The goal for any creative undertaking cannot be financial. There is a pervasive rhetoric that all projects must be "side hustles," squeezed for every drop of potential gain — and when you hear it enough, it seeps in. I've gotten to a place where I realize that to maintain creative autonomy, I need to let my right brain beat out my left when it comes to my writing. Did this mean I needed to take on another “high octane” startup job to make ends meet? Absolutely, but that’s a trade-off I'll gladly make. And luckily, said startup is in the creator space where creative side projects aren't just tolerated but actively encouraged (thanks, beehiiv!).

I need to write in my own voice. In my newsletters of yore, I strived to be too polished, educational, or overly informative — and upon reading them back, my authenticity had gotten lost somewhere in the rounds of revisions. Generic drivel, when what I wanted was the opposite. I also discovered I care about writing and words and language and translating my mind to the metaphorical “page” (read: tiny pixels on a screen) too much to outsource the process to AI.