You are more powerful than the tech overlords. On creative integrity and finding your sweet spot ‘online’.

You can burn it all down, but you don’t have to.

Do you need to delete socials? Or do you need to start doing it your way?

Now is the time to make sure you’re in creative and personal integrity especially while the world is telling you to do more, make more, produce more.

TLDR: How can you tidy up your online life so that it feels cleaner than ever? I share what I am doing personally to come into greater creative integrity including with the paid subscription model on Substack.

These are raw thoughts. Unpolished. The sun is shining and I’ve sat on my butt for long enough today.

If you’re reading this on Substack, you’ve probably seen hundreds of notes in the last 6 months that read something like this:

“Hi Substack! I am so happy to be here— everyone is so kind and it feels like the internet in the early days of blogging. I feel like I can delete Instagram and just go all in on this platform now. This place is for the girlies who love long form and who want their attention spans back.”

Now, I’ve been on Substack for 5 years this coming January so I am fully within my rights to play village elder and also devils advocate. I was on Substack before there were notes— when most people’s publications were titled ‘Cloe’s substack’ and were more akin to an unfiltered personal diary than an instagram-and-podcast-esque fully strategised marketing channel.

Let me be clear— I’m not whinging, I am commentating. I am observing. I am writing what I see and then I will offer you what I believe to be some good insights as to how to remain in integrity as the world gets louder.

We are allowed to comment on the state of these platforms, to articulate what we see and feel. In fact, this is the most natural inclination for many of us (me included). I am a bigger picture person. I see things from a rooftop. I am in no way your ‘step-by-step’ girl. I feel unexplainable frustration arise in me when people ask me ‘what’s the recipe?’ whenever I post a basic meal like chicken noodle soup.

Please. Please don’t ever ask me for a step-by-step. I am not your gal for that.

I am your girl for astute observations from where I sit. For commentary from a rooftop view. For reminding you what quiet integrity looks and feels like in a noisy world.

It’s a natural thing for Substack to feel a little ‘ugh’ as it starts to blow up. It’s not a bad thing to feel a little disappointed when your favourite place becomes popular and you don’t really wanna go anymore. This is how I felt when the world discovered Bali. Bali is just over three hours from my home town by flight. When the Kardashians started posting about it I, like many other Aussies who have loved (and respected!) Bali for many years wanted to say ‘omg go away. Stop ruining things.’

Substack is changing.

Just like Instagram is changing.

The paid subscription model is changing things for many creatives but it’s also changing things for consumers (i’m gonna write about my struggles with it down below).

Also? We are changing. Especially those who are of my vintage— turning 40 in a couple of years and have been online since online was a thing.

It’s all worth talking about.

I have wanted to burn it all down many times. I’m actually quite proud that I haven’t. I mean, I did delete Facebook with over 50,000 followers back in 2018 and I do regret not downloading some old party pics first.

But I have maintained a consistent online presence, sharing my expanding body of work for now 15 years.

I’ve taken breaks. Some one month, some three months, some closer to a year. I’ve remained committed to my creative life, while also letting it change shape around my growing family.

One thing I can say that I have done well over that time— is I have done things my own way. I have self published my own books. I have taken breaks and paused my paid subscriptions. I have tried always to centre my own integrity and never trends or public expectation.

This is what I want to write about today— making sure you’re in personal and creative integrity with all this *flaps arms around social media*.

Yes, it does feel noisier. Anyone who wants a global platform can have one. What an amazing thing, that anyone can have a far reaching voice. Anyone can put the work in to create their own creative success and not wait to be ‘discovered’ by an agent or scout anymore.

We have to include the huge goodness of social media when we talk about its dark side too.

Really, the boom of social media has become a great leveller. I love that part. I love seeing hilarious people blow up and change their lives, starting out filming funny family skits at home. I love these stories of everyday talented people with no ‘networks’ creating their own success— no longer needing to wait for some big dog to come along and choose them.

Substack is doing this for writers and creators— especially authors. Don’t wanna dance around on IG or Tik Tok? Do it your way with an old school blog or newsletter. Yes, publishers still obsess over ‘how big your platform is’ but many authors I feel are realising that they don’t need a publisher anymore. Again— the days of needing to be ‘discovered’ and ‘chosen’ by the big dogs are over.

It’s easy to sit and moan about how loud is it online. But the truth is, it’s loud because we’re logged in too often. It becomes very quiet when you have the right discipline, and you’re not spending hours a day on platforms where billions of people broadcast their opinions and advice at once.

