Do what only you can do
Ready to give up on a idea? Take inspiration from Kevin Kelly and change tack, how his epiphany helped us and it might help you to keep going.
Hello there writing friend
Writer, thinker, and founder of Wired magazine Kevin Kelly had something of an epiphany.1
At the magazine, around half the articles came from submissions (freelance journalists pitching ideas to him) while the other half came from commissions (Kelly pitching-out ideas for journalists to write).
The ideas for these assignments came from various places and often from Kelly himself. Sometimes he found it easy to commission-out stories, while at other times he struggled – really struggled. He said:
“Often, I’d have an idea and I’d try to find a freelancer to give them the assignment – but I’d have no luck in selling the idea or even giving it away.”
So, he’d just file the idea away and assume it wasn’t a very good one. Some of the ideas went away but others stuck with him.
Year after year, knockback after knockback, he kept trying to convince reluctant freelance journalists to run with his stories. These ideas are so bad, he must have thought, I can’t even pay someone to write about them.
But instead of giving up, he changed tack. We learnt a lot from his new direction and reckon you can too.
The benefit of keeping going
We started this newsletter as a bit of an experiment. For the past 12 months we’ve written posts tied into the subjects of different chapters of our book Written. This month we’re into the conclusion and now, we’ve run out of chapters to write about.
But we’re not stopping - I hope you’re pleased to hear. We’re keeping going. In fact, we love our Substack community so much we’re going to dive deeper into it and start offering direct coaching support like Q&As, webinars, writing clinics and sprints. If you’re interested, there’s more below.
We don’t know how this will evolve but, as with any creative project, we’ll only figure this out by carrying on, seeing what you find useful and what you don’t and changing along the way.
We’ll have our own breakthroughs and our own blocks but it’s only through these that anything good will emerge. This was Kevin Kelly’s approach too.
An epiphany
With dozens of rejected stories, nobody would have blamed Kelly for giving up on those ideas - but he didn’t. He did something different. He set about writing the stories that nobody else wanted. He commissioned himself.
Fully expecting these articles to flop, to his surprise, he found that these pieces made the magazine fly off the shelves. These articles became his best, most well-read, most career-defining work. And this was his epiphany:
“I was doing the things that only I could do. That’s what made them good.”
Keeping going isn’t easy but it’s how you’ll find out what it is that only you can do. Some of the things you do will work and some will fail. But every time you do those things you’ll get closer to the thing that only you can do.
We wrote our book with the sole aim of helping people to keep going with their writing. But now, we’re excited to start a new chapter. So, I’ll leave you with these words which come from the final page. We hope they help you to find out what only you can do.
“Good things don’t come to those who wait, they come to those who do. To those who put things out in the world and are open to experimentation.
So, whatever it is that you do, keep doing it.
Whatever it is that you create, keep creating it.
Keep learning, keep experimenting, keep adapting, keep going.
Because in the end, that’s the only thing we know for certain that really works.”
Thank you for your support, love and encouragement across the year.
Onwards!
Bec and Chris
Keep writing across the year
We think Substack is the perfect place to offer direct coaching support for the whole year so we’re introducing our Keep Writing resource space (provisional name!) when you upgrade to a paying subscription.
Support will be highly practical in nature and focussed on helping you to achieve your writing goals. We’ll offer things like Q&As, writing productivity clinics and webinars on specific areas of your practice. We’ll also look to bring back our popular writing sprints if that’s something that might be valuable.
There are three ways you can subscribe to our member-only benefits:
You can pay just £7 a month
You can take out an annual subscription for £50, or
You can (roll out the red carpet) join us as a Founding Member. This gives you all the benefits of subscription plus a 30-minute, in person coaching call with us. This March you can get all that half price for £100.
Want a taster for free?
If so, send us a question or pop along to tomorrow’s ‘Ask Us Anything’ webinar. Got questions on battling procrastination, finding time, or building a writing habit? We're here to help.
How to Keep Writing: online Q&A with Bec and Chris
Thursday 29 February 2024 6PM GMT / 1PM EST / 10AM PST
➡️ Sign up on Zoom to join live or get the recording
Enjoyed reading this. The more I explore the writing (and editing, and teaching) life, the more I understand the need for persistence and resilience. As much as writing talent. As much as learnt skills. I wrote about something similar recently here: https://kmelkes.substack.com/p/resilience-and-persistence-a-new but it's always good to hear about persistence paying off in the real world. Onwards!