There's More to Life than Writing

And I'd like to write about it

There are a few YouTube creators I had to stop following. I couldn’t take one more beginner-centric video that was a repeat of the SAME video this SAME creator made last year. And the year before that.

I know, I know, the algorithm.

But I’ve never been able to regurgitate content. Or write about things I don’t care about because a particular keyword is trending.

I write (or make videos about) what I think will be helpful or inspirational and, more importantly, what YOU will like and want to talk about.

There are a lot of things I want to write about that don’t have anything to do with writing. I’ve been worried that would be offputting to subscribers.

But then I realized that the posts that got the most email replies were about something other than writing. For instance, my love letter to the last three years of the 20th century got me a lot of new subscribers and I had days-long email exchanges with some of you about it.

The other one was the conversation that forever changed my view of men and dating. That one also got a lot of traffic in my inbox, mostly from single women who wanted to talk about choices they’d made in their youth.

My question is:

Do Non-Writing Posts Belong on This Account?

I’d like to branch out the brand and talk more about lifestyle, but is that something you’d actually want in your inbox?

I have the option of keeping this new content here as its own section of Substack.

The posts will be clearly labeled as Nonsense-Free Life instead of Nonsense-Free Writers, but they will still appear in your inbox and on the homepage.

Another option is to start a whole new newsletter (or blog) with a different URL and different signup link.

I’d love it if you told me which one you prefer ↓

If you’re wondering, right now I’m thinking of a few topics I’ll be talking about:

• Book reviews (from a reader/enjoyment perspective)

• Health and Weight Loss over 40

• Burnout Recovery

• Planning & Organization Tools

• Personal essays/commentary

• Career & Side-Hustle Management

And more, if it occurs to me. I’d also like to incorporate these topics into my YouTube channel because, again, some of my biggest performers had nothing to do with writing. If you’d rather reply and tell me your thoughts vs. answering the poll, I’d love to hear from you.