The Third Year Online Creator Playbook
How I'm going to have my most productive and creative year yet
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I joined Write of Passage at the end of February 2022. This marks the end of my second year as an online writer. For the past two years, I wrote a lot of different things mostly focused on the idea that I would uncover an emergent niche.
Something my friend Paul Millerd said inspired me to think otherwise:
He said that hammering away at a niche is like owning a business, but “if you want to build a life around work not downstream of work, you need to find a mode to show up in over and over again.”
I don’t really want “a niche.” I like the freedom to write whatever, forever. So I asked myself, what would my “mode” look like, instead?
I realized I’d already sketched out some ideas to this effect. They were organized around what a modern creator needs to make it and be successful. Different names I workshopped were “five-star creator” or “multi-tool creator,” but I already had a pretty concrete idea to start from and I’ve included the five broad strokes as action statements below, with short descriptions underneath them. The reason this is a workshop post, for now, is because I want this to be a quiet hypothesis I revisit again in February 2025.
This is my Third Year Creator Playbook: the five rules I will follow to have my most productive and creative year yet.
[1] Make your own canon.
To make your own canon you need to be both a fan and a critic--someone who loves and appreciates and someone who has discerning taste. You need to know why you love what you love, separate it from the rest and explain why it's good. Get started by cataloging the art and ideas who made you who you are, and making your own best of lists. As a way of being, celebrate the things you love, focus on what you want to see more of, and study the people who are great at what you love.
[2] Create as a habit.
Opt for 'mode' over masterpiece. The best art will come from a practice of creating not a focus on "one true" piece of art. So try to make a habit of creating good stuff often. You should stop revising in a given session when you feel it's only ninety-percent finished. But you (Charlie), should go back two or three times more than you think is necessary--note, that this advice may not generalize. Practice what you're good at, and learn to practice what you want to be better at. Find the right balance of repeating yourself and doing new stuff. Do what works but also do the weirdest thing that feels right.
[3] Promote your aesthetic.
Leave the idea of 'guilty pleasures' behind forever. Be unapologetic about what you love. Make a routine of consuming and creating the art that you love. Promote your own aesthetic standards. Promote your own canon. Routinely share them in bite-sized pieces and prepare magnum opuses. Insert your own works of art alongside your canon. Share your own art alongside the things that inspire it. Be honest about what inspires you.
[4] Value your art.
Make it easy for people to pay you. Ask for money in a direct way in multiple places. Develop things you can sell multiple times. Ask for people to like, comment, and share more often than it feels comfortable. When people tell you they love it or like it, thank them--and ask why. When they tell you why, write it down.
[5] Build an audience.
Treat fans as friends but don't expect friendship. Experiment aggressively across platforms. But once you are delivering on one platform well, give people what they expect most of the time. Continue promoting things after the initial distribution. Find new places to find new fans. Be audience conscious but art first: don't be afraid to reinvent yourself.
Any edits or updates I make after February 20, 2024 will be noted here.