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There always seems to be much discussion about what “the younger generation is doing online,” and how some new viral trend on TikTok is something that “you can’t ignore.” But recently I became obsessed with something else: what we can learn from artists in their 90s. Today I want to share a series of profiles that absolutely stopped me in my tracks, gave me goosebumps, and inspired me to no end.

And the lessons I’ve been taking from this are:

1. You never have to stop creating. Or rather, it is your choice if/when you stop creating.
2. You will grow and change as a human being, and your writing and art can grow and evolve with you.
3. You will never run out of ideas.
4. Your process can — and should — be unique to you.
5. Being outside of trends can be the most valuable thing you can do to create a unique body of work.
6. Being part of a creative community can feel rewarding and be a great support system.

If you are someone who wondered, “Is it too late for me as a writer?” or “Does my work matter?” or “Should I keep creating?” I beg of you to keep reading… I hope you will be as inspired as I was by these artists.

Okay, let’s dig in to today’s topic. Everything I share came from video on each artist, which are linked below…

Will Barnet at age 99

He describes the ethos he and his friends had becoming artists during the Great Depression: “You were doing your art, but you didn’t expect to sell or make money. Art was a form of deep commitment and passion.”

This always feels like the first thing to never forget — that even as we hope our work reaches readers and gets shared, that we do this work first because we believe in the power of creating. The creative act itself, is enough. We are better people for it.

And for those of you worried about what artificial intelligence will do to writing and art, I love how Will’s beliefs speak to this, although unintentionally:

“Being around a long time now and seeing every… school [of art] their is… I just feel that there is nothing better than the human touch. When you look at the work of all the great painters, there is a sense of humanity in it. You can live 500 more years and still enjoy them, I would never lose interest.” [Source]

Dorothea Rockburne at age 91

Dorothea Rockburne talks about growing up before World War II and being a sickly child, and how at that young age it taught her to appreciate every day of being alive. Seeing her in her amazing studio, actively creating, shows the fruits of that idea.

She describes being in art class at age 13, and her teacher and fellow students appreciating her painting. She says, “I thought to myself, why does nature do it better? I spent the rest of my life trying to find out.” It’s amazing to me how such a simple question can keep someone curious and creating for so many decades, and likely still feel they are only on the cusp of understanding. That is the beauty of why we create.

It’s incredible to consider that she has worked out of the same 6,200 square foot loft in New York City since 1973. That is the year I was born, which means that every day of my life, she has been there creating. And she isn’t done yet.

Dorothea describes her daily process: “There is a transformation which happens when I begin to work… it makes me feel that my art is a part of the universe. I have to paint. It is like breathing. No paint, no life.” [Source]

Carmen Cicero at age 96

He tells the story of how his friends literally dragged him to galleries to try to sell his work, because they believed in him so much.

As he looks through old photos of himself, he laughs saying that he wishes he was that age again. What age was he in the photos? My age. Your age. He dreams of what you and I have right now.

Carmen told the story of his art as being a part of the very first exhibition at the brand new Guggenheim museum in 1959, and how he met Joan Miró at the show. Joan would have been 66 at the time. The two corresponded via mail afterwards. I love to consider that connection between generations, and how art is the constant. [source]

Agnes Martin at age 86

Evidently, a vision would appear to her of the final image she wanted to paint, but at a very small scale. So she would then do math to scale up the idea to the size of a large canvas.

People would question her, asking what her paintings were about, and she would explain, “From music, people accept pure emotion. But from art, they demand explanation.”

You don’t owe anyone an explanation about what you write and create, or why. Now, inherently my work everyday with writers is about connecting what we create to others. But Agnes’s words are a powerful reminder that we get to choose if we share, how we share, or when we share.

She talked about how early in her career, she was frustrated with the work she was creating, saying,“Every day, I painted, and I got closer and closer. It took me 20 years…”

These decades of experimentation lead her to the vision she dreamed of. Living up to our creative vision takes time, but the journey is worth it.

At age 86, she said, “I think of nothing but painting. And the older I get, the more I like to paint.” I love the idea of her being an artist in full bloom at this age and beyond. [source]

Etal Adnan at age 96

I love this reminder that every aspect of what inspires you is infinite in what it can show you, and how that can translate to what you write and create. [source]

Wayne Thiebaud at age 96

“Painting is inert, but painters find a way to bring it to life. Alternate worlds and universes. Great works from imagination… this, for you, is my world to look at.”

He describes what it means to create professionally: “I knew that wasn’t a good career choice. Most of the painters I knew were just barely able to survive, and they had other jobs. I don’t believe in the idea of success. When we surrender ourselves to that, I think we have lost something special.”

