Well, hello there! If you are new here, welcome! I’m so excited to get back into the rhythm of my weekly-ish Wednesday writings here on Substack.
As a bonus for paid subscribers, I’ve added an audio feature to these posts. If you prefer listening to reading, become a paid subscriber or start your 7-day free trial and click the voiceover at the top ⬆️
Speaking of audio, “letting myself evolve” was one of the six things bringing joy from last week’s podcast. You can listen to that (for free!) here.
I’m stepping into a new season of publishing my words weekly again, and if this one hits a chord, could you share it with someone you meet on your path? I’d appreciate it.
Today’s post is half (tough?) love letter to us writers with readers/ half call-to-freedom for the creative people-pleasers. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts in the comments.
As always, I’m so glad you’re here. —Merideth
I’m slightly embarrassed to tell you how often I think about you. You. The person reading this.
When I was just starting out as a writer who shared words online, I attended an entrepreneurship workshop where I designed your avatar. I asked myself questions about what books you read and where you shop. Listing your demographics like I was mining (at that point, entirely imaginary) data for the secret sauce: how to make you happy, entice you to click, to keep you reading this sentence, and then the next, and then the next. (Please don’t stop now!) This seems especially silly since I had yet to share a word of my writing on the internet, and so technically, you didn’t even exist.
No shade: Sometimes these prompts and exercises can be helpful.
But if I’m being totally honest, the business approach to writing always felt wrong to me.
Things may be bought and sold, sure, but, as I meet more and more of you IRL or online, as I load more newsletters and Substack posts on this tiny screen in my hand, I realize the writers I like are not the ones attempting to hack into my clickbait potential. I connect most with those inviting me to listen to their inner chatter, sometimes deep, almost always vulnerable, first and foremost, honest and authentic. Somewhere along the way, I suppose I just decided to join them, sharing what was in my heart and mind, writing the kind of words I wanted to read, which I knew weren’t for everyone, but trusted were for someone. I remember praying, in those early days, that the words would find their person. You’re here! That prayer was answered!1
When email was still young, back when I was in high school and just starting college, I used to write 2k-word emails to close friends and family. (I know! Imagine doing that now!) I’d share my life and make it poetic and attempt to get those I love to laugh. It felt like coming home and hanging my jacket on a familiar hook, sitting down with either of my grandmothers after many months away. They genuinely cared to hear not just about the details of what was going on in my life, but what I was thinking, what I was hoping for, what meaning I was making, who I was becoming.
Why do those conversations feel so rare in life now? Is this what happens when our attention goes up for sale?
I can’t stop thinking about an interview I saw recently with a *very* famous writer who has a highly anticipated memoir coming out. We’re talking Oprah-Book-Club-Good-Morning-America-NYTimes famous.2 This writer is someone many creatives admire or might even consider a “guru.” I saw her responding to the criticism that the new book, with its unvarnished, darker, less inspirational storyline, “leaves readers behind.” One critic said something like, “You are asking readers to follow you to a place they do not want to go.”
This stuck with me, because my first thought was: Guys, it's a memoir—that is, a TRUE story about this writer’s life as she sees it.
What do you do if you’re someone who writes about life, when your true stories start to leave readers behind? Is it possible as a writer to care too much about the readers? Not enough? What’s the right amount of caring?
This summer, during my recovery from surgery, as I gave myself a break from the constant stream of internet chatter, I realized my writing (my life? Are they the same?) was changing. My inner mean girl started wondering if you, my dear reader, would approve.
Ok, so it’s not Oprah Book Club high-stakes, to be sure, but still. I’ve learned to separate these negative voices from the true ones, to write them down and question them. They show up when I’m afraid; their presence reminds me that I care (sometimes too much about the wrong things). Does creating ever feel like showing someone who you are, bracing to see if you can trust them not to scoff?
So, see, I’ve been thinking of you, reader. I’m wondering if you might find yourself looking for permission to evolve, too?
This week, I realized that what I long for most is not so much your clicks or your incredibly valuable time and engagement—all of which I am immensely grateful for, do not get me wrong.
