without being endlessly available. You can be friendly without becoming everyone’s friend, as well as share meaningful parts of your life while still deciding other parts belong only to you and the people closest to you.

A knack for setting and maintaining healthy boundaries doesn’t make a writer less genuine. It does help everyone understand the relationship.

Decide what belongs to your public persona and what doesn’t

As writers, we all share intimate little pieces of ourselves, especially if we write from life. It’s part of building actual trust with the folks who take the time to read your stuff. That doesn’t mean every detail belongs online, though.

Keeping certain parts of your life private gives you room to exist as a whole person outside of what you decide to put out there for other people’s consumption. Complete transparency isn’t part of the job description. Don’t treat it as such.

Respond according to your own schedule

Comments and messages, especially when they come from people who’ve developed unhealthy parasocial attachments, like to demand that you make time for them right fucking now.

You don’t need to do any such thing, so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. (Generally speaking, “within 24 hours” is an acceptable time frame for getting back to someone who reaches out to you about whatever.)

So, instead of checking notifications throughout the day, set aside a dedicated time to respond to comments and other forms of outreach from readers. And if something breaches a boundary, demonstrates entitlement, or otherwise makes you uncomfortable for any reason at all? Consider not responding at all.

Keep conversations on topic

I’ve had the occasional reader share deeply personal stories out of nowhere before, simply because something I’ve written genuinely resonated with them. That’s a privilege and one that deserves to be handled with care.

But kindness doesn’t require you to take on responsibilities that aren’t yours.

A brief, appreciative, public reply — preferably one that doesn’t get overly personal in return — often works beautifully. Like, “Thanks so much for reading, and I appreciate you sharing your perspective.” But from there, gently guide the conversation back to the article and encourage further discussion in your public space where everyone can participate.

Don’t feel guilty about boundaries

Most readers are awesome and instinctively respect a creator’s boundaries without giving it a second thought. But every so often, someone won’t and doesn’t.

As a writer, I definitely relate to the pressure to explain or justify every unanswered message, declined invitation, muted account, and blocked user. Like a lot of people, I was raised on the belief that you need a “good” reason to say no to seemingly polite requests for your time, companionship, or help.

You don’t.

Boundaries are decisions, not negotiations, and you don’t have to justify them to anyone (yourself included). Protecting your time and peace of mind is part of building a creative life you can actually sustain indefinitely, joyfully, and without resentment.

The Focus Stays on Your Work

Every meaningful connection between a writer and a reader begins with the writing itself, and that’s as it ought to be.

Articles should spark ideas, and stories should make people laugh. And in a perfect world, your newsletters would always be on point and arrive at exactly the right moment. But healthy boundaries help keep meaningful connections alive. They also keep you from burning out and eventually going, “You know what? Fuck this.”

Consider the way very passionate readers don’t go to a library hoping to move in (although living in a library would actually be pretty rad). They go because there’s always something new and interesting on the shelves, just waiting to be enjoyed.

Don’t be afraid to gently remind readers (and yourself) of this as needed.

Twenty years ago, I was still the sort of person who assumed becoming smarter meant collecting as many answers as you could. You know — read enough books, write enough articles, accumulate enough life experience, and eventually you’d become one of Those People™, the ones who always seemed to have something intelligent to say about pretty much everything.

Instead, the opposite seems to have happened, as it does. The older I’ve become, the more comfortable I’ve actually become with simply saying, “I don’t know” when I don’t, in fact, know.

So many of the brightest people I’ve met — writers, artists, researchers, and simply curious folks who spend their lives learning for the sheer joy of it — are apparently also very willing to do the same. Ask them a question outside their wheelhouse, and they’ll more or less shrug without a hint of embarrassment before going:

• “You know, I’m not sure.”

• “I’ve actually never looked into that.”

• “That’s a really good question.”

• “Well, I’d have to double-check.”

They don’t rush to invent an answer. They simply know the boundaries of their current knowledge cache, readily admitting to it if it ever comes up.

A recent conversation made me realize my relationship with those moments has also changed. A friend pointed out that I don’t just seem comfortable identifying gaps in my knowledge anymore. I almost seem energized by them, and I think they might be right.

These days, when I stumble across something I seriously don’t understand (but want to), I don’t feel as though I’ve hit a dead end the way I might have as a young person. I almost always feel like somebody just handed me a treasure map, and I think that’s made me a better writer over the years.