And the moment he made his own decision to become an artist, saying to himself: “I want to become a painter. ‘How do I do that?’ I said. With extreme difficulty, and reality, and I probably won’t be able to make a living, but you can make a life. With a kind of calm and ineffableness.”

His reflections ignore what we so often talk about when we consider creating and sharing: “Will I get followers?” “Will I get likes?” That may come, but first, we welcome in what inspiration and creativity provides. [source]

So often, our culture looks to the young to define priorities. All I can say is that these interviews with those who have been creating for decades filled my well with inspiration this week.

My goal in sharing these is not to pressure you to create without ever taking a break. Rather, it is that we are each filled with an unending source of ideas. And it is up to each of us if and how we choose to create and share in our lives.

Please let me know in the comments: is there a writer or artist whose career has given you wisdom that drives how you create, and how you appreciate the life of a writer or creator? Tell me about them and their wisdom.

And this week I shared a 23+ minute video for my paid subscribers where I let you look over my shoulder as I analyze how to get more engagement on Substack. The goal is to focus on meaningful interactions, not hollow data. You can become a paid subscriber and access the video here:

Thank you for being here with me.

-Dan

I realized the other day that it was the 7-year anniversary of publishing my book, Be the Gateway. I posted a note about it on Instagram, and instantly had writers reply:

• “My copy is full of sticky notes!”
• “I was literally rereading it last night and appreciating it all over again. The “gateway” is such a helpful and clarifying metaphor.”
• “I’m reading it for the second time. I’m picking up things I missed the first time around.”
• “Gosh, I think it’s time to read it again!”

This was an incredible reminder to me: books are alive. They live on and find readers. And every single reader counts.

So often online, we hear stories about growing one’s platform, and there is a focus on big numbers — how many followers or subscribers they have. Something I have been considering is this: there is no “audience.” There are only individuals. The perception we see of an “audience” is simply some data about those individuals collected onto a list. And that information is so thin compared to the depth of what it means when we consider each individual.

Each person receives your writing in a manner that is completely unique to them. Of course, half of this is what you create — the words you write and how you share it. But the other half is how the reader receives it. When someone reads what you write, they bring in their own perspective, experiences, goals, and challenges.

When your intention as a writer and the perspective of the reader meet, magic can happen.

It’s not uncommon for me to be talking to a writer about their newsletter, and them saying something like, “My newsletter is not really working, I only have 60 subscribers.”

When I hear this, I think back to when I managed a bookstore cafe back in the 1990s, where we held events each week such as poetry nights, author readings, bands, and other meetups for writers and artists. 6 people (10% of 60 people) showing up to an event really mattered. 20 people showing up was a pretty full room. 30 meant every seat was taken, and you couldn’t move around the room it was so crowded. 40 people meant they were flowing out the door.

We are still only 2/3 of the way to 60 people. Yet nowadays, it’s not uncommon for a writer to dismiss 60 people subscribing to their writing, citing it as a failure. But these are the people who appreciate what you write. Each of these readers matters. Even if you justify that 90% of this list are not really superfans of your work, what if 10% are? Those 6 people showing up means something. And much like that bookstore cafe in the 1990s, it begs the question, can those 6 people become 7? Then 8. Then, slowly, 20 people. And then, spilling out the door.

For a Substack newsletter, even if I send mine at a certain time, it may be opened and read by different people in different ways:

• Dawn, 68 years old in Missoula, Montana opening it at 11am her time, and bringing her own lived experience, goals, things she is worried about, and the context of her day to how she reads it. She’s a memoir writer who has followed my work for years, and loves my message.
• Catherine, 42 years old in Bath, UK, opening it at 7pm her time, reading it after a long day of work, helping to get her 2 kids ready for bed, dealing with a broken dryer, and getting ready to write for a 1/2 hour. She’s a first time novelist, and while she has subscribed for a few months, has only had time to read two of my messages, and is still getting to know what my writing is about and how it may align with her goals.
• Robert, 54 years old in Tempe, Arizona, reading my email after reading seven other newsletters, while also listing to a podcast. He’s skeptical of marketing, feels he’s heard it all before, and got on my email list almost accidentally. He’s frustrated that is writing isn’t reaching more people, and tired of people telling him ideas he feels he thought of years ago. He prides himself on being a skeptic.

Each of these people is their own universe. Even though Substack will tell me the size of my “audience,” each individual receives it in their own unique way.

