The other day a writer said to me: “I have been making different choices this week because of the Clarity Cards.” That meant a lot to me. So much of what it means for each of us to write, publish, and share our work is about making choices. We choose to write each day, to send an email to reach out to another author, to show up and engage with readers, or to publish again and again. Today I want to talk about making choices that help you connect what you create with those who will truly appreciate it.
I’ve always had anxiety, and one of the ways I deal with it is this: begin again. I simply wake up the next day as a fresh start, and attend to the things that matter most to me first thing. My parents were both early risers and I have always been one, too. On most days around 5am I am driving to my studio, and I notice the other people who are out. Often they are joggers and those who are waiting outside the gym I pass on my way to work. It’s 5am and people are in line waiting for the gym to open.
I consider each of these people with empathy. Why is she waiting for the doors to open? It’s likely that she has to be on the 7:30am train to work — likely she has a couple kids at home still sleeping. She is making the choice to ensure she puts her health first in the day, because if she doesn’t, other responsibilities will get in the way, and she may never make it to the gym.
Earlier this week I woke up just after 3:30am and was on my way to the studio around 4:15. I’ll admit, I felt like a weirdo as I left the house. Then, 1/2 a block from my house, I saw a car back out of their driveway. “Okay, I’m not the only one, I thought.” Then a block later, another car backed out of their driveway. I don’t know who these people are, or where they were going, but I assumed it was to work somewhere.
They are making choices. For some, they may feel the choice is made for them, such as, “To make ends meet, I’m working a double shift, and that means my workday starts at 5am.” Yet that is still a choice — to try to make those ends meet.
Recently another writer told me about how my work has been encouraging her to share more, saying: “It’s a remarkable change you started. A couple of years ago I went out of my way to NOT share that I worked on things that mattered to me. It turns out, people can handle knowing what I’m up to!”
So often, writers and creators desperately hope that their work is seen and embraced. What I often consider is: what does a writer do after they click ‘publish’ to help this happen? The other day I asked writers about their ideal weeks. I heard a wide range of answers, but one theme kept coming up again and again: wanting to publish an essay and then spend the rest of the week engaging with people who were moved by it and letting the writer know about it.
Of course, I love that. What I consider is whether this an active process, or passive? We tend to dream of the passive version: one where we write, click ‘publish’…. then some kind of unseen magic happens… and readers find it, read it, then take the time out of their day to choose to engage with you, share it with others, and otherwise support your writing.
So much of my work is about is trying to demystify: what is that “magic?” That in-between step where a writer feels they have agency to connect their writing with readers who will appreciate it.
My fear is always that if a writer publishes something and feels no one has read it, that they may feel bad about it and stop writing. I desperately want for people to keep writing and sharing their unique creative voices.
In answering the question about the magic, I have found that the answer is to view marketing as a craft. To proactively reach out to people, get good at basic communication skills, share your work as if it truly matters, and show up to support others, not just hope they support you. This is central to the methodology I created, which I call the Creative Success Pyramid.
If you are trying to bridge that gap between your writing and your readers, here are some things to consider trying…
Use a Wide Range of Emotions to Engage Readers
If you are sharing about the themes you write about often — say, in a weekly Substack newsletter, or on Instagram, or podcasts, or some other channel — I encourage you to consider how you can share with a wide range of emotions.
What would a post look like if it centered on joy? On fear? On apprehension? On envy? On love? On fickleness? (I don’t really know if each of these are emotions, but you get the idea.)
For one, this gives you the entire range of human emotions by which to consider the themes you write about. But it also allows you to tap into what engages people in different ways.
So often, writers and creators are looking for new trends and hacks to engage people. Instead, I encourage you to focus on simplicity. Let me share a (somewhat bizarre) example:
Back in 2004, Gary Brolsma made a simple video lip-syncing to a song, and called it “Numa Numa Dance.” He’s sitting at his chair in front of his computer, what looks to be a reptile cage over one shoulder, a window air conditioner over the other.
This video went viral in a big way, with hundreds of millions of views. I’ve become fascinated with it as an example of simplicity and emotion.
The framing of the video is way off. The image is highly pixelated. He’s doing a dance and you can barely even see the top of his shoulders. Yet, it’s highly engaging, because he covers a wide range of emotions in this tiny space:
A team of people with professional dancers, a choreographer, set builders, and a famous director could have spent months creating a video, and it likely wouldn’t have had as much success as this simple video. Which brings me to…
Embrace Your Limits
So often writers and creators don’t share because they bemoan their limits. They justify it by saying that they don’t have knowledge of a certain channel, have no energy, or time, or access. Yet some of the most engaging people I have found online have these same exact limits, and flip them on their heads.
