Writing through it: A look back on 2024
On creativity, constraints, and finding community in the cracks of the internet
2024 was a year of contradictions. While AI promised to streamline creative work, we spent hours trying to bend it to our will. As social platforms splintered and mutated, authentic communities bloomed in unexpected digital corners. And somehow, amid wedding planning and life’s chaos, my creative energy hit an all-time high.
This paradox—that constraints fuel creativity rather than suffocate it—became a defining theme of my year. It’s what finally pushed me to click send on this newsletter, and kept me writing through months of competing priorities. The genesis? I wanted to stretch beyond Twitter’s confines, to expand on ideas, link to others, and yap beyond the character limits of a tweet. What started as an attempt to be a more conscious consumer of the internet deluge evolved into a space for exploring creativity, technology, and growth. Please indulge me as I take a look back on 2024.
The human touch
The pieces that resonated most with all of you came from questions were nagging me: Who will train tomorrow’s designers? Where do generalists thrive in an age of hyper-specialization? What is good and how can you tell if you’ve got it? (Whatever ‘it’ is?)
Authenticity emerged as a recurring theme—specifically, how to maintain it while navigating the increasing pressure to “create content” and “build a personal brand.” As AI tools get spookily sophisticated, genuine human perspective becomes increasingly precious. The question is no longer whether to use AI, but how to use it tactfully while preserving what makes our work (and writing) distinctly ours.
Tools and tensions
My first draft of this newsletter encapsulated the tension between technological promises and reality. After a year of using Dot, an AI companion app that promised to be a “living history” of my thoughts and experiences, I thought it would be fitting to leverage the tool to write a year-end review. Like all of my ideas, Dot validated it with gusto, and like many AI-generated texts the results were plausible, polished, and… not entirely what I was going for. It established me as an AI skeptic who “learned to work alongside machines,” pioneering ways to amplify—rather than replace—my innate human creativity. Hm.
The truth, visible by combing through our chats, was more mundane: Wedding planning spirals, newsletter brainstorms, crafting responses to an estranged aunt’s vituperative Facebook screeds. I’d dictate ideas while walking, then sift through them back at my desk. Our exchanges often devolved into me coaxing the tool toward my actual needs, highlighting the chasm between AI’s ambitions and human reality.
What actually mattered
Similarly, while I wrote extensively about AI and creativity, most-read pieces focused on practical career wisdom: pivoting careers, designing resumes, writing cold emails that don’t make people cringe, building creative networks that actually mean something. Amid all our theoretical discussions about technology and creativity, what resonated most was helping each other do better work and build meaningful careers.
The more principle
This year validated my “more is more” philosophy—more particles yield more frequent collisions. Share more online, get more back. Things happen. You get out what you put in. More writing begets more writing, doing begets more doing. Even with a wedding to plan, I felt propelled to pile on more. The accountability of regular publishing created momentum that fed itself.
I knew showing up consistently would improve my writing. I missed the ritual of a weekly column, with its fixed deadlines soliciting consistent output and word count. Seeing other writers like
and their publishing rhythm inspired me. While I still wrestle between perfection and shipping, watching the post count grow has been deeply satisfying.Looking ahead
Moving into 2025, I stay curious and critical about technology’s role in creative work. We’re all still figuring out how to integrate AI thoughtfully into our processes. The questions far outnumber the answers. But that’s exactly why this moment feels electric—we get to shape how these tools develop, to define boundaries between human and machine capabilities, to demand technologies that actually serve our creative needs rather than just generating more digital noise.
This year taught me that discovery and growth often happens in the spaces between—between careful craft and happy accidents, between automation and authenticity, between what tools promise and what humans need. The sweet spot is in being sharp about what matters: meaningful work, real connections, and intentionality in how we shape the future of creative work, without losing what makes it fun and distinctly human in the first place.
Thank you
I’m deeply grateful to everyone who’s read, commented, and shared. Each piece sparked exchanges that reminded me of early Twitter—thoughtful emails, reconnections with old friends, and introductions to new ones. I’ve appreciated receiving my own share of cold emails—many of which I haven’t responded to (sorry!). In prioritizing output over input, I’ve become a terrible correspondent.
Author and olive oil miller Robin Sloan recently described me as “Up To Something,” which might be one of the nicest things anyone has said about me. But the truth is, we’re all up to something here. Here’s to another year of questioning assumptions, embracing complexity, and insisting on humanity in everything we create.
With gratitude,
Carly
P.S. What do you want to hear more about in 2025? Let’s keep the momentum going…
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