I’ve considered this when standing amidst 50,000 people, most of whom are singing along word for word with Bruce Springsteen on stage. Back in 2012, I sat on the pavement for 12 hours waiting to get into one of his concerts, with the goal of getting a spot close to the stage. Here is a moment when the entire audience is singing along to Bruce on stage:

Turning around, look at the size of this crowd:

Yes, we are each singing the same words. But to each of us, they mean something different. Songs about failed prospects, big dreams, lifelong loves, loss — each person has their own worldview and life experience in their minds. Without question, something is happening with all of these people together, but there is also something happening separately. Bruce himself explained this well in a 2012 New Yorker interview:

“We hope to send people out of the building we play in with a slightly more enhanced sense of what their options might be, emotionally, maybe communally. You empower them a little bit, they empower you. It’s all a battle against the futility and the existential loneliness. It may be that we are all huddled together around the fire and trying to fight off that sense of the inevitable. That’s what we do for one another.”

Your readers see themselves in what you write. I remember working with a memoir author years ago, and her describing how nearly every conversation she had with someone about her book, ended with that person in tears. Why? Even though her book was about the death of her mother, each reader saw their own experiences while reading it. They would tell her about the death of a loved one, and how her book helped them see it more clearly. She brought half, they brought half. And for each reader, that experience was unique.

Recently I was talking with artist Megan Carty, and we discussed how her paintings can have a personal connection with the person who purchases it. She shared how birds in particular seem to be powerful symbols for people, and how someone who sees one of her paintings with a bird in it may say:

“That cardinal is my grandmother.”

Even though Megan painted it with one intention, that person saw the bird in the imagery and was confident that it clearly represented her grandmother who had passed away. Here is a sampling of some of her bird paintings, as well as current works in progress:

Of course, critical in this conversation is to not focus as much on “how many” people show up, but instead on “how engaged” someone is. When the focus is put too much on numbers alone — more subscribers, more followers — we forget that engagement deeply matters. To have fewer truly engaged readers matters more to your writing than a lot of people who don’t really pay much attention to what you create.

Please let me know in the comments: can you remember one moment when someone appreciated what you write, create, or share? Yes, this can be a book you published, but it can also be something you shared on social media, or a conversation you had. Tell me anything about what you remember about that moment, and why it was special.

For my paid subscribers this week, I shared another behind the scenes tour of my studio, this time focusing on specific changes I’ve been making to make creating and sharing even easier. You can get a preview here, and become a paid subscriber if you like:

Thank you for being here with me.

-Dan

Today is my birthday! As a gift to myself, I am allowing myself to talk about one of my favorite topics: creative maintenance! What’s that? Creative maintenance is how we preserve what we create, and develop simple systems that encourage us to create and share. We do this to protect the work we do, and honor our creative vision.

I obsess about this, but tend to resist writing about it for this reason: maintenance sounds boring. Like a chore. But I fear that every day, we put our writing and creative work at risk. We wrestle with distractions, we get caught in the same cycles that prevent momentum, and we don’t backup our work.

Having grown up as an artist and writer, with my days filled with unfiltered conversations with other writers and creators, I find that without creative maintenance, we risk so much:

• Not knowing what to create
• Not feeling we have the capacity or resources to create
• Not knowing the path from idea to done
• Not sharing what we create
• Losing our work while creating
• Losing our work after creating

Having worked with thousands of writers, I notice those whose work persists — who create and share consistently over time — attend to creative maintenance. Today I want to talk about exactly why that matters and how it is done.

Before we dive in, I’m excited to announce my next workshop for writers and creators: Find Your Next 100 Readers! Cultivate the Craft of Connection. Join me on March 22nd for a live workshop with Q&A. All who register receive a full video recording. $49 for access. Full information and registration here.

Okay, let’s dig into to today’s topic…

Preserve What You Create

Yes, I have weird hobbies. So on the right side of the photo is a set of original auction catalogs from the 1970 MGM movie prop and memorabilia action. This is literally one of my favorite possessions. In the rest of the photo are my books on the history of MGM and the making of The Wizard of Oz. On top is one of my all-time favorite books, The Ruby Slippers of Oz, which recounts the long history of what happened to the movie props of the slippers from the movie.

Why am I writing about this? Because to me, this embodies what it means to maintain and preserve what you create. What can take years to create can be wiped away in an instant. 75% of the silent films ever made are lost to history. In 2008, a fire at Universal Studios destroyed more than 100,000 original recordings. But here is the story that I have obsessed about for years…

In 1969, someone bought the MGM movie studio, and decided to liquidate a lot of it. Their focus was more on leveraging the brand name for their ventures in Las Vegas. So the following year, MGM auctioned off its entire history of costumes and props. Warehouses of items including costumes from The Wizard of Oz, and countless other items worn by stars such as Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, Fred Astaire, Susan Hayward, Greta Garbo, Vivien Leigh, and others in some of their most famous roles. Dorothy’s dress? $1,000. Cowardly Lion’s costume? $2,400. MGM also sold off their historic back lots, and flattened sets used in classic MGM films. That land is now filled with condos:

Here are some other images from the auction:

It took decades to create and collect these items, and a few days to scatter it all to the wind. Some of the famous costumes and props have later resurfaced, but many have never been seen again.

