Rob's writing roundup!

Single-sentence summaries of everything I wrote this week

Feb 26, 2023

Howdy friend!

Today I will summarize everything I wrote this week in one sentence each.

Partly because the longer summaries take a lot of time and what I really want on this rainy morning is to go back to bed and snuggle with my cat. And partly because I’m already bored by the longer format. Last week’s roundup didn’t feel particularly alive, and aliveness is the most important thing I’m optimizing for.

So yeah, let’s take these creative constraints for a whirl.

Sticking the landing - My essay on the perils of niching down was really good, but the original ending wasn’t, so I re-wrote that section and it’s good now lol.
Earning the click - How I think about writing non-clickbait headlines and earning traffic from social media, and why I suspect there’s a metaphysical component to this game, where non-attachment is the secret sauce.
The point - For me, all this marketing and creator stuff is just the first domino toppling towards a much larger question, “how can we become who we need to be to unfuck a world in peril and build a more beautiful future?”
Revisiting Perennial Seller - For many years I strove to create timeless, enduring work, but damn did that approach lead to a lot of unnecessary perfectionism, so now I’m leaning into raw and imperfect stuff to break that pattern.
Should I start writing with AI? - As someone who uses writing to make sense of the world and understand myself, I am fucking terrified of what might happen if I inject AI into that equation.
On serendipity and magic - Turns out, publishing on the internet, however raw and imperfect, can lead to all kinds of magical, serendipitous opportunities and friendships and such. 10/10 would recommend

In other news from the Rob-verse, I’ve started tinkering with something that I suspect will eventually become my magnum opus for Ungated.

rob hardy 🦌 @ungatedcreative

uh oh. my brain has been hijacked by an idea. might fuck around this year and build the ultimate "choose your own adventure" educational experience for ppl on the 1,000 true fans path

I’m gonna try to ship an MVP version before this 100 day writing challenge is over. Not sure if that’s biting off more than I can chew, but I’m so fucking excited to finally get my entire philosophy of 1,000 true fans into one place, and at the same time completely rethink and subvert what an “online course” even is.

Speaking of things I recently tweeted that are worth including in a newsletter, I think this one qualifies as well.

rob hardy 🦌 @ungatedcreative

a few years ago, i had a publication called Citizen Within that was aimed at depolarizing ourselves from within, and blunting the impact of the culture war @waitbutwhy's new book is like a 10x better version of what i was doing with that site, so y'all should just read it lol

I’m reading both Tim’s book and another called Sand Talk (recommended by Frontier member Robin Hartford). The contrast and tension between Western and Indigenous perspectives is absolutely delicious.

Have a lovely week, my friend.

-Rob

Rob’s Weekly Invitation

Just as I summarized each essay this week in one sentence, so too will I summarize my membership. *cracks knuckles*

The Frontier is where we stick up a defiant middle finger to the soul-killing practices of the Creator Marketing Industrial Complex™, and instead focus on coming alive and creating our own unique path towards 1,000 true fans.