If you want it to be quieter? Log off. You get to decide whether you walk into the massive broadcast station and sit down for hours, or whether you come, broadcast and then go back to the forrest.

Sometimes, we can’t get a handle on our own behaviours and discipline, so we resort to the extreme— I just need to delete everything.

This works, so long as you don’t want to have a place to share your words, or your work. And let’s be honest— it is a beautiful thing to be able to share your ideas, your art, your experiences with like minded people around the world.

What we need to arrive at as creators in this landscape is something beyond this tantrum like “I’m deleting everything because it’s so loud and distracting and none of it is my fault.”

We need to arrive at full agency.

We need to arrive at a renewed adult integrity beyond blaming the algorithm and the additive nature of these apps.

We know what we’re dealing with. We know they’re monster-ish in their grips. But we’re autonomous human beings made by God so….

So, what are you going to do about it?

Is it time to delete IG for good? Or is it time to delete the app, log in once a week and share a weekly round up? Or is it time to clear out your algo and approach it with all new energy?

Is it time to start a Substack?

Is it right for YOU (regardless of what others are doing) to have the paid subscriptions on for you or is it better to have it all be free and simple, and you can offer your paid work in other ways? Or not at all if you don’t need to? Or start an in person club instead?

Is there an internal wrestle or something a little out of place? If so, when will this internal wrestle about social media end for you? When will you draw a line in the sand and say ‘hey. I am now really happy with how my online life, my work fits around what matters the most to me. I am fully in integrity. Nothing is out of place. I’m there.”

Let’s make it today.

Because what I observe is that most people are truly under some kinda spell— truly addicted— but pretending they’re not. I’ve been there. It’s a really tough pill to swallow. Especially when you’re a pretty disciplined person usually.

I want you to know that if you are addicted to your phone— you’re not faulty. The apps are designed for addiction. BUT…. You also don’t have to remain addicted. You get to be one of the people that looks back on these years without the regret of phone addiction.

I also want you to explore for yourself where you want to come into a more clean integrity personally.

My words are always going to ask the question: Ok so when does it get made right?

I have said it about 400 times. The tragedy of our generation will be that we our kids grew up and remember seeing their parents head down in some completely irrelevant online drama.

But it’s not just the consumption trap we need to be free of. It’s also the way we become try hards with regards to our sharing and our creating.

Sometimes we are ‘me too’ creatives. We are not creating from the originality of our soul. We know by the way it feels.

I want you to remember this— you do not have to do it how anyone else is doing it.

You do not need to wait for it to be ‘back in’ for you to post one photo and not a carousel.

You do not need to have paid subscriptions on your Substack just cos your favourite creator does.

You do not need to do digital products if the cafe/bookstore is what you are really chomping to do.

Your creative life does not need to revolve around your phone. Your social media is not the totality of your creativity. You can build something in the flesh.

Do we need to post at a volume that is ungodly?

Do we need to be ‘consistent’ in the same way people without kids are?

Do we need to know even 1/100th of the information we know about other people?

My question underneath it all is this:

What is the most high integrity place for me and my work?

What is the right rhythm? The right platforms? What do I want to share and what’s off the table?

What communication needs to happen and with whom so I can freshen this whole thing up and be in total integrity?

You can burn it all down.

You don’t need social media at all.

But if you want to have a little corner of the Internet where you share your work and words and connect with others in a way that truly suits you and what matters to you? Then create it exactly as you want it.

Don’t let tech overlords, or any of the psychos who create these addictive platforms hold you hostage and make you believe that you need to make your creativity fit THEIR models.

Because what ends up happening is that you not only make your creativity obedient to their models of addiction…. You make your entire life obedient to it.

Discipline with social media and addictive tech platforms is the work of our generation. Make no mistake.

Let’s be the few people who look back on these years with no regrets. We are made in the image of God. We are more powerful than these tech lords.

Ok in this next part I’m going to share:

— how the paid subscription model on Substack can affect creators, and also their audience.
— what I’m doing specifically to stay in integrity as the social media landscape feels noisy (on IG and substack specifically).

You probably know that I’ve gone back and forth on the paid subscriptions for the entire 5 years I’ve been here. I have paused them on and off three times and I am about to pause them again.

Each time, I’ve written to my audience telling them something along the lines of this:

— I need some time offline, and I’m not willing to keep my readers paying during that time.