Curiosity has always been part of the job description, of course, because every piece I write, whether it’s for a client or just for myself, starts with a question. And every poem, blog post, or piece of creative writing asks, “What if?” before even a single sentence hits the page. But so many of us still labor under the delusion that smart, knowledgeable people always have answers.

We don’t. What we do have are a lot of questions, a passion for learning, and a willingness to be (and stay) teachable.

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Curiosity Gives Your Brain Something to Chase

Scientists have spent years studying curiosity, and the findings are really pretty encouraging for anyone who loves learning.

Genuine curiosity helps people pay closer attention to information they encounter and remember it more effectively. So when something captures your interest, your brain really does become more receptive to learning, not only about the subject that sparked your curiosity, but sometimes also about unrelated information you might stumble across at the same time.

This explains why an innocent Google search about ravens can so easily turn into an hour spent learning about medieval falconry, Roman roads, volcanic lightning, and the invention of stained glass. (Pretty sure my browser history is silently asking whether I’m doing research or preparing to time travel at this point.)

Curiosity also has a way of making the world feel larger instead of smaller.

Psychologists often point to the Dunning-Kruger effect, which tells us beginners are more likely to overestimate how much they know, while people with deeper expertise become increasingly aware of just how much complexity is still waiting to be discovered beneath the surface.

So, the more you learn about almost anything, the bigger it ultimately becomes, and creative pursuits like writing are full of examples.

You start researching bees because you need to add a paragraph about them to some article you’re writing. Three hours later, you’ve discovered they can actually recognize human faces, communicate through dances, and regulate the temperature of their hive with astonishing precision. And just like that, you’ve developed strong, lasting opinions about native pollinators.

And if you’re anything like me, that paragraph is probably still waiting. It’s all good, though, because bees.

In my experience, unexpected detours like those rarely stay confined to just one project. They eventually segue into future metaphors, stories, conversations, and additional articles for you to add to your growing catalog. Knowledge has a wonderfully inconvenient habit of connecting itself to everything else you learn, but that’s exactly what I love so much about it.

How to Become a More Curious Writer

I’ve noticed over the years that curiosity is far from some rare personality trait only a lucky few are born with. Like observation, listening, or storytelling itself, it’s actually a skill you can strengthen through deliberate practice. It also pays to stay curious. Every bit of effort you invest pays dividends far beyond the project sitting on your desk today.

Chase the subjects you know the least about

It’s crazy tempting to become the world’s foremost expert on whatever already fascinates you, especially when that’s what society teaches people is best. And I get it, because left to my own devices, I could happily disappear into a rabbit hole about a pet topic like folklore, medieval manuscripts, or obscure religious symbolism and emerge several hours later wondering why it’s suddenly dark outside. (Seriously, it’s happened.)

But actual growth almost always came from less familiar places.

So pick up a book about architecture sometime, just for shits and giggles. Read an article about fungi just because it’s there, or watch a documentary on deep-sea exploration that caught your eye during a YouTube binge. Learn how glass is made, how ants communicate, or why cities develop the way they do. It’s fun, and it’s good for you.

The goal isn’t to become an expert on any of these topics overnight (or ever). It’s to give your brain fresh raw materials to gnaw on once in a while. Because awesome writing rarely comes from original ideas alone. More often, it comes from weird combinations of familiar and unfamiliar ideas colliding in interesting ways.

Replace certainty with better questions

Writers spend a surprising amount of time trying to answer all sorts of questions. But I find that sometimes it’s more useful to ask better ones.

Instead of always asking, “Am I right?” maybe try asking, “What am I missing?” once in a while. Instead of wondering whether your interpretation is the only possible one available, consider how someone with a completely different background might see or interpret the same situation.

This teaches a person to invite exploration instead of only ever seeking confirmation for whatever it is they already assume is true.

Most of my favorite pieces didn’t start with some ironclad conviction I’ve held for years. They began with genuine uncertainty. I wasn’t trying to prove a point so much as simply follow an interesting thread to see where it led. Writing has always helped me do that, even back when I was just a teenager who really, really liked updating her journal.

And readers can usually tell the difference when it comes to the results. One approach can easily produce a piece of writing that feels like a lecture. But the other feels like an invitation to dig a little deeper, think a little more, and possibly dive down a whole new rabbit hole the next day.