I am incredibly sentimental and love old things. I mean, just look at many of the objects in my studio:

These items remind me of how we used to create and communicate. They are also stark reminders that to create and share takes time. Back then, even more so because of the limitations of the tools and mass communication at the time.

Years ago, you had to save up hundreds of dollars to record a video that didn’t even have sound, you couldn’t record more than 4 minutes at a time. Plus, you had no way to distribute it. On the typewriter, every typo would require you to dab on Wite-Out, wait for it to dry, then correct it. I have to imagine that a significant portion of my readers don’t even know what Wite-Out is! Yet it was such a big part of my childhood, with little bottles of it a staple on my dad’s desk, always being swiped by someone in the family in a writing emergency.

The tools we have at our disposal are always rudimentary compared to our imagination. If you are a writer, you are creating worlds and concocting inspiring ideas in your mind. Years ago, we would use a pen and paper or typewriter to capture what we created. Today, lots of writers are more likely for a writer to use a 6-year-old laptop with outdated software that hasn’t been backed up.

For what you create, I encourage you to preserve it. To consider the body of work you are developing slowly over time.

Creative Maintenance

Here are some ways that I perform creative maintenance each week. Do you have to do them all? Nope! Do what makes sense. And forgive yourself when you fall out of the habit. With so much of maintenance, it is a constant ebb and flow of creating the habit, falling out of the habit, and then starting it again. That’s fine!

• Establish a system. Any system — including the most basic — is great! For each of the items below, I tend to have a simple system each week that I repeat. I skip some weeks, because as I mentioned, life is busy. But when you have a system, you have something to fall back on. You aren’t constantly recreating the wheel.
• Organize to-do’s. When I consider short term goals and medium-term goals, I like to get them all down on paper. Then, I break the larger goals down into their simplest possible steps. It’s common for me to use a spreadsheet for these tasks, because by its nature it allows me to break things down, and put in notes updating my progress. What I might start out thinking is a 10-step process, often turns into a 30-step process. Did I add 20 more items? No! Instead, I realized that “Step 3” can actually be accomplished through performing 3 smaller tasks. For instance, I have been doing a lot of technical maintenance to preserve my past writing, my website, and my client work. So I created a spreadsheet to get really specific about how I can attend to this work each day, without overwhelming myself. Each day the tasks seem tiny, almost insignificant. But over the course of a month, they really add up. And when life gets messy and I shelve the project, I now have a spreadsheet — and system — to return to.
• Actively Manage the Day. I use a calendar to clearly define my days ahead of time. I have two young kids, a 100+ year old house that needs constant repairs, and run a small business that is the sole income for my family. This means I am the world’s luckiest human being, but also that there are 100 things that can derail my days. To ensure I do the work that matters most, I plan each day ahead of time, blocking out large chunks of time for my clients, my newsletter, and other critical tasks. Do these blocks of time move around a lot? Sure. But again, they give me a system to start from as a foundation.
• Weekly cleanups. Every Friday, I ensure my computer desktop is clear, I go into Dropbox where I manage my files and ensure it is organized, I make sure my email inbox is empty, and I clean my studio. Too often, we try to squeeze all of this cleanup into the 10 minutes before we leave the office on a Friday, which isn’t really fair; this work takes time. These weekly cleanups allow me to feel a sense of accomplishment and refreshed for the next week. Do I skip some weeks?Absolutely. Do I always organize everything perfectly? No way! But I attend to this as best I can, and over time, that is more than enough.
• Create backups. I have multiple redundant backups of my writing and work files. Some are obvious like using a backup system that comes with my computer. But as an anxious person, I begin thinking of scenarios like hacking and fires, and create multiple redundant backups in different locations. I also consider the importance of hardware backups. If my computer died today, how would I not only access my files, but perform my work? So I have redundant backups of almost all of my work hardware. Is that overkill? Maybe. But if my camera dies just before doing a live workshop, I like knowing that I can replace it — or any part in my system — in moments. Or if the power goes out at my studio, that I can be up and running again at my home office within 15 minutes.
• Actively manage inputs. So many writers I speak with are downing in, and overwhelmed by, email and similar inputs in their lives. I find that we tend to prioritize these channels because often someone is waiting for something from you. So our creative goals get put on the back burner. I encourage you to not treat your inbox as a to-do list. Instead, I move tasks from email to another system (see spreadsheets and calendars above!) so that my inbox is always clear. This also allows me to communicate quickly with anyone who emails me, even if that reply back to them is, ‘I will get back to you on this within 72 hours.’ I find that good communication is a craft, and one that helps us each feel heard and connected. So quick replies matter to me.
• Set and honor boundaries. I keep saying this, but it bears repeating: I know you are busy! To the best of my ability, I try to set boundaries and keep them. For instance, I may schedule time to read the newsletters I subscribe to, instead of allowing myself to be constantly distracted when a new one is published. Or I may not check or answer email after 4:30pm because that is family time. Boundaries are a way of attending to mental health, and focusing your attention on what matters most to you in a moment. I encourage you to set boundaries that feel right to you.

