I Know How to Build a Program. And Why I’m Not

What years in business taught me and why I’m choosing a different path now.

There’s a very clear path when you start writing online.

At some point, you’re supposed to take what you’re doing and turn it into something teachable. Structure it. Name it. Build it into a course or program others can follow.

I understand that path. I’ve spent years in business doing exactly that. It’s familiar. It works.

And I’ve felt myself pulled in that direction more than once while writing my novels.

Each time, something doesn’t sit right.

I notice it before I can explain it. A kind of resistance that shows up in my body. Then my mind catches up and starts making the case anyway. I can do this.

That’s usually how it works.

I started writing fiction because I couldn’t stop thinking about the women I wrote about in my last container gardening book. They stayed with me. After I published it, I missed their stories.

So I brought them to Substack and started writing chapters in public. One each week. Just to keep going.

Somewhere along the way, I began noticing how I work inside a story. What I follow. What I ignore. What I trust without fully knowing why.

And I started to see the conflict.

The more I tried to shape this into something structured, something teachable, the more it pulled me out of the work itself. It stopped feeling like writing and started feeling like managing.

I’ve done that before.

I’m in the middle of writing my second novel now. That’s where my attention is.

So I’m not building a course. I’m writing the book. And staying with it.

It Only Takes One

There are days when I know exactly what I’m going to do.

The next step is clear. I don’t have to think about it. I just have to sit down and begin.

And then something comes in.

An email. An idea. Something I wasn’t looking for catches my attention.

Just like that, I can see it. How it would work. Who it would help. Where it could go.

That familiar feeling starts to build.

This is it.

It feels real in that moment. Almost more real than what I had already planned to do. More interesting. More alive.

I’ve followed that feeling more times than I can count. Built things from it. Let it take the lead because it felt right in the moment.

Sometimes it was.

And if I follow it, even a little, the day shifts.

Not all at once. Just enough to move me away from what I had already decided mattered.

That’s been my pattern for years. Like a kid in a candy shop.

Message to self:

Settle down. You already chose your path. Do you really need one more idea?

It took over a year to figure this out.

Now I discard it immediately. Don’t look. Don’t peek. Don’t save it for later.

And get back to writing my novel.

Have you ever been completely clear on what you want to do… and still felt pulled away from it by new ideas?

I’m writing the book. And staying with it.

To see it unfold, you’re in the right place.