Start an “I don’t know” list

Ideas rarely arrive on schedule. Questions, on the other hand, have a real knack for showing up at the most inconvenient moments imaginable. Mine pop into my head while I’m gardening, making dinner, watching a documentary, or sometimes just trying to figure out which shampoo to buy.

I’ve also had to learn the hard way to write them down. No, seriously. Write them down so you don’t forget, because I know I sure do. Then you’ll always have something to refer back to the next time you sit down to write something new:

• Why do people remember certain stories for generations?

• Why do abandoned places feel so compelling?

• Why do some conversations linger in our minds for years?

• Why does that new bird I saw in the yard the other day act like that?

You don’t necessarily have to answer every question immediately (unless you feel genuinely compelled to, of course). Even just the act of collecting them builds a robust archive of future ideas, and it trains you to pay a little more attention to the world than you might have before.

Ideas are literally everywhere. (Yes, even in the shampoo aisle.) Get good at watching for them.

Ask the obvious question anyway

When you’re new-ish to writing (or at least putting your work out there where people can potentially read it), you probably worry that an inability to answer certain questions might make you sound inexperienced.

One of the best things I ever did for myself was cut that nonsense out. Because so often the questions that feel simple to the point of being embarrassing unlock the richest conversations. Journalists already know this. So do teachers and scientists. And now you know it, too.

Plus, asking a clear question actually makes you sound engaged, curious, and interested in getting to the bottom of the topic at hand, not uninformed. That’s exactly what you want.

Read outside your usual ecosystem

It’s easy to spend all your reading time consuming books about writing, newsletters by writers, and interviews with... well... more writers. But at the same time, most writers don’t create stories from writing advice alone. They absorb information from historians, ecologists, linguists, archaeologists, astronomers, chefs, musicians, and urban planners, as well.

Every field has its own vocabulary, its own way of solving problems, and its own fascinating little corners that rarely make headlines. And the wider your collective field of interests becomes, the more surprising connections you’ll discover when you do manage to sit down to write.

Your readers may never know exactly where a particular metaphor came from, but they’ll feel the richness underscoring your work regardless.

Let yourself change your mind

I know I’m growing when I catch myself feeling consciously comfortable updating my opinions on whatever topic. Because true learning isn’t about stubbornly defending every conclusion you’ve ever reached and sticking to your guns no matter what. It’s about perpetually refining your understanding as new information comes along.

This is a process that should continue throughout a person’s life.

Reading over older posts of mine, especially from years ago, is an interesting experience because I can see exactly where I was in my learning journey at the time. Even if whatever I was saying doesn’t completely embarrass me now, I always still see ways I’d at least explain a few things differently.

Because if a decade flies by (somehow, because boy do they zip by fast), and you still think exactly the same way you used to about every subject you’ve ever explored, you’ve almost certainly spent more time protecting your conclusions than expanding them.

Curiosity always ensures knowledge leaves room for revision. And as any writer knows (professional or otherwise)? The sooner we get comfortable with the concept of revision, the better.

Always Make Sure You Have Something to Wonder About

When I was younger, I assumed I’d eventually stop asking so damn many questions and transition to some magical place where I had everything all figured out (as if that’s a thing with adults). But now, I know the opposite is true, and thank goodness for that.

Every time I learn something new, I almost always discover three more things I’d like to understand better, as well. I wish I had a dollar for every time a random magazine article I read led me to some fascinating new book to dive into. If I was lucky, that book eventually pointed me toward another subject entirely. Before long, I’m happily wandering through a completely different sector of untapped human knowledge, wondering how I ended up reading about medieval bell foundries when I originally just wanted to know why church architecture feels so relaxing.

It’s easily one of my favorite ways to spend a free afternoon, and it’s an even better way to feed my writer’s spirit. Even research that never finds its way into a finished piece potentially changes the way I see the world, which in turn enriches everything I might write moving forward.

The writers who actually keep growing year after year aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest vocabularies or the most impressive collections of random facts tucked away in their heads. More often, they’re the ones who stay genuinely interested in the world long after they’ve become experienced enough to pretend they already understand it.

I’d much rather be the second kind.

When most people imagine freelance work, they inevitably picture a self-employed professional providing a service, and that’s about it.

The writer writes, the designer designs, and the consultant consults. Sounds simple enough, but after nearly twenty years of freelancing, I’ve come to the realization that a surprisingly large percentage of my job as a freelance writer has very little to do with writing at all.

