Why I Write
And why Natalie Writes Things is going on hiatus
Hello friends,
You may have noticed that I’ve been posting fewer of these missives lately. It’s not that I’ve been particularly busy or anything, and I hope that I haven’t already run out of things to say. And yet.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I started this Substack and what it’s turned into. The immediate impetus was the AI writing article, feeling like I knew so much about this topic that almost everyone else was getting wrong and needing to share my knowledge with a wider audience.
But more broadly, I’ve realized my primary driver was feeling like I wasn’t being listened to at work; I had all of these insights to share that my immediate team would find valuable but larger forces kept me from doing anything with. I never anticipated this Substack would be so focused on copywriting, and yet that’s where I had the most to say and no other outlet to say it.
I left that job in March and started a new one in May. While no company is perfect and I’m undoubtedly still too new to see all the flaws that will inevitably emerge, a significant portion of my role now entails sharing what I know about writing for a broader audience. And that audience is reasonably receptive, which feels great.
Meanwhile, my writing focus has shifted. I still have edits to my latest play, An Interpretation of Anna, to work on, and my messy first novel draft needs tons of work—of the kind that I’m no expert in. So even as I’m shifting from nonfiction to fiction in my writing (and reading) interests, I’m also moving from feeling like a teacher to a student again.
The good news: I love learning! The bad news: This Substack is going on indefinite hiatus until I feel like I have more to say again.
If and when I return, here are some of the topics on the slush pile that I never quite made it to writing:
My top UX writing principles (you have to call things what they’re called; if you make it sound like work, no one will do it; etc.)
How to write a good job description
On the recycling of intellectual property (and why I’m mostly okay with it, actually)
My love for post-post-apocalyptic narratives and what we get from imagining a world reviving rather than one ending
Something around video game world-building
Why people are so bad at communicating clearly in general
In the meantime, if you ever want to read one of my plays, you know where to find me.
Cheers,
Natalie
