Category: WorkCategory: Work

These machines once ran in the Davis & Furber Mills, in North Andover, MA in the early 1800s.

On a local trail, part of a long abandoned rail line, there are remains of buildings, one labeled, “MANAGERS OFFICE.”

These jobs and industries used to be the focal point of someone’s lives, a source of stress and income, replaced by today’s stress and income which will be long forgotten 50 years from when you read this.

Everything will be forgotten, which is actually pretty freeing.

This morning Cara Alwill and I had a lovely chat on Substack Live, and we covered so many wonderful topics:

Sending the email (don’t wait on algorithms): take matters into your own hands are start reaching out to other creative people, and maybe send more newsletters!

“If people are unsubscribing from you, it means you have a point of view.” — Cara Alwill

Scrappy vs. polished: the world has enough “optimized” text, it’s time to go feral.

Building your own team before anyone hands you one: start working with people in the early stages so you can sniff out the creeps later on.

You are the lead magnet: Forget the niche, you are the reason someone reads.

Just do the thing: Stop announcing, stop planning every little move, and start making.

“There’s a fine line between inspiration and procrastination.” — Cara Alwill

From my interview with Julie Laufer and her Be Cringe Podcast (edited slightly for readability), on the difference between hoping the algorithm smiles upon you versus putting your hope in the work you’re doing.

Spend a sliver of the time you waste on social media on your art and your craft. That way, when people do notice what you do — maybe 75 people, maybe a hundred — they turn their heads because you’re genuinely that good.

That’s what you want. Not constantly promoting. Just being undeniably good at the thing.

Yeah, yeah — “be so good they can’t ignore you.” Easy for Steve Martin to say.

But challenge accepted.

Be so good that you can have the conversation. Be ready for the opportunity, in all the ways it might show up — not scrambling to make 12-second clips hoping the algorithm throws you a bone.

The hope is in the work.

Reach out to some people just outside of your orbit. Ask to be on a podcast. Talk with someone about a collaboration. Do things that are lot more fun than trying to entertain strangers on platforms that don’t exist to send you free traffic.

Watch the full interview here.

You’re an artist, a poet, a musician, a creative person, and you’re tired of algorithms controlling who sees what. I was one of the first 3,000 to sign up for Twitter, I get it. But I’ve seen bands shout into the void for 10+ years on social media, and helped some artists get back to things like owning their website and direct connection to their audience with an email list.

Otherwise, it all becomes a digital hamster wheel that keeps us all spinning in place.

Here’s how you break out.

• Start looking at the profiles and about pages of the people you follow and see who they link to, what they like, who they follow.
• Start clicking the links in people’s newsletter and meet the people they’re gushing about.
• Tune into random live streams, hit play on podcasts you’ve never heard before.
• Join (and / or host) Zoom calls without expectations.
• Read the acknowledgements in books, and scan the credits of big video productions.

I know plenty of creative people doing these things a few times per week, and it puts dozens of wonderfully talented people onto their radar. I dare you to do the same!

Follow someone, subscribe, leave a thoughtful comment, send a DM or an email.

I’ve been doing this since at least 2023 and it’s radically shifted my creative vision, and given me hope for the future. Or you can continue letting an algorithm determine your fate, rather than trusting your gut and being intentional with who you let into your creative orbit.

This from Amie McNee:

“You have to learn to continue to hold your art when people are apathetic about it, because you will know your creation has something to give before the institutions do, before the culture does. It is hard to be the first that knows, but it is the artist’s job to come first.”

The artist’s job comes first. If people walk out of the venue during your show, it is not your job to change the music you are playing.