Yes, I’ve spent literally thousands of hours at this point researching, drafting, editing, revising, and staring thoughtfully out my back window while telling myself that totally counts as part of the creative process. Yet some of the most valuable things I’ve learned over the years actually revolve around communication, psychology, and all the random stories people tend to tell themselves when information is missing.

Because clients aren’t hiring freelancers in a vacuum.

By the time someone finally reaches out to hire a writer or other creative professional, they’ve usually already invested quite a bit in the eventual outcome. Sometimes that’s money, but other times it’s literal time or effort. Sometimes it’s a business goal they’ve been chasing for months. Every now and then, it’s a dream they’ve carried around in their chest for years before finally deciding to actively pursue it.

In other words, they’re never simply buying a service. They’re buying a possibility, and as exciting as those can be, possibilities can also make people super nervous.

Unlike a repaired roof or a freshly installed appliance, much of what freelancers produce doesn’t yet exist in any form when the client signs the contract. Assets like finished websites, articles, campaigns, brand strategies, and e-books are all merely hypothetical until someone sits down and actually creates them.

That leaves an awful lot of room for anxiety to move in and make itself comfortable, especially for someone new to hiring freelancers and contractors.

Your mileage may vary, but a lot of my clients have lacked the specialized knowledge people like me spend years developing — usually the reason they’re hiring me in the first place. But expertise gaps create uncertainty, and when freelancers aren’t entirely sure what’s happening with a client, they often struggle to tell the difference between a normal part of the process and a genuine problem.

I’ve had this happen countless times over the years. A project could be moving forward exactly as planned, with all deadlines and milestones more than met. Everyone involved is hitting their marks and staying on schedule.

Yet there is still someone involved somewhere who is still wondering whether everything is falling apart. But a worried client is very different from a difficult client and needs to be treated accordingly.

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How to Reduce Client Anxiety Before It Becomes a Problem

Thankfully, you don't need a psychology degree to help people feel more comfortable with the whole experience of hiring and working with creative professionals. Most of the time, small adjustments in communication are enough to make a workable difference.

Explore your process before anyone asks

People just plain feel better when they know what’s coming next.

Seriously, think about the last time you had to go check something off your to-do list at an unfamiliar doctor’s office, airport, or government building. The experience is light-years easier when someone steps in without being asked and explains where to go, what to expect, and how long everything will take.

That said, one of the easiest ways to win a new client’s trust is to explain your process early on. Walk clients through your workflow, and tell them what happens after they sign on to work with you. Explain how revisions work. Definitely let them know when they can expect updates and deliverables.

Upfront clarity eliminates a lot of anxiety load before it ever has a chance to materialize in the first place. Because clients rarely stress out over knowing too much. Stress happens when they don’t fully understand what’s happening, so a little guidance goes a long way.

Send updates before they’re needed

Human beings are natural storytellers. (Yes, all of us.) Give us an information gap, and we’ll rush to fill it with a story. But unfortunately, the stories people invent while waiting for project updates rarely involve everything going smoothly.

A freelancer who goes quiet for a week could simply be focused on the work, but the client is still stuck dealing with empty space where information ought to be. Before long, that empty space starts filling up with questions:

• “Is the project running behind schedule?”

• “Is there a problem?”

• “Did my freelancer accept another client and forget all about me?”

• “Are they even planning on finishing this project? And if so, when?”

Meanwhile, you’re probably sitting at your desk, eating leftover pasta while cheerfully working according to the exact schedule you set for yourself.

What I’m saying is it pays not to lose sight of the actual client on the receiving end of all the work you’re doing, even if everything is moving along as discussed. Even a quick progress update can prevent a ridiculous amount of unnecessary worry, especially for a nervous or apprehensive client.

You don’t need to write a novel or anything. A few sentences are plenty. Just let them know everything’s trucking along as planned:

“Everything is on track. I’m working through the next draft and expect to have it to you Friday.”

That’s it. Because the best updates aren’t damage control. They’re simple, routine communication.

Give clients small wins along the way

I’ve noticed that a lot of freelancers treat projects like magic tricks. They accept a job, several weeks pass, and eventually the final product appears with a flourish. Sounds fine in theory, especially considering that’s what a lot of us actually do, but it can also create unnecessary tension.

Whenever possible, give clients opportunities to see some progress along the way, especially when working on long projects or anything that involves multiple stages and deliverables. Share an outline or two. Send a rough concept for what’s next, or offer a midpoint check-in just because. Show the client that the project is moving steadily from idea to reality.

