Ten years ago, I started writing on this little-known website called Medium.com. You might’ve heard of it.
Back then, the internet still felt magical. Algorithms hadn’t hijacked our social feeds. Kids weren’t yelling “six-seven” for no reason. And sharing a meme from The Office didn’t land you in group chat jail.
Over the next few years, I wrote hundreds of articles and reached hundreds of thousands of readers.
Then I stopped. Cold.
There wasn’t a dramatic reason. My friend Kyle and I had started a site reviewing online courses. It grew fast, made real money, and before long, we sold it. For the first time, my writing had actually paid off. And it felt incredible.
But somewhere along the way, the SEO tactics, the growth hacking, the obsession with “what converts,” all of it crept in and crowded out what I loved most: the writing itself.
I wanted to write again, not as a content creator, but as a writer.
So now I’m back. Not to game the system or chase a trend, but to rebuild something I lost: a space for writers who just want to get better.
The Problem With Modern Writing Advice
You know that line from The Dark Knight, the one where Harvey Dent says, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”? Well, I’ve seen too many of my early Medium heroes become the villain.
No, they didn’t rig hundreds of barrels of explosives. They did something worse: they became gurus.
Here’s how it usually went: someone would blow up on Medium. They’d stop writing about what they loved and start writing about how they blew up instead. Their following grew even bigger. Then came the course, the newsletter, the “secret system” to help others do the same.
Rinse. Lather. Repeat.
One by one, my writing idols fell.
Now, to be clear, I’m not against writers writing about writing. I have a degree in engineering. Everything I’ve learned about writing came from other writers generous enough to share what they knew.
What started to bother me most is how much of that advice started teaching the wrong things. Write 100x faster! Dominate your niche! Boost your SEO!
Somewhere along the way, writing became a formula. A viral performance. A content treadmill.
And I wasn’t immune. Chasing metrics made me better at content, but worse at writing.
Something needed to change.
The Detour That Broke (and Rebuilt) My Writing
During the early months of the pandemic, my friend Kyle came to me with an idea. It was a site called Course Reviewers. The idea was simple: help people find the best online courses.
We started small. I built the site from scratch and wrote all of the reviews myself. Everything felt like an experiment. We obsessed over the details: the site design, SEO, backlinks, analytics, all the invisible gears that make a website tick.
Then, after three years, we sold it.
And for the first time in my life I had nothing to write about.
I had spent so long optimizing, testing, tinkering, and growing that I forgot what it felt like to sit down and just write because I wanted to.
I could have gone the guru-route (the guroute? Ugh, I hate myself a little for typing that), writing about how I became “so successful” and how you, too, can make a bajillion buckaroos. But I didn’t. I just don’t find any of that interesting.
What I do find interesting, is the intersection of two worlds: the joy of building something and the art of writing.
That’s when the idea for Writer Gadgets started to take shape.
What if we could build a space to help writers get better, and grow along the way?
What Writers Really Need
From my experience, writers don’t fall for guru magic beans because they’re lazy or undisciplined, they’re overwhelmed by noise.
Everywhere you look, someone’s promising a new hack, template, or “secret system.” But when you strip away all that noise, what most writers really want is simple: focus, feedback, and tools that help them actually finish something.
After selling Course Reviewers, Kyle and I set out to build Writer Gadgets.
The timing couldn’t have been better. Kyle had just signed a six-figure publishing deal with a Penguin Random House imprint, and I was knee-deep in finishing my novel. We were both living the process — juggling creativity, discipline, and doubt in real time.
Writing about the tools and workflows that helped us along the way gave us a unique kind of empathy for writers at every stage: the dreamers outlining their first ideas, the weekend warriors trying to stay consistent, and the published authors still figuring out how to keep their momentum.
Most writers don’t need more motivation; they need better systems that make progress feel possible.
The Philosophy Behind Writer Gadgets
I realize this is the part of the article where you go, Okay, what’s the sales pitch Mr. Anti-guru Guy? I don’t have one. I don’t have a course, or a funnel, or a “content strategy” to sell you.
That isn’t the kind of place I intend to build with Writer Gadgets.
The idea behind it is simple: writing is a craft, not content.
And as I’ve already lamented, the internet has made “being a writer” synonymous with “building a brand.” But writing isn’t any of that. Not to me, at least.
Writing isn’t a performance, it’s practice. It’s showing up to wrestle a muddy pit of words until something sensible emerges.
Kyle and I built Writer Gadgets for writers who care about that part, the messy, curious, obsessive process of getting better at writing.
Everything on the site is organized around how real writers work:
- Writing Tools & Apps — the stuff that makes the process easier.
- Writing Craft & Process — the techniques that make the work stronger.
- Publishing & Author Business — the practical side of sharing it with the world.
Our goal has never been to tell writers what to do, but to create a space that helps them find what works for them.
Writer Gadgets is a workshop. A place to experiment, to learn, and to remember why we started writing in the first place.
What’s Next
Phew. That felt good to get off my chest. I’ve missed writing here.
I plan on sticking around, not to chase claps (are they still claps?) or share life hacks, but to write more personally. About building things. About writing. About showing up even when no one’s watching.
If you’ve read this far, I’ll fancy a guess you probably care about those things too. You can follow me here for more essays on the craft, or visit Writer Gadgets if you want deeper dives.
No paywall. No funnel. Just writing.
I’ve spent a decade chasing platforms, algorithms, and growth hacks.
Turns out all I really needed was a blank page, and a reason to start writing again.