So many writers worry that their newsletter or book doesn’t matter, or that their voice doesn’t matter. It does. And we preserve these things because they matter. You are unique in this world, and how you share your ideas, perspectives, and experiences with others creates a richness in how we understand who we are.I simply encourage you to honor your creative vision through creative maintenance.

Let me know in the comments: how do you attend to creative maintenance? What has worked for you? What challenges get in the way?

And please consider joining me for my next workshop: Find Your Next 100 Readers! Cultivate the Craft of Connection. Join me on March 22nd for a live workshop with Q&A. All who register receive a full video recording. $49 for access. Full information and registration here.

And here is a link to the video I create for my paid subscribers this week: What do you want people to feel? Content doesn’t matter. Human connection does.

Thanks!
-Dan

The other day I shared a 16 minute video for my paid subscribers called “Creative Success Often Feels Like Failure.” It explored how oftentimes we will reach a creative milestone or goal, only to feel a sense of emptiness and being let down. I talked about why that is, and shared specific strategies to reframe how we think about success in order to feel a sense of satisfaction, momentum, and meaning in how you create and share.

In the comments, readers shared their own stories around this, and one really jumped out at me, and I want to explore what she said today.

In 2017, Maria Maggio Fisher published her first novel, The Summoned Guest. She describes how fulfilling the process was of writing and completing this book:

“How I felt upon completion DID surprise me. It felt like I was meant to write in a way that even having a meaningful career never felt for me. When readers contacted me or local book clubs read my book and invited me – I felt a deep sense of satisfaction and alignment with not only the readers (which was great) but my life’s work or purpose.”

That’s such a huge moment in life! She underscores how important our creative work is to who we are.

In my video, I talked about “lottery ticket thinking,” which is the concept of hoping that a small action on our part will lead to outsized results. With a lottery ticket, we spend a buck or two, choose random numbers, and hope for the chance of receiving millions of dollars in return.

Maria then described the other side of her experience of how she shared her book with the world:

“In writing my novel, which I found very fulfilling, I put in lots of hard work No lottery thinking. But I didn’t allow the final product and launch the respect of this same hard work. Here I had lottery thinking. This came about partly by having followed stories, like you mentioned, of the “overnight” big successes of some self-published authors. Partly I had limited energy leftover from working in my career and was impatient to turn the page on my first novel, which had been a 3 year passion project.”

“You can guess how little traction my novel got by the way I went about publishing it. I felt very disappointed in how quickly things quieted. I felt regret that I didn’t get any pro help (team) for editing or launching. At the time I thought this could never be undone. I was surprised how disappointed I was in myself and the self doubt that followed..Had to get honest with myself about the mistakes I made that contributed to the results. But also be proud of what I did accomplish, all I learned, there was much good.”

“Eventually I admitted to what failed, let go of the first novel success dreams and moved forward. Knowing I was a writer. Not just someone who wanted to write, which I had been for years.”

Of course, I love the wisdom she shares, celebrating what she accomplished here. But she touches upon other concepts I want to explore today about how we share our work, and the possible regrets that a writer may feel in the process.

The Pressure of Sharing

There is risk in writing. And there is risk in sharing. I encourage you to embrace these both.

It is so difficult to share what you write, whether that is in a book launch, or publishing a newsletter. For many writers, they did the brave act of giving themselves permission to create, but when confronted with the idea of sharing, they demure.

They may hesitate to take action, playing narratives over and over in their mind, which prevent them from sharing:

• “I wrote it, isn’t it someone else’s job to promote it?”
• “I mean, who’s to say if what I wrote is even any good. If it’s good, people will find it. Great work rises to the top.”
• “Besides, it will look desperate if people see me promoting my own work.”

But I have found that something magical can happen when we share our work. We learn how to find that connective tissue between why we write, and how to talk about it. We find unexpected connections in how people receive it, and how it inspires them.

For a book launch, it is often accompanied by massive expectations because most writers spend years on the journey to create a book. They want to feel it was “worth it” in some way that is apparent in the world.