When it comes to lengthy or multi-step projects, I’ve found that small milestones generally create a lot more confidence than grand reveals all the way at the project’s end do. They also give you time to correct course early if something isn’t meeting expectations.

Translate expertise into plain English

It’s easier to accidentally create distance between yourself and a client than you think, and hiding behind a mountain of jargon will do it every time.

Every profession develops its own language. Writers have terminology, as do marketing pros and designers, and knowing your way around yours can make you sound pretty darned professional. But spend enough years in any field, and it becomes way too easy to forget that most people don’t speak that language every day.

Clients don’t want to have to ask for a vocabulary lesson before they can get a project underway. They want to feel like they’re on the same page as the person they’ll be collaborating with.

So when someone asks a question, answer it in plain English whenever possible. Explain your reasoning, and walk them through your decisions. Help them understand what you’re seeing and why you’re recommending a particular approach.

Expertise is more valuable when everyone involved can actually understand it. Really, I’ve never once had a client complain that something was explained too clearly. I have had multiple clients praise me for always making things feel so accessible. They know they can count on me to do the same for their own clients, customers, or readers.

Learn to recognize fear disguised as feedback

Every experienced freelancer eventually encounters something I’ve come to think of as Revision Number 12.

Revision Number 12 rarely improves anything. It’s usually about something like tweaking a headline just a little bit, moving a sentence around, or swapping a word for a nearly identical word.

Then another tiny request appears. And another.

Eventually, you’re forced to admit that wrapping up the project at hand has officially gone way beyond editing and entered the realm of emotional support revisions. In other words, the client isn’t necessarily asking for better work. They could well just be standing at the edge of a decision and looking for reassurance.

Because putting something out there into the world can make anyone feel vulnerable. Publishing a book, launching a website, announcing a new service, or investing money in a marketing campaign requires a certain amount of courage. And sometimes fear shows up wearing a revision request as a disguise.

Recognizing that possibility allows you to respond to situations like this more effectively, as a conversation often accomplishes more in these cases than yet another round of edits. Instead of endlessly tweaking details, you can actually get to the concern driving the requests.

Stay calm when clients do become emotional

Freelancers occasionally find themselves absorbing energy from every direction, especially when migrating deadlines and changing priorities start to translate into internal disagreements.

You know how it goes, I’m sure. Someone has a bad day and sends an email they probably wish they could unsend five minutes later (or similar). It happens.

Exactly why one of the most valuable skills a freelancer can cultivate is the ability to stay composed when other people are on the verge of wigging all the way out. No, I’m not saying you need to be a robot about it. Just get good at creating enough space between a situation and your reaction to it to respond tactfully.

Because I’ve drafted plenty of emails in my head over the years that were far more therapeutic to write than they ever would have been helpful to send.

People tend to take cues from the energy they’re receiving from the other person involved. So, when you focus on solutions, maintain professionalism, and refuse to allow tension to escalate, thornier client discussions are a lot easier to manage.

Your composure is truly part of the service you’re providing. Keep this in mind.

What Happens When You Get All This Right

Most freelancers spend years refining their technical skills to stay competitive and continue to deliver the amazing work their clients deserve. But some of the strongest business advantages come from creating a reliable work experience that feels smooth, predictable, and trustworthy.

Clients who feel looped in from start to finish will trust you more, and projects with clear communication run into way fewer snags. Plus, strong relationships are much more likely to lead to repeat business, referrals, and opportunities that won’t ever appear on any job board.

You also become harder to replace.

Because plenty of people can write articles, create graphics, build websites, or manage a few marketing campaigns. But consistently making clients feel truly understood and confident throughout an entire project is something you can either do or you can’t.

People Remember How Working with You Felt

Years from now, most of your clients won’t remember every revision request, project milestone, or email exchange that passed between the two of you. They will remember whether communication felt easy, as well as whether they felt supported or abandoned, confident or uncertain.

Freelancing will always involve deliverables, contracts, deadlines, invoices, and all the other practical realities of running a business. But well-rounded professionals never forget that human beings sit at the center of every last one of those transactions.

Once I started viewing freelance work through that lens, a lot of things clicked into place for me when it came to my long-term career. My relationships with my clients improved drastically, and the quality of the work itself (and the pride I took in it on my end) often improved right alongside them.

