I see hundreds, actually thousands, of online writing courses popping up on the Internet. Nearly all of them involve some cohort based model that trains people on how to write consistently for an online audience (for engagement).

The creators have already solved the riddle of content-driven writing, and they will show you how to crack the code.

Life... See more

That’s my big learning of the year: understanding the way someone’s interior life translates to what they make. When I first started writing this Substack, I was possessed by the sense that I had to figure out “how to do it.” Which other Substacks do I like, which other Substacks are popular, what do they write about, how do they make it work. It’s... See more

Lots of people worry that AI will replace human writers. But I know something the computer doesn’t know, which is what it feels like inside my head. There is no text, no .jpg, no .csv that contains this information, because it is ineffable. My job is to carve off a sliver of the ineffable, and to eff it.

(William Wordsworth referred to this as... See more