For instance, they make short videos while walking home from a run to solve the “time” issue. Or they start on TikTok or Instagram or Substack, and immediately say, “I have no idea what I’m doing, but…” and then they share their unique voice with the world.
One of my favorite examples of this is a comedian that I wrote about a couple of years back. He created a comedy special from one room in a small building in his backyard. The result? Multiple Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and so much more.
Here are the posts:
What you see is someone immersed in the creative process, and embracing their limits. That awkward room with the air conditioner in the background (again with the air conditioner?!) is transformed into set after set, and wildly different styles of performances during the comedy special.
He could have spent a year writing a comedy special, justifying that he would have to film it later on in a professional studio. Instead he used what he had:
He shared a behind-the-scenes video about the making of this special, and what you see is, well, boring. Someone spending their time trying out different lighting effects from a cheap LED light that he probably spent $25 on. The choice he made was to spend a few hours experimenting with the light instead of watching Netflix or scrolling on Facebook. Which leads us to…
Invest in Basic Communication Skills
I often feel that so many of us walk around with common fears about social interactions. So we avoid them, even if they lead to amazing things for our writing, and for ourselves personally.
I want to encourage you to get good at these basic communication skills. Writing an email (without AI), sending a DM, pitching yourself, or just knowing how to introduce yourself to someone as a writer or creator. An easy example is being prompt in communication. I have had plenty of writers over the years say things to me like, “Oh I was desperately hoping for an agent to be interested in my writing, then I went to an writing conference, and an agent really wanted to see my manuscript!” When I asked what happened next, they would reply, “Oh nothing yet, that was three months ago, I’m too scared to send it. I want to revise it one more time.”
When someone reaches out to you and they hear back right away, you make their life better. They aren’t left waiting. They don’t begin entertaining negative thoughts like, “He hasn’t replied yet, I bet I was annoying him, I shouldn’t have sent the email.” So much of this is not about “writing the perfect email.” Instead, it is about being clear enough so people understand, and brief enough so they can take action.
I can think of a few moments in my life when I realized that basic communication skills were a critical part of who I am and what I can accomplish:
In the late 1990s I was working at an online startup in New York City. A co-worker and I were creating a 1-page marketing letter, and when I reviewed the copy, I saw some glaring changes that needed to be made. I pointed them out to her, and she immediately was like, “Oh, yes, of course.” And I noticed something in the moment: she hadn’t seen them. Now, this co-worker was super smart and talented. It was a tiny thing, but it was a moment in my life where I realized, “Sometimes I can see things that others don’t with language.” From that point on, I focused on writing and editing a lot more, trying to develop those skills.
My father was always amazed at how I was able to write this newsletter each week — this is the 19th year of sending them weekly. Growing up, I would watch him pour over letters he wrote, or any kind of writing he had to do. He would sit there editing them again and again. When I was going through his papers after he passed away, I found a folder filled with drafts of a single letter to an insurance company. Draft after draft, each with markups. I saw him work at writing, and I suppose that always stuck with me.
Another time, I had begun working at a publisher in their corporate communications department. I was working with a colleague who was super talented, and came from a big newspaper as a reporter. We were both new to the company, were writing an article, and we had a question for someone in the HR department for our Chicago office. But we didn’t know anyone yet. So I picked up the phone, dialed a random number from the company directory for the Chicago office, explained what we needed, and got routed to the right person. When I put down the phone, my colleague stood next to me, her mouth agape, “I can’t believe you just did that!” I was confused and asked, “Did what?” She couldn’t believe that I just called a random number, saying, “What if a VP of the company answered?” insinuating that I could have somehow bothered them. I explained that I was honest in what we needed, and I’m sure they would have helped.
Now, here too, my colleague was AMAZING. I learned so much from her. Yet somehow, making a cold call like this — even inside our own company — was a hard line she wouldn’t cross. Again, I noticed this about myself, here was something that was easy for me. So I started developing that skill even further. Of course, nowadays, I help writers get comfortable with these types of things all the time.
Invest in the basic skills of communication. They will serve you in a wide variety of situations in how you share your writing.
What are the skills you have developed — or seen others develop — that you feel help them connect their writing with readers? I would love to hear examples or stories in the comments!
Thank you for being here with me.
-Dan