It’s easily the differentiator that’s made the most difference for my business over the years. Something to keep in mind.

So, sometime recently, I apparently passed the one-year anniversary of this whole creative experiment I’ve been investing in lately.

A year ago, I finally got around to dusting off the Substack account that had been sitting around unused for years, relaunched my personal blog, and started building what eventually became a small ecosystem of newsletters, essays, artwork, and other ongoing projects. Eventually, I added a second publication, created a more consistent publishing schedule, and slowly started carving out a little world online that actually felt like mine.

I truly almost missed the anniversary entirely.

Nobody lit a big-ass confetti cannon over it or anything, and certainly nobody from the Internet Achievement Department arrived to present me with a commemorative plaque. My subscriber count didn't double overnight in acknowledgement, either. (Don't I wish.) I'm still very much just doing my thing over here in relative obscurity.

But realizing I’d finally managed to pass a milestone like that — one that isn't really about income or numbers so much as it's about personal discipline — got me thinking about how often creative advice focuses on outcomes alone. We hear all these stories about explosive growth, overnight success, and impressive metrics.

But so many of the most important changes happen almost silently, completely behind the scenes.

That said, after a year of showing up — really showing up, consistently and for myself — I've learned that some of the biggest rewards attached to something like this have very little to do with numbers. They happen inside the work itself and inside the person doing it. And this is the case whether you're building a newsletter, blog, podcast, YouTube channel, or any other long-term creative project.

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1. You Stop Waiting to Feel Like a Writer

When you're first getting started with any writing project of your own, you probably spend a surprising amount of energy wondering whether you're "really" a writer. I actually once did this quite a lot, despite also being a professional copywriter as far as my actual living went.

Most people just starting out write a few things and publish occasionally. Then a busy week arrives, or life gets complicated, or a project fizzles out, and suddenly you're back to questioning everything.

A year of showing up changes that equation.

The doubts don't ever disappear completely, because holy imposter syndrome, Batman. Writing is a pursuit that can find a person staring directly at a finished article while wondering what even are words. What changes is the foundation underneath those doubts.

After a year, you can truly say you've written when you felt inspired, and you've also written when you'd literally rather reorganize a sock drawer. You've written on good days, difficult days, and perfectly average Tuesdays.

And at some point, the question usually stops being "Am I really a writer?" and becomes "What am I writing next?" Way more useful.

Advice takeaway: Don't make the mistake of waiting around for certainty before sitting down and getting started. Consistency creates certainty, not the other way around.

2. Your Ideas Start Forming a Web Instead of a Pile

In the beginning, every piece of even a well-planned project feels separate.

One week you write about creativity. Maybe the next week you write about productivity, and a month later, you're exploring a completely different topic and wondering when exactly you up and wandered into a whole new zip code.

But eventually patterns emerge. Certain pet themes start showing up for dinner again and again, and topics that seemed unrelated at first start neatly connecting to one another like threads in a larger tapestry.

Looking back through a year of writing, I can see recurring themes present here (and elsewhere in my little ecosystem) that I never consciously planned. They've simply followed me from piece to piece for reasons of their own, occasionally waving from the background like old friends.

This is really one of my favorite hidden benefits as far as maintaining a regular creative practice has gone. I discovered what genuinely fascinates me, as opposed to what I once thought should fascinate me. Then I got comfortable writing about it.

Advice takeaway: Repetition isn't always a sign you've run out of ideas. Sometimes it's a sign you've finally found what really moves you.

3. You Learn the Difference Between a Dry Spell and a Dead End

Every creative project eventually drifts into choppy water, and not one of mine has ever been an exception.

Everyone goes through periods where life is kicking their ass and their fountain of great ideas low-key dries up as a result. Energy fluctuates, even when things are going well. I have a whole personal life outside of writing that frequently does its very best to intrude on my content calendar.

A year provides enough distance to truly realize that temporary droughts just happen.

A slow month doesn't automatically mean you've lost your passion, and a difficult season doesn't automatically mean you've chosen the wrong path. Sometimes you're just tired, or distracted, or maybe just dealing with crazy life shit that temporarily needs more of your attention.

Creative work has seasons, much like everything else. And once you've survived a few cycles, you stop treating every dip in momentum like a five-alarm emergency and start simply riding the waves.

Advice takeaway: Don't make permanent decisions based on temporary creative weather. Ever.

