You Don’t Have to Think Your Way Through Everything

What if your next creative move isn’t a strategy problem — but a signal waiting to be decoded?

It’s 2 p.m. on a Tuesday. Three essays are staring you down.

You could spend the next hour toggling between them, trying to figure out which one to finish first.

Or you could open your calendar — and start a conversation.

This time each month becomes something different: a container.

Not for output, but for orientation. Not just another deadline, but a ritual.

This is where you stop being “just the writer” and start stepping into your role as the publisher of your work.

That’s the moment where you and I meet.

But before we get into strategy, sometimes we have to pause.

Take a recent 1:1 session with a client — let’s call her “S.” A long-time journalist with a book under contract and a thriving consulting business. She didn’t come to me looking for a launch plan. She came in holding a quiet ache:

“There’s something in me that I’m burning to do.”

She didn’t need a rebrand. She needed a recalibration.

So before we talked marketing or platforms, I invited her into a short somatic body scan — a practice I created for when the signals are fuzzy and the creative self is in transition.

We slowed down. Five breaths in. Five breaths out.

Then I asked her to notice: What’s happening in your chest? Your feet? Your muscles? Your breath?

“There’s heat in my chest,” she said. “My feet feel cold — like they’re being left behind.”

I asked, “If that heat were a force of nature, what would it be?”

“Action,” she replied.

That’s when everything clicked.

Because for months, S. had been thinking about her next creative move. She had insights. She had drafts and calendars.

She had direction.

But her body was telling us something else:

She was ready to move.

We pivoted.

Not toward a content calendar, but toward a container. One built around movement, truth-telling and grief.

A new creative outlet that wouldn’t just fit her brand — it would honor what was alive in her.

“I want to go where the brands wouldn’t let me,” she said. “I want to talk about the pool of tears — and the way we get through it.”

That session ended not with a checklist, but with a recommitment:

To create from the inside out.

To publish from a place of clarity — both strategic and somatic.

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This is the kind of work I do with authors and creative entrepreneurs:

Not just helping you build your publication, but helping you work confidently through the layers of being a creative publisher.

Every time we meet, I bring the full range of my toolkit:

• Strategic editorial planning

• Platform growth and list engagement insights

• Launch sequencing and monetization

• Audience research and content experimentation

But we don’t start there. We start with where you are.

Because no two creative seasons are the same — and your process needs to reflect that. Some sessions begin with spreadsheets. Some start with silence. Some begin with heat in your chest and cold in your feet.

My role is to observe and guide you to notice what is trying to come to the surface.

Together, we build a practice that’s as intuitive as it is tactical.

Here’s what that might look like:

• A somatic check-in that helps you choose between three competing project ideas

• A publishing schedule that reflects your actual energy, not your idealized one

• A launch plan for a new creative product that aligns with what your audience and your body are telling you

• A roadmap for evolving off Substack, or branching out beyond your current ecosystem

• A custom survey that uncovers exactly what your readers are hungry for next

There are always three doors we can walk through in a session:

Strategy. Intuition. Data.

The magic happens when we let them inform each other.

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📋 Did something click? Tell me about it.

If this piece helped name something you’ve been sensing — or opened up a new kind of clarity — you’re welcome to reach out.

Fill out A Publishing Starting Point: a short form for thoughtful publishers looking for rhythm, resonance or a strategic mirror.

If it feels like a good fit, I’ll follow up with either a 20-minute call or a resource that can point you in the right direction.