Writer, who are you?
Embracing your creative potential
I’ve been thinking about how we each grow and evolve as writers and creators. About the many versions of ourselves that we are through the decades. How our creative aspirations from a previous era can sometimes fuel us later in life, and other times become a prison of expectations we can never seem to reach.
Today I want to explore a few things:
Celebrating who you are — right now — as a writer or creator.
Letting go of creative aspirations that no longer serve you, or which hold you back.
Remembering what fuels you to create, and returning to that well of inspiration.
To do this honestly, I’m going to go way back. This is me around 1990, in my high school days:
Yes, my hair was longer, ridiculously curly, and cut in what I guess I would call new wave surfer style: short on the sides, long on the top.
It’s fun to see what inspired me at the time: surfing, music, and film. Here is one wall of my bedroom:
Included are album covers from: The Cure (my favorite band at the time), They Might Be Giants, REM, New Order, Batman soundtrack, Dead Milkmen, and the Violent Femmes.
And here is the wall next to it:
On this wall we see: Albert Einstein, Margo Timmins from the Cowboy Junkies, Depeche Mode, Ian McCulloch from Echo & the Bunnymen, Sherilyn Fenn from Twin Peaks, Walt Disney, Johnny Rotten, Winona Ryder, and of course, more of The Cure.
It’s fun to compare the room to how it looked a couple years earlier, still decorated in my childhood Star Wars theme:
This was my first car, a 1973 VW Beetle:
It’s fun to see how silly I was at the time:
Here I am with my dad in the backyard:
And really, this is when I became a writer. Here is my favorite class ever: Creative Writing with Ms. Adams. I loooooooooooved this class, and it really opened up something for me that continues to this day. I’m fourth from the left. Ms. Adams is to my right in the white shirt.
At age 5, I began going to art classes, and by high school I was experimenting with photography, poetry, music, and so many other creative areas. I spent years after working on film projects, making pop-up books, creating sculptures, playing in bands, and so much else. I drew a cartoon for my college paper, and became a radio DJ there just as grunge was breaking on college radio, which was an amazing thing to be a part of. I later published my own fanzine where I interviewed dozens of my favorite bands. Along the way, I surrounded myself with creative friends of all types.
I experimented to see where my creative energy could take me, and it was in my twenties that I truly began to focus solely on writing. The centerpiece for me is this weekly email newsletter I’ve written for more than twenty years. What I love most about it is pushing myself creatively, to the point where it scares me. I’m nervous to publish these photos which have sat quietly in albums for decades. I think that is always a good sign — to be a bit more honest, to dig a bit deeper, and simply see where that leads.
For each of us, I think we can reflect on the many phases we have been through. How our creative vision may have remained or shifted. How expectations we have for ourselves may have formed decades ago, and never let go. How that can be like a fire that doesn’t go out — keeping our spirits alive. Or become a reminder that we can’t seem to live up to a long-outdated expectation.
Can you let go of previous expectations you had about what you create or assumptions about what success needs to look like?
Can you give yourself space to explore and grow as the person you are now?
The other day I noticed an open door to another room in the building I work. There was a guy who worked in this space for years, then retired. I remember seeing where his desk and filing cabinets were at the time. And now, they are imprinted on the floor, like a tattoo:
You can see where the furniture was (clean) and where he sat and moved around (discolored.) Even though he no longer occupies this space, there is a shadow of his presence. The thousands of hours he spent in this room, in these exact spots.
The shadows that prove we were here are not just in the dust on the floor, or even the creative work we leave behind. We remain in the stories and ideas we share, and how we connect on a human level with those we meet.
In the past couple of years, there are two themes I keep coming back to in my writing:
You are a creative force.
You have agency.
If you feel distant to the creative force you were when younger, I want to remind you that you still are a creative force.
If you worry you have less agency in your creative life today because of how the world has changed, or how much responsibility you have in life, I want to remind you that you still have agency to forge a creative path that is meaningful to you.
If you worry that the world is more complex and crowded than ever, I have empathy for that. This was an interesting video essay I just watched on that topic, which references Cory Doctorow’s now famous phrase: “enshitification.” He came up with the term years ago, and I just realized he recently published a book on the topic. What he describes is why things on the internet have been getting worse, and what we can do about it.