What I want in this writing life is something simultaneously simpler and yet more profound than your attention.
In spite of the “terrors of the night”— the voyeurs, the frenemies, the trolls, the critics, the crazy-makers—what I want most to find on the other side of my words are not hoards of beloved followers and captivated readers, but my self, me, becoming more who I feel I am called to be.
I don’t need to tell you about the times we live in. Sometimes, it feels like there is nothing left to say that doesn’t carry some secret code or virtue signal—on all the sides. Sometimes, it is hard for the tender-hearted creator to choose words for fear they will, upon leaving the fingertips, be suddenly, somehow, laced with poison.
When I sit down to write, instead of sitting across from someone who cares, I brace myself for retribution. I worry about “leaving you behind.” That phrasing reminds me of those novels from my childhood about the rapture. Nothing makes me feel less creative than judgmentalism, potential controversy, the fear of being misunderstood.3
Something happens to artists when we become too audience-conscious. You know what I mean, I’m sure. When I started acquiring clicks and podcast streams, as I noticed that there were real-live people to research for my psychographics spreadsheet—boy, was it a mind-trip.
A lot of visual artists like the podcast! I should talk more about visual art! Wait, are my music metaphors making sense? *head scratch emoji*
There are a lot of women here. Should I stop talking about women's stuff so the men feel welcome, or lean into the lady-lingo full force? *curious emoji*
Oh, this person is conservative/liberal/atheist/agnostic/Buddhist/Unitarian/Catholic—is this sentence going to send them running to the comments? *hiding emoji*
What happens to us when we confuse making art with making a sale, with making content?
I hadn’t realized how the voice of my own inner knowing—the deep, spiritual pull to create from a place of honesty and authenticity, a voice I believe doesn’t come from me—I hadn’t realized just how much the cultural wars could sweep her under, the fickle racket of public opinion could steal her voice.
Can you care about the reader and not abandon the spiritual invitation of creating?
While I don’t know everything about my inner knowing (she and I are just getting reacquainted, actually) I know she is unselfconscious. She does not fear retaliation or scrutiny or unsubscribes. She is brave and unafraid. And when I think too much about what she “should” be saying, she retreats into herself. Then I pull the lever and ask for words, and out come the platitudes and clichés like junk food from a vending machine.
More important than being liked, praised, or lauded is listening and following what’s true onto the page, the stage, or the canvas.
This is all at once simpler and much more complicated than it sounds.
And a reminder: “pleasing everyone” is not a thing. As Emily P. Freeman taught us in her book, How to Walk into a Room: “What wounded, anxious people need most is not you as they think you ought to be, but the solid presence of a well-differentiated leader who insists on being okay with or without their consent. This is as true for a parent as it is true for a president.”4
Readers aren’t left behind. They’re set free.
We can trust them to evolve, too.
In this season of my life, I’m choosing to care just a *little less* about what you think, dear reader.
Instead, I will strengthen my relationship with my inner knowing, which I believe comes directly from my Maker, and invite you to do the same.
It isn’t easy, but what other choice do we have?
No critique hurts as much as staying stuck when you were made to grow.
Have you been waiting for permission to evolve in a new direction, a direction you know you are being led?
Here’s some encouragement:
An institution I work with emailed yesterday to say they were reorganizing their entire business structure.
A podcast I like started a sister-show about a completely different topic.
At least two famous authors I know publish memoirs this month that are “left turns” from their previous books.
The internet is commenting. These changes aren’t for everyone. But they do give me courage.
You do not need permission to evolve.
If you outgrow the container you build for yourself, let its pieces fall away; get still and listen for what is coming together next.
The real work of art is who you are becoming.
When we let ourselves and our creations change, we invite others to walk their own path, to be made new, to experience a joy much deeper than being liked.
I almost used a message-in-a-bottle metaphor there, but I thought you might find it cliché. See? I want nothing if not to please you!
Keeping it vague here on purpose because I am less interested in having a conversation about that author and the controversial book, especially before I’ve read it!
Why yes, I am an Enneagram 4. Why do you ask? ;)
Emily P. Freeman, How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away (New York: HarperOne, 2024), 176.
