The Author-Oddity Newsletter is my passion project. I can’t believe seventy subscribers are now cracking this newsletter open every month! I’m so grateful and excited every time I sit down to draft the next one.
When I started my author newsletter, I knew I wanted to talk about my writing. But how could I talk about my writing without also sharing what inspires it? It’s other creatives that got me this far. It’s their energy that keeps me going. The artists, the indie game developers, the musicians. My fellow writers.
Being a creative right now feels hard.
You can’t just create. You have to record your process. Build an audience (the more subscribers, the better). Define a brand. Be present, available, friendly, authentic. But also, define your niche. Stay consistent and don’t overshare. Expect the platforms that profit most off your “products” to treat you as disposable. And on top of that, why are you bothering? Generative AI could do it faster, cheaper, better.
The traditional publishing industry alone can be pretty crushing. It took me over 130 queries across two books and a novella to find my agent in early 2025, and I was lucky. I think that number is low. Since then, we’ve gone out on submission with two books, and we’ve heard . . . nothing. Form declines and ghosting. This result, too, is completely normal.
Choosing to create is an act of resistance. It’s looking out at that landscape, all the suffering and greed and apathy, and saying “I’m gonna do it anyway.” It’s saying “You can’t take my joy.”
I love that about creativity. I think, because of that, surrounding yourself with creativity is good for your soul.
Every newsletter I send, I share a little piece of myself. But I also try to share the odd creations that sparked something for me that month.
My amazing subscribers . . .
I hope each newsletter brings you a little relief. I hope you find something in each one that you think about all day, because it was just so weird or haunting or darkly lovely.
And if you’re also a writer, I hope each newsletter sparks something for you too.
The Author-Oddity Newsletter’s logo is 100% human! I wrote a blog about the process and how it helped me refine how I thought about my “brand:” Why Human Collabs Are Crucial to Human Creativity: My New Logo.
