For those who have been along for the ride so far: I appreciate you! For those just joining Writing Theory as we grow: Welcome to the party!
What We’ve Accomplished in 2024
Almost exactly a year ago, I uploaded the first video to the Writing Theory YouTube channel. That video…wasn’t good. And that’s okay. It had a lot of heart, though!
I look back on this video so fondly. This is just a dude who likes to talk about stories. He didn’t know what would happen in the next couple of months. Shout out to my wife for putting up with my nonsense and helping me film this video.
As of today, roughly 52 videos later, we have 11,000+ subscribers and a thriving discord community. The channel has accumulated 431,000 views, 42,000 watch hours, and 8.6 million impressions. I’ve published a book and sold 100+ copies. Meager numbers for the kind of author later in their career, but numbers that I’m proud of. And the YouTube channel continues to grow.
So what’s next?
Plans and Goals for 2025
The YouTube Channel
One of my biggest goals for the next year focus on creating a web of relationships with other writing content creators. Writing is often seen as…reclusive? The art of hermits? Yet if there’s one thing that I’ve learned from the growth and community of the discord, it’s that there’s something incredibly special about the pairing of storytelling and people. I guess that makes sense. Storytelling was always a necessity of gathering people together.
I’d like to see more collaboration between narrative-focused content creators. So, that’s something I’m going to try to make happen!
2025 Carson, look back at this and tell me how I did.
With every post, I iterate on my workflow for these videos. As I continue to do so, I hope that the quality of the content continues to improve. With the standard videos that you already know, I am also planning on a couple very big videos over the next year that will take me out of the studio and into new locations. These kind of videos are very close to my heart because one of the beauties of writing is that it can take you all around the world (looking at you, Classic American Novelists) and I want to share that with other people. It’s still a fantastic part of writing and it can still be something writers aspire to.
I had a great time livestreaming for Novella November! It affirmed the idea in my mind that I want to continue to livestream, have fun, and write with you all. Writing 40k words over November felt almost easy when doing it on a livestream.
Discord
As the discord continues to grow, I hope to evolve it into an even more valuable place for writers. The big focus is finding a way to bring Beta Reading functionality to the discord in a way that is automated and accessible. The discord has become a bigger part of the Writing Theory brand that I ever planned it to be (not to complain! It’s a blessing!).
I hope that the discord continues to grow in the next year. The Writing Challenges have been a huge success and I will continue running them. At some point, though, having it be completely free and open to enter means that we will have to limit the submissions in some way (which I’d like to avoid, but I’m only one person trying to judge all these stories. The first writing challenge involved reading 80k words, an entire novel). We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Books
I am finishing the protodraft of Upon Careless Gray Hills in the next month or two. As opposed to Starlight Farm’s Kennel for Talking Dogs, I will work with an editor and beta readers for this project. Following the normal rounds of editing, I currently hope to share this book with you around the middle of the year.
I have another draft that is ~30k words that will be the next release. Hopefully, that will mean two book releases in the next year.
Additional Content
Everyone has a podcast, so why not me? I’m currently considering how to include podcast content on the channel that are more audio driven. I’ve spent hundreds of hours of my life listening to writing podcasts and some of the best lessons I’ve learned about writing have come from moments when I’ve been driving down the road or workout out to those podcasts. I really think I could bring something unique to the space.
I’d also like to do a few merch drops in fun and interesting writing-focused ways. Every possible avenue seems to include some element of hand-making the merch and that’s exciting to me!