Writers Guides Are Launching January, And A Question For You.

On building a community and helping writers grow in the New Year

Omg, y’all, how is this the second last Friday of the year? Five sleeps until Christmas, twelve days left in the year. Which means basically 2024 is almost a done deal and I’m ready to eat chocolate and drink fancy coffee with whipped cream and read books.

But also? Making plans. Because Black Friday is done and Black Friday Returns is done and the deadline for holiday shipping has passed, all things that affect a body that sits cross legged in a chair writing copy for ecommerce. And I can almost breathe again.

This little corner of the internet here on Substack has been so good to me. God, when I started on Substack I was lucky if I got 5 hearts on a post. Writing into the void, but that’s how a lot of us start if we didn’t bring an audience with us. And now? My top post has over 1700 hearts and I don’t know how that’s even possible. You know?

At the beginning of December I wrote a post about an experiment I was trying on Notes, just sharing people doing good work instead of playing the look-at-me game and then for weeks, every time I went to notes, I saw people doing the same and saying thanks for the idea and it darn near brought me to tears.

There’s something magic about connecting, you know? Because I’m old enough that I didn’t grow up with the internet and it took six weeks to get a letter to my sister in Australia and just the immediacy of connecting? Some days it feels like magic.

There’s so much more I want to do here.

So much new coming. Over the next week or two I’ll be rebuilding a little. I’m adding book reviews and writer guides. I read and write like my life depends on it because for the most part it does and if you’re a writer, maybe that makes sense to you.

There’s a quote about people not knowing how close they were to success when they gave up. It’s attributed to Thomas Edison and I don’t know if he actually said that, but the sentiment rings true. So often when people struggle, it’s the little mistakes they don’t even know they’re making that make all the difference.

I see that a lot on Medium. Someone submits a story and I go through and tell them all the little mistakes that will get them declined for boost. So we fix it up and voila, they get boosted and earn 4x the amount they would have if they didn’t. And every time, they say the same thing—I didn’t know. It’s one of the best parts of being in the program, helping writers get more eyes on their work.

Here, too. I see people writing their hearts out and making little mistakes that slow down their growth and I recognize it because I made ALL those same mistakes. I often say I seem to have to learn everything the hard way but I think we all do that.

Just a ton of things I want to add. Grow this space and help more writers grow. Some days I sit back and watch people connecting in comments and it does my heart good and I want to do more with that, too. Build a community with writers and their dreams at the heart of it. Because we all want that. Just want our words to be read.

Which leads to you…

I made a little poll because I want your feedback. I want to know what you’d like to learn more about. I went general but feel welcome to get specific in comments.

If there’s anything you’d love to see added here, let me know!

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My most recent post on Medium: I Shut My Eyes And The World Drops Dead

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