Every so often, I realize I’ve drifted—creating, writing, building—but a little off my own pulse. This piece is a quiet check-in for that moment.
I have a little SWOON Field Guide of questions I send to new or prospective clients before we start working together on their social media or Substack.
They’re not strategy questions so much as reflection prompts—designed to draw out the emotional core of someone’s work.
But this morning, while pulling it together for a coffee meeting, I accidentally turned it on myself a little:
Why do I write?
What do I write?
And who am I writing for?
Easy pre-dawn stuff.
When so much of my creative work lives online—words crafted for others, ideas refined for clarity, tone and visuals perfected for clients who aren’t me—it’s easy to lose the thread. I can tell when it’s happening. My own creative pulse starts to blur with everyone else’s.
And it’s not just in creative work. I think it happens to all of us—when our daily lives start to hum at someone else’s frequency. In our jobs, in the way we get dressed, in how we move through the day without noticing we’ve slipped into imitation instead of expression.
That’s when I have to pause and ask:
Am I doing this thing to feel something, or just trying to elicit a feeling?
Is my creating still leading me somewhere, or am I just performing motion?
There isn’t a hierarchy of value here. I think makers, creatives, dreamers, artists, mothers, humans move in and out of both as we try our hardest—sometimes it flows and sometimes it satisfies the functions.
But I have found it’s important and helpful for me, as both a creative and a professional, to think of this as a little pulse check—or a return to my own rhythm if I start feeling off track. To remind myself that the point isn’t to be endlessly productive or relevant, but to stay honest.
Sometimes that means honoring a need for rest before burnout. It’s sitting long enough with an idea to know if it’s truly mine, or pressing submit before I can overthink it into oblivion. It’s giving myself the grace of filling three blank pages by hand with no plan or agenda in my morning pages.
Even when the practice feels detached, there’s care in the attention.
One of the most special things about having clients who are also friends is that I get to witness when the things we whisper-talk about at breakfast—the conversations that bring tears to our eyes with sincerity—take shape out in the world.
The brave, tender words they’ve said quietly over tea and toast find a second life when they’re shared. They become something communal. They move beyond the safety of friendship and begin to flourish as other people experience and respond to them.
I think about this often—the behind-the-scenes articulation of what makes creative work feel alive. There is the visible layer, but beneath it are real stories, wrestled-with wisdom and a genuine desire to connect. To me, that’s art.
SWOON grew out of that pull toward beauty, attention and sincerity—but probably with a distinctly millennial arc.
I came of age alongside social media: when Facebook required a university email address, when Twitter was just a novelty, when blogs were all diaries and DIYs.
When my husband and I started our letterpress and design studio right after we graduated college, creating styled shoots, building relationships with bloggers and experimenting with storytelling helped us grow quickly. Social media opened doors—to press features, collaborations and community (hi, Mattie and Catherine!)—but more than that, it opened a language.
As someone who’s since learned she’s neurodivergent, I see now that social media gave me a way to express myself with thoughtfulness and time. I could process before I spoke. I could write instead of perform. I understood the structure and loved the clarity it offered.
But more than anything, I believed—and still believe—in storytelling that connects, not just performs. One rooted in real relationships, good questions and a curiosity that never quite lets go.
Which is probably why I’ve especially loved this longer-format medium on Substack.
Just today I met with an old friend turned new client to go over the little SWOON Field Guide. We were talking about the authority she already has to make a world with her words—the way her story, her perspective, her experience create meaning no one else could.
Even the most intuitive work needs a rhythm to live inside. The systems, rituals or routines we build aren’t meant to cage creativity—they make space for it.
Lately, I’ve had a lot of conversations with friends (and clients) about how to make their writing or social media feel like them again—or really, how to make anything they create feel that way. Not more polished or strategic. Just more true.
So I put together something I wish I’d had when I started writing online: a simple, practical framework for building rhythm, voice and vision—without losing the heart of what makes your work feel alive.
This field guide, like the one I give my clients, isn’t about hacks or templates. It’s about coming back to what’s real—your tone, your process, your curiosity—and letting that shape how you create and share.
Whether you’re starting a Substack, reimagining your creative rhythm, or trying to make your Instagram feel less like a performance and more like an extension of your creative life, I hope this gives you a way to get clear, grounded and moving again.
If you’ve been wanting to make your Substack, social content or work feel more aligned, grounded and sustainable, this one’s for you.
If this sounds familiar—if you’ve been craving that feeling of alignment again—you’ll find what’s helped me inside the Field Guide below.
(Paid subscribers can read the full Field Guide below for $8/month.)