So many people tell me they work with me because they want to feel they gave their book their best possible chance. They want to be intentional and strategic, and make the process fun and meaningful. However you choose to share wha you create, I want you to honor the actions you take, and let go of the potential guilt of what you can’t do. This should be a process infused with joy and fulfillment.

Time and time again I have heard people express regret that they didn’t try. In some cases, they offloaded their expectations to others, and hoped that somehow “the marketplace” would work some kind of magic to connect the book with readers.

I believe that each of us has a unique creative voice. I grew up as an artist, and can think of thousands of conversations I have been a part of with those who create — where they talk about their work not out of some self-promotion, but because they love talking about what inspires them.

I encourage you to be intentional about what you create, and to celebrate these actions. This isn’t something you are obligated to do. Instead, it is something you have the opportunity to do. To have a life filled with conversations and connections around the themes and craft that inspire you.

One way to solve for this? Normalize the idea of talking about what you create. There are two ways of doing that:

• Practice talking about what inspires you and why you create, in the context of your everyday life. I help writers do this all the time, finding the exact language. This process creates a gateway into your creative world, a “way in” for those around you. What is a simple example? Maybe I see a neighbor at a local cafe on a Monday morning and they ask, “Hey Dan, how was your weekend?” And I reply, “Good! Went to New York City with my oldest, and spent a few hours on Sunday working on an essay about how writers can navigate creative expectations — and regrets.”
• I encourage you to develop connections with colleagues. Creative work often starts alone, but as it develops I find it always benefits from having others in your creative circle. Those who create as you do, who you can hear about their experience sharing their work, who you can ask questions to, and who makes you feel less alone as a writer. Having colleagues normalizes the idea that we are allowed to talk bout what we create, the creative process, and what inspires us.

I don’t want you to regret that your work didn’t reach readers simply because you never made a strong effort to share it. The good news is that you get to define what that looks like, where you dive in, where you set clear boundaries, and how it connects to why you write.

Overwhelmed by Too Much Information

The internet has given writers access to so much information about things they could possibly be doing to share their writing. In many ways, this is amazing, the gift of knowledge.

However, there is a downside to it, where a writer can find themselves drowning in information. They compile lists of hundreds of potential ways to share their work, and end up feeling that they can’t get to it all, and that no matter what they choose, they will regret having not tried a different tactic.

Likewise, information gathering, research and analysis can be a great way to prevent action. I see this all the time, the person who refuses to talk about their writing because they want to wait for their website to be ready… six months from now. Or because they feel there is one perfect way to launch a book, and they are still figuring out what that is, so they delay talking about their writing until book launch is upon them.

How to solve for this? Take small simple actions. Experiment! Then, repeat.

This sounds scary, right? When I work with a writer, we find this balance between a clear and concise plan, but also ensuring that the process feels infused with authenticity, meaning, and joy. No one can predict success, so we embark on a discovery process to identify what feels right, and we adjust along the way.

What I find is that this removes the pressure and regret people often feel. Having a plan can make you feel prepared, and it can also give you clear direction. The consistency of taking small meaningful actions teaches you so much not only about what works, but what feels right to you.

This isn’t always about identifying the “best practices and maximizing ROI.” Instead, it is about identifying a process that makes you feel great about being a writer, and how you connect with readers.

I have this quote hanging on the wall of my studio next to a photo of Fred Rogers (from the TV show, Mister Rogers):

“I am very concerned that our society is much more interested in information than wonder. In noise rather than silence… How do we encourage reflection?… Oh my this is a noisy world.”

While we can’t always control the world at large, I feel we can control how we approach our own craft in writing and sharing. We can get clarity on specific actions to take, and encourage an ethos that fills you up, instead of overwhelms you.

No One Knows What Works

I read this post the other day from Kate McKean and it resonated:

“When writers ask about the market, especially writers newer to the scene, they think editors and agents have some kind of specialized knowledge to analyze and synthesize what we see in market trends to avoid the dips, to stay afloat, to come out the other end unscathed. And we do not! I mean, we have experience. We know what happened last time and what maybe worked or didn’t work. But very little of that can be extrapolated to predict future trends or outcomes. We can try! We can look back at the cycle paranormal romance took in the 2010s and see how long it’s taken to come back as romantacy and that might help you figure out if you should write that romance about weregophers this year or next. But that doesn’t mean I can definitely sell a romance, or your romance about weregophers. The market is going to do what the market is going to do, and we only know anything in hindsight.”