— Some writers are happy to keep their readers paying even though they write 2-6 times a year. I’m not one of those people.

— I feel trapped by the paid subscription, like I need to write at a certain volume and consistency rather than the naturalness of my own creative inspiration (and yet I seem to have some kind of amnesia with this fact repeatedly).

— There are weeks when it’s particularly busy at home and I can’t sit to write, and when the paid subscription is on, I put a lot of pressure on myself to never miss a week.

— I hold myself to very high standards and when the paid subscription is on, I make those standards about frequency and volume rather than true creative integrity.

These are the sort of sentiments I’ve shared with my readers over the last few years. It’s still something I wrestle with today.

I wrote recently on notes that Substack needs a pay-per-view option. These were the exact words.

Substack needs a pay-per-view option. The monthly paid subscription doesn’t suit all creators or subscribers and in some cases it encourages volume over quality. I’ve paused mine three times over the last 5 years because naturally, I need seasons offline and I’m not willing to keep my readers paying during that time.

I 100% believe that having the ability to be paid for articles, and videos etc without needing to create whole digital products and do full launches, is amazing.

Personally, I hate ‘launching’. This is why barely any of you know about my third book. I posted about it twice.

I love that you can be paid as you go. You can be paid for the effort it takes to write a Substack piece, which in my case, takes hours. Sometimes weeks depending on the topic.

But I feel like the pay-per-view option would be a better option than a monthly subscription for both readers and writers. Here’s why.

(Please apply this to ANY model— not just Substack).

For creators:

— Not everyone has a consistent creative engine. Hi! Me! Some of us need weeks and months away to gather ourselves and prepare for the next ‘season’ of creative work.

— With a time bound subscription, focus can become about regularity and volume and less about quality. People feel they need to ‘churn’ out articles to maintain a certain frequency rather than take their time to put together truly well written pieces. Rather than be about writing as an art, it becomes about social media. You know? Could the world’s best classical music have been made if they made themselves put something out every single week?

— It is inconvenient to pause paid subscriptions between seasons. It can make creators feel that they’re faulty, when really the model just doesn’t fit.

— You can decide per article what you want to pay wall… You can have a diverse range of topics and not lump all of your readers under one paying option. This gives your readers more freedom.

— You can write at a rhythm that suits you. You are paid per piece, not per month.

— Monthly subscriptions imply monthly work. It nudges your efforts more toward volume and regularity than true quality. Some pieces take weeks, genuinely.

— Social media platforms are all about keeping people on. They care more about this than quality content. But is this what WE care about??

For readers:

— You might want to read someones words on one particular topic but not on others. One reader told me recently that she loves reading my stuff on social media but isnot interested in the motherhood stuff. I get it!!

— You can spread your ‘budget’ for writers around way more artists because you can fine tune what you’re actually interested in. Think about it, as more creators turn on their paid subscriptions, people only have a certain amount of $$ they’re willing to spend each month and so they have to choose to invest in a few writers rather than be able to support/learn from/go deeper with a wider variety.

Some other things worth noting and that may help you with your own process of deciding on models/platforms:

a) Sometimes it’s not about the money it’s about the dynamic.

I turn my paid subs on not because I’ve got financial goals on the platform (even though, there is NOTHING wrong with having financial goals linked to your writing here). I personally do it because of the dynamic. I sometimes grow tired of the way we share things of such rich depth, substance and effort just freely. The value gets lost.

We become accustomed to chewing through content with no exchange. People read intimate details of others lives without even commenting, if you think about it. People comment without accountability and without context. There’s a growing culture of entitlement. Things feel under-valued. People just willy nilly eat up everyones content without any real exchange. You know?

But then after a few months of them on, I start to feel the internal squeeze. Like I’ve had a very active period of going deep with my readers and then I need a breather. I can’t be ‘on’ like that all year round personally.

b) Leaving Substack ‘free for all’ does not mean you are undervaluing your work, it means you know yourself and also you back yourself.

It’s also much better if you want NO obligation to post at a certain cadence, and if you know that you like to take frequent breaks offline.

c) Subscriptions in themselves can feel like prison for many creatives.

I had a very successful mentorship membership back in 2015 called The Supercharged. I went live and mentored in there almost everyday (everyday!!). It worked amazingly, until I had children.

In this season of my life as my mum, my home life is the subscription model. That is what I am in complete commitment to. My creative life needs more flexibility and this does NOT mean that it lacks consistency.