Back in 2013, a random stroke of luck had me eating lunch with Cory Doctorow, Stephanie Anderson, and Rachel Fershleiser in NYC:
It was a conversation centered on books, reading, libraries, interaction, and community.
The lunch was completely unplanned and unbelievably amazing. I had spoken on a panel at a conference with Rachel and Stephanie, and asked if they wanted to skip the conference provided box lunch to get some real food outside the venue. As we were deciding where to go, Cory was near us on the street, so I said something nice to him about his presentation. As we chatted, we invited him to lunch, and were thrilled when he decided to join us.
This moment was such a reminder to be present. To focus on strengthening the connections to those around you. To take risks to make connections with other people.
You do have a choice in this process. I appreciate how Ethan Mollick talks about AI, and he shared a post this week about how to decide when to use AI, and when to stay human. His conclusion:
“A lot of the problem is going to come down to us... AI is different because the technology is general enough that virtually any cognitive task can be offloaded into it to some degree... But we don’t want to give up everything, and that we mostly don’t know yet, for any specific task, what is important and what is not. Deciding that is going to be a real challenge... The most important thing we can do is keep asking what to hand over and what to keep for ourselves… and not expect anyone, including the AI, to answer that for us.”
When I look back at the photo above of my high school creative writing class, I’m reminded of the best compliment I have ever received in my life. The guy towards the right in the black jacket is named Joe. Towards the end of the year, we each did a big project for creative writing, and our teacher gave us a lot of leeway. I went overboard, creating book made out of sheet metal and wood, with two dozen original black and white photos and a book-length poem. Joe looked through it, and in a really calm voice simply said, “No matter what you do in life, you will be successful.”
His words in that brief moment always stayed with me. He didn’t have to say them, he could have just said “Cool.” But I never forgot how generous he was. Thank you Joe.
And at age 53, I am reminded that this same potential lives in me for anything I choose to create. And in you.
In the comments below: tell me about who you are, who you were, and what you hope for your own creative aspirations.
If you want to explore working with me, there are two ways I collaborate with writers and creators:
My Creative Shift Mastermind. The next session begins July 6, 2026. Register now!
Recent videos available to my paid Substack subscribers:
The difficult questions writers face about success: And the inspiring answers... (15 minutes)
Your creative work is worthy of time and attention: On honoring your creative goals and setting clear boundaries to protect them (9 minutes)
Your 2026 social media strategy: Time for a refresh (10 minutes)
As always, thank you so much for being here with me.
-Dan
Kids of the Week: Balloon sword fights:
His latest drawing at his art desk:
We were arrogant and ambitious, an elite group in a public NYC high school of several thousand. We even met in a tower overlooking the Harlem River. Everyone agreed I was a good essayist and as a short story writer, not bad. Our revered Mr. Pulver, though, said, “You, Miss Brunn, are not a poet.” And didn’t I believe him? For decades, till I fell in love with someone unsuitable, and lines kept pulsing in my head, and I wrote them down. And then I worked on them. You could say I was a poet. Now I have several as yet unpublished chapbooks —on love, death, and daily life. I wrote them because I had to.
Sadly, I’d been a teenager who loved to act, loved everything about The Theatre. I graduated from a vicious theatre school and ran after a career, dreaming, auditioning, bitching, but never writing anything more than letters to Grandma. Decades passed, I taught ESL, and then I fell into teaching college students how to write as thinking and feeling humans. The gig turned into my profession. I grew to love it.
Now here I am, an unpublished poet, playwright, and fiction writer. Every morning, I get up at 5:30 to work on the fifth draft of my novel, Dancers and Lovers. (In my 30’s, I’d become addicted to modern, ballet, and jazz and never forgot that world.) And I’m just about finished adapting a chapter for a short story contest I’d particularly like to win.
My hope? It’s to conquer my distaste for, and fear of, social to meet my ideal readers. As soon as I figure out who they are. A couple of macho guys in my writing group responded warmly to my excerpts, really confusing me!
Thanks, Dan, for giving me this chance to review how I got to where I am.
Thank you, Dan, for that peek into your past. It’s obvious, by how much you consistently share your life with your readers, that you care about the human connection.
Who am I? A 58 year old whose creativity for 25 years took the form of making homemade costumes for kids, painting the kids’ bedrooms in funky ways, helping with school projects, etc.
Now… I proudly call myself a debut author.