I have shared a few posts in the past using the phrase: “No one knows what works, but doing stuff works.” This is wisdom that Jennie Nash and I repeat to each other often:

• No one knows what will work (January 2020)
• Doing stuff works (February 2023)
• No one knows what works (January 2024)

I tried to fill those posts with useful examples that embrace this idea. To me, this concept is meant to be freeing. That if no one can promise success, then it should encourage you to make the best effort you can, to have fun in the process, and to be satisfied with what you learn along the way.

It is meant to prevent the regret people feel of “doing the wrong thing,” or the disappointment they feel in things outside of their control, such as “the market.”

I spend so much time researching people’s experiences in how they create and share, and I look across creative fields. I want to end with two stories that I have been thinking a lot about in the past month:

• Actor Kumail Nanjiani was reflecting on the trauma he felt when the movie he had high hopes for (Eternals) ended up not performing as expected. He concluded: “I realized, I can’t be so results based in my work anymore, because I can’t really control it. I can control my experience, I can control how I am with the people around me, I can control what I learn from it, I can control how I work. But I can’t control what people will think of it.”
• Dee Snider of the band Twisted Sister, talked about his life after his success waned. He had huge success in the mid-1980s, and says, “By the early 1990s, I was broke… I remember in 1991, riding a bicycle to a desk job answering phones in an office for a couple hundred dollars a week… No one would believe that the guy from MTV would be sitting here at a desk answering the phone. But it was the best thing that ever happened to me… It made me start over. This time around I was more appreciative and respectful of people around me and what it takes. [To appreciate] the delicacy of success… I went into radio, movies, acting, and voice over work. I did well in these things.” Why did this resonate with me? Because again, it makes this point that there are always things outside of your control. But you get to focus on the craft of how you create, how you share, and how you connect with others.

Let me know in the comments: do you have regrets in how you have shared what you create? Or, to ask the opposite way: what are the regrets you desperately want to avoid!

Thank you for being here with me.
-Dan

Wow, the response to my post last week was incredible! There were more than 100 comments, with dozens of you sharing what you create and why, and even engaging with each other. This is why I do the work I do — to celebrate why we write and how the written word connects us as human beings.

I often end my posts with this, but I want to start with it today: thank you for being here with me.

I don’t take it for granted, and as I’ve gotten older, I have really appreciated how meaningful it is to give someone your attention, share space together, and simply recognize each other’s voices.

Recently I was a guest on two podcasts:

• On the #AmWriting podcast, I talked about “How to Create a Substack that Delivers (for you and your readers)” with KJ Dell’Antonia and Jennie Nash. It was a great conversation because KJ asked the hard questions about Substack, which ensured that we dove deep. I have mentioned Jennie Nash many times in this newsletter — she’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. As expected, she brought so much to frame this conversation around the goals that writers have.
• On the Edit Your Life podcast, I discussed “Finding Connection and Community through Creativity” with Christine Koh. I met Christine years ago and had her as a guest on my podcast. She was so generous in this episode, and talked about how much I have influenced her way of thinking. This was such a heart-filled conversation.

While I have helped many writers successfully launch their paid tiers here on Substack, I only opened up my own a few months ago. I’ve been pretty low key about promoting it, but have LOVED sharing weekly videos for my paid subscribers. I try to truly show up and provide big mindset shifts and manageable strategies in each edition. Here is what I have been sharing over the past several weeks:

• Creativity, productivity, and momentum: The simple tool I use to turn big goals into manageable steps.
• Lessons from a snow day: Finding clarity and calm in sharing your work.
• Find joy in writing and sharing: Strategies for getting unstuck and focusing on craft.
• No one knows what works: How to find momentum and meaning in how you create and share.

In these videos, I welcome you into my studio. It means a lot that some of you join me here! If you want to try out becoming a paid subscriber, you can do by clicking one of the links above.

Recently, I have seen a lot of discussion online bemoaning that writers nowadays have to focus so much on “self-promotion.” One well-researched article started the conversation, and then I saw many reactions from different corners of the writing community, with each person making interesting points from their perspective.

This topic comes up again and again, almost like clockwork. It will come up again in the future as well, under different guises and contexts. One simple way to frame it is this: “I’m a writer, can’t I just write?”

The answer, in short: of course. You can just write, and be satisfied that you are engaging in this amazing and essential human endeavor — to express something meaningful to you, and to develop that craft of expression.

Having grown up as an artist, I have boxes of art and writing sitting up in my dusty 100+ year old attic. For some of these projects, I dreamed of others engaging with them and failed to do the work to make that happen. For others, their only purpose was the act of creation itself.