4. You Become Less Afraid of Imperfect Work

Early on, every piece you write feels positively enormous. So you spend a dog's age polishing, tweaking, rereading, and hand-wringing over every turn of phrase. I recall staring at more than a few paragraphs long enough to practically develop personal relationships with them.

Then, of course, there's that moment when you publish and immediately discover seventeen more things you wish you'd done differently.

But once you’ve yeeted dozens of pieces into the digital void, hoping for the best, you also realize each of those pieces is just one tile in a much larger mosaic.

Some pieces might resonate deeply with readers, while others just settle into the archives right away. A few might surprise you entirely. I rarely get much engagement on anything I write these days. But when I do, it's always on some piece I actually thought was pretty dumb or didn't expect anything from. Such is life, I guess.

Thankfully, perfection isn't a prerequisite for usefulness.

Most of the people who will eventually read your stuff are out there looking for insight, entertainment, encouragement, or practical help. The vast majority of them aren't going to be grading your work with a red pen while wearing a powdered judicial wig.

And if that's seriously how someone is going to be? Tell them to sit and spin. God knows I do.

Advice takeaway: A body of work grows faster when every piece isn't expected to carry your entire creative future on its shoulders.

5. You Start Defining Progress Differently

One of the bigger mistakes I’ve made in the past when it comes to publishing my personal creative work is thinking progress has to correlate to numbers in order to count as progress at all.

Subscribers, followers, views, comments, clicks, shares. All those things that are so elusive for so many of us. They provide useful information, and watching them grow feels amazing when it does happen, as we all like evidence that our efforts are actually reaching other people.

But a year into any project (if you last that long), your efforts start paying dividends you might not have expected:

• Your voice becomes clearer.

• Your ideas become easier to express.

• Your process becomes more efficient.

• Your confidence becomes grounded in experience rather than hope.

And maybe most importantly of all, you spend less time wondering whether you can do the work because you've already proven to yourself (and everyone else) that you can. Not every gain shows up on an analytics dashboard.

Advice takeaway: Numbers definitely matter, but they're just one slice of a much larger pie.

6. The Habit Becomes More Valuable Than the Results

Results can fluctuate from one day to the next, but good habits have a way of sticking with you no matter what.

A solid writing routine can eventually see you through inevitable horrors like platform shifts, audience changes, and all sorts of passing internet trends. They'll even be there for you when whatever algorithm wakes up one morning and decides it has new plans for humanity that apparently don't include the likes of you.

The habit of showing up remains, because once you've built a reliable creative practice, you can carry it almost anywhere.

A newsletter can become a blog, and a blog can become a book. A collection of essays can potentially spawn a field guide, workshop, course, or possibly even something you haven't imagined yet.

The habit becomes the foundation that supports all your future projects, meaning effort continues generating value long after any individual piece is published.

Advice takeaway: Build the practice first. The projects can (and almost certainly will) change later.

7. You End Up With Something You Didn't Have Before

Yes, you'll for sure have a really nice catalog of content built up after a year if you stay consistent. But the real value goes deeper than a collection of posts.

I look back on the past year and love how I’ve wound up with a relatively cohesive record of my thinking to show for it. It's a map of all my interests and evidence of a type of growth I struggled to cultivate for years. It's also a body of work that has continued working for me in ways I never could have predicted when I started.

Ideas that once existed only in my head now live somewhere tangible where people can actually read them if they want. Future readers might discover them. Future projects can build on them, and future versions of myself can revisit them, as well.

That’s really no small thing. Because so many people spend years meaning to create something. (I should know!) It's showing up consistently, even when things feel pointless, that eventually gives you something you can actually point to and feel proud of.

Advice takeaway: Never underestimate the value of creating an archive. Archives become valuable in ways that aren't always immediately apparent.

Sometimes Steady Changes Matter Most

When people talk about creative success, the conversation almost always gravitates toward visible outcomes eventually, especially these days when what seems like everyone wants to be some big-deal influencer.

But while growth, opportunities, and income all have their place, they're not the only ways to measure progress or accomplishment.

I'm personally really here for the way my confidence in my own writing (instead of just the writing I do for clients) has really solidified. My ideas connect more naturally, and I actually have a whole-ass body of personal work published under my own name that I can point to anytime someone goes, “Oh, cool. You're a writer? Well, what do you write.”

In other words, I actually showed up. And not just for other people who were counting on me, either. For myself and my own ideas (for a change). It's a really fantastic feeling.

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