What I learned from 100 newsletters
Oh, hi friends!
I didn’t write yesterday because…because I wanted No. 100 to be special, then the day slipped by, and pressure mounted, and then I wanted to see how long it would take for my mother or friends to email asking if I was still alive (less than 48 hours for both) and now here we are.
And before I get started, well, thank you for reading. Your time is valuable and I appreciate you lending some to me over these last few months for a project that's felt both enlightening and somehow inevitable.
If you're thinking about embarking on something new, I hope you find these "lessons" valuable.
What I Learned from Writing 100 Newsletters
Streamline your process
From the beginning, I made writing this newsletter logistically as easy as possible. I kept one Pages doc open all the time and when someone sent me a suggestion or I had a kernel of an idea, I dropped it in. This was my catch-all. Also, I decided to stop tweaking the format—“designing” it in Mailchimp takes maybe 10 minutes. Do you have a catch-all for your blossoming projects? If not, where do your ideas go?
Beware the adjacent thing
Certain days I punted real work—paying or otherwise creative work—and justified my behavior by saying, “Well, the newsletter counts, right?” Nah. It really doesn't. Writing it is adjacent to my work, not for a replacement for it. That’s a sneaky distinction I only solved by asking the question: Do I want to be known for writing newsletters or for having an EGOT? Look at your own busy life. Do you have an adjacent thing that masks itself as Real Work?
Nobody cares
“Hey, I’m reading this, and I’m not a nobody!” Truth. I believe you. And I love you. But also…nobody actually cares about my side hustle or project. Or yours. We can all advise and support each other, but in the end, nobody should care as much as you do. It’s a losing game to ask them to. So ask yourself, do you care the most? Because when you do, you free yourself from judgment (except your own, but that's a whole other ball of yarn).
How to maintain momentum
You can write for yourself or an audience or one person whose sense of humor perfectly aligns with your own, but if you don’t love the process, the actual doing-of-the-work, the churning, then the work will not get done. It’s that simple. Why do you think talking yourself into something never works? You don’t like the process, you resent the project, then you drop all the metaphorical balls. Whatever you're doing, or trying to do, do you love your process? If not...can you change it by moving to a new environment, working at a different time of day, or making any other tweaks?
Find your own feedback loop
I love when people hit reply to say something I included resonates with them. But if I judged the value of every newsletter on whether or not someone responded, or what my friends said, I would have stopped back at No. 20. The secret is…this newsletter is actually for me. It’s my selfish place to organize my thoughts, share what I find, and connect to people I don’t normally speak to every day. But you have to divorce your work from the feedback itself or you will kill yourself trying to get more likes, more responses, more shares. If you're stuck, ask yourself whether you have an internal or external feedback loop?
What’s the point?
I started this daily exercise because I enjoyed writing recaps of the Brass Ring Summits I hold in my apartment every month, where creatives, writers, entrepreneurs, actors, doctors, and erstwhile side hustlers get together to talk about their interests. (You're invited!) Early on, someone asked why I was spending time writing this newsletter. Basically, what was the point. I could be writing an article for money or a script to submit or even doing something fun. (Something fun! Can you imagine?!) Simple answer? I want to. And so I do. And that’s really the only answer you ever need to give anyone about why you’re embarking on something new: I want to. And so I am.
There are many more lessons but I'll save them for No. 200. And I’ll be back Monday with regularly scheduled emails! Is there something you’d like to see? Any ideas for me? Hit reply. You know I’d love to hear from you.
Thank you for reading.
Love, Kara