Earlier this week I read about this new book that showcases the work of Frank Johnson. Who was he? A shipping clerk who died in 1979. The book description tells the story well:

“When Frank Johnson, an itinerant musician and shipping clerk, died in 1979, he left behind a startling discovery: more than 2,300 notebook pages of comics and 131 unbound drawings, among them a massive, continuous story line beginning in the earliest surviving notebook dated 1928 ― before the existence of comic books! ― and following the exploits of his own cast of characters across 50 years until Johnson passed away. During this lifelong project, Johnson invented in private many of the conventions and tropes that define comics storytelling, effectively enacting an alternative secret history of the comics medium.”

Below to the left are the composition books he used to create the comics, numbering each in the series; to the right is a sample of one page in the comic:

His family didn’t know about this work, and he never tried to share or publish any of it. From what anyone can tell, he created just to create. Running a single storyline for decades!

You do not need to publish. You do not need to share your work. You do not need to “self-promote,” or worry about marketing or establishing a platform. There is beauty in the act of creating. Period.

I’ve known Jennifer Louden for years, and read in a recent post from her that she was doing another big house cleaning, ridding her life of items that are just taking up space. What did she include in the “recycle” pile? Decades of diaries and journals:

She was gracious enough to pull these out of recycling to take a photo for me. Why would she dispose of her writing, when so much of her life and career revolves around writing? After trashing the easy objects to get rid of, she explains what happened next:

“Here I [was] perched in my cold basement, scanning through the boxes of remaining journals. It took about ten minutes to be exhausted by reading my berating efforts to change and be someone other than I was…”

“But then something else took shape on those pages… how often I wrote something along the lines of, ‘This time will be different, I will make writing fiction a priority.’”

“I sat there, grimy from cleaning, stunned. I had forgotten how badly and over how many years I had tried to write novels. How much work I had done. And how many times I had faltered. Quit. The last time I tried writing fiction? 12 years ago.”

“I could have dug a deep cesspool of regret and drowned myself there after reading those decades of trying and not succeeding, of stopping and starting. But instead, I sat up straighter and thought, ‘Damn girl you spent a lot of time thinking about writing, learning about writing, working it, you have been devoted. And you are primed to do this now!’”

“Also, I did write 9 other books during that time. I did support my family. I did help a lot of women. And I won’t discount that.”

“I dragged those dented old banker boxes, sans a few journals about my kid’s early years, out to the recycling bin, and went back in the warm kitchen without a backward glance. My work now is to relax, write the rest of this first draft…”

All those years of writing, Jen concluded, served the purpose of preparing her for this very moment. Disposing of her journals seems to be part of a takeoff sequence, shedding the fuel she needed to launch the next phase of her work.

This week I began working with two new writers (new to me, each have been writing for years), and each described their goals and challenges. I love how one of them framed investing in themselves this year through our work:

“I feel this intense need to make a pivot. I do not want to wake up next year and still be saying the same thing: I wish I had a writing career. I feel like it’s my turn and time to throw everything at my writing to see what can really come of it. I don’t want to even go down that journey without at least being able to say that I really worked hard to make a writing career happen.”

I love the energy here, and the reminder that this work is intentional. How you share is a craft. I have developed a curriculum that I use for helping people learn to share their work. I have never shared this publicly before — but it contains more than 100 items, all in an ordered progression. I know, that sounds overwhelming, which is probably why I don’t talk much about it! But I created it to double down on my belief that when we share what we create, meaningful connections happen. And we just have to take one small step at a time.

This is different from how many people consider sharing. They view it exclusively as “I’m putting on my marketing hat,” or “I suppose it’s required that I do self-promotion.” I am reminded of this with some junk mail I received recently:

This is just some mass printed promotion, but they try to make it look hand written. Why? They know that authenticity sells — to make this seem like someone worked hard to offer this by writing it out by hand, so you should reciprocate by replying.

Another piece of mail arrived recently:

Why include two dollar bills? Shock value, I mean, how often do you unexpectedly receive cash in the mail? But also — again — to encourage reciprocation. If they gave me this money, don’t I owe it to them to respond?

As a student of communication and marketing, I love seeing these tactics at work. But… as a writer or creator, you don’t have to employ them.

When you create, you do so because you feel called to from something deep inside of you. If you choose to share, this is not “self-promotion,” but you sharing that work knowing that it may resonate deeply with someone. And in that moment, you can change their life. You can give them a brief respite in an otherwise difficult time. You can help them see the world differently, or even themselves differently.

How we share is a craft. It’s why I show up every day to work with writers. It’s why being present here matters so much to me:

To truly see each other. To listen. To celebrate what we create. To share what matters deeply.

I would love to know, how do you see the pros and cons of sharing your writing or creative work? Is it a positive feeling, or do you worry that you will be seen as “self-promoting?” Let me know in the comments.

Thank you for being here with me.

-Dan