That model would not work for me anymore, because I need the flexibility of being able to work my creative life around my children. As my children grow up and become more independent, things may change.

This is one thing I’ve noticed is that it can create stress in me / my home if I make myself sit down to write for example, when we’re on holiday or when we’ve just gotten home from overseas and are adjusting to the time, or when the kids are under the weather.

Sometimes I forget all this. I start to feel immortal and on a roll and think ‘yes! This rhythm is gonna last forever, turn the paid subs let’s go deep!’.

Then soon enough after a very active season, the need to recharge becomes apparent. And I can either ignore it or I can write honestly about it (even though it makes me a squirm a little to do so).

I want to note too I am in the blessed situation where my back is not up against the wall financially, so I can allow more flexibility with my creative work. If I was a single mum, and needing to hustle, I would do things differently. Let that be clear ok??

What I’m doing personally for my own integrity in this arena:

There is an in person vision I have been wanting to build for over 6 years now. That is the thing that thumps inside my chest. That is the thing I’m most afraid to do. That is the thing that I will regret not doing.

I have to ask myself whether I will have the capacity for a new venture if I am still entwined so much in online dynamics.

What I’m working through is asking myself— where am I avoiding taking a leap, because the safety of my online life keeps pulling me back?

Where am I believing the story that my creative life lives only on the internet?

Where am I clinging to the familiar for fear of the unfamiliar?

I absolutely love writing to you. I love sharing little bits on IG too. But for it to be sustainable (like it has been for 15 years!), i need to do it my way. I need the freedom to tap out for a moment, and also go bonkers and share a lot when it’s there too. I need creative freedom as part of my creative discipline.

I forget this, when I start to tell myself things like ‘well, if you don’t have paid subs on then you don’t value your work’.

You might tell yourself this too. That if you’re not monetising like others are, that means you don’t value yourself. This could be true, but it could also be a BIG FAT LIE.

I value my work a lot. I value it so much that I let it stay free and pure and unstrangled by this undercurrent of ‘well, you better post!!’. My work isn’t bound by trends. It is sovereign.

Sometimes, the best way to honour your work is to not monetise it like others do.

I know writers who are having the time of their lives migrating their entire online lives to Substack and earning incredible money. It is easy to think ‘dam I should be trying harder to do that too’.

This is the trap. Our creative paths are completely unique.

I know others who have a completely free subscription, but they are having SO much more fun, and hey, if they want to offer a product, they have a wonderful, no pressure relationship with their readers and can do that any time.

(I prefer writing on Honeycomb when it’s completely free also).

You are not living the same life as the others who are selling a certain model. Stay true to your own creative integrity.

Money made in a model that is strangling you creatively ain’t worth it. Have the faith to move towards what you know you’re here to do— not what others are selling as the gold standard.

(By the way I hope me showing you the BTS to my process helps?? Because this isn’t just about Substack- it’s about everything).

Some models work amazingly for others but not for you. For instance, books! People always say to me ‘why don’t you have an agent’ etc. I tell them— I could NOT for the life of me do traditional publishing and wait 18 months after finishing the book for it to come out. No way!!

I move too fast. I want to talk about the book immediately. 18 months later? It’s too long of a wait for me. So, traditional publishing, although offering more exposure etc… has not been a route for me. If there was a way in the future they could reduce the time it took between finishing a book and publishing, I’d think about it.

The end of a season, the start of a new one.

We’ve just had a season on Honeycomb with of a lot of activity, a lot of energy, and a very focussed message— Get your fire back. Push reset on your brand. Say what you mean. Have fun again.

It’s been regular, it’s been high energy and it’s been a lot of fun.

This is what I do. I bring big energy, I share it. Then I need to recharge. I seem to forget this again and again though.

Now? Paid subscriptions are now paused again. I won’t stop writing, I’ll just go back to the natural rhythm of Honeycomb.

Paid subscribers— You don’t need to do anything. You will simply stop being charged. You will also maintain access to the entire paid archive.

I look over my 200+ long form entries here and I see consistency. Not consistent like others, consistent like me.

There is always a sweet spot. You just have to find it and you have to be willing to try things, to admit when something doesn’t work, and to stay committed more to the gifts of your soul than to trends or popular models.

Subscription models work amazingly for some, not for others.

It’s just up to us to decide, in this vast world of online platforms and new creator models, how to maintain creative integrity especially when it is noisy.

This goes for social media, books, cafes— all of it.

Lotsa love

PK XX