Happy Friday (and National Selfie Day) everyone!

Preface: Welcome to another weekly round-up post from our growing community of bloggers, writers, vloggers, podcasters, and other fellow creatives. To be straight to the point, each and every week we hand-pick five top posts from a pool of the highest voted user-submitted/created posts in the community and include them in this weekly round-up blog post, along with the newsletter for all of our e-mail subscribers. As per our submission rules, posts shared can not be re-posts, or older than 1 month (31 days), meaning that all of the following are fresh and recent! Tune in every week and you will gradually become a better and more insightful creative over time!

This week’s top spot belongs to The Cut’s Katie Heaney with her very compelling and remorseless piece about how emotionally challenging and draining it can be to write on a regular basis and how being afraid of failure plays a major role.

Up next, Writer Dorothea Lasky “ruminates on the nature of creativity, witchcraft, and the eternal nobility of being an artist.” as explained in the sub-heading on her insightful post. We’re also  treated to an extremely detailed web comic about the daily routine of a writer in 26 parts, starting from A and ending with Z, Illustrated and created by Grant Snider of Incidental Comics.

Finally, Christian Mihai from The Art of Blogging lists nine common and useful tactics to increase readership/traffic to your blog, and an unidentified author from the WonderShuttle blog gives us a deep-dive investigation into Slack’s (Yes, the one that was just all over the news about their 20 BILLION valuation) content strategy that helped catapult them to get where they are today.

So without further ado, here are this week’s (June 15 – June 21, 2019) most valuable posts from the /t/BES creatives community:

1. Why Does Writing Suck?
“When writers say they “hate” writing, they actually mean they’re afraid of failure. And in an industry as precarious as ours, that seems like a perfectly logical position to take.”

2. In Pursuit of Lifelong Creativity
“Creativity is always something I am thinking about. But what does it mean to be creative with my adolescent dreams now so far away in the rear-view mirror? I am excited by this question.”

3. Web Comic: A Writer’s Routine
Snapzu member Amabaie shares a humorous web comic about the daily routine of a writer in 26 parts, starting from A and ending with Z. Illustrated and created by Grant Snider of Incidental Comics.

4. Want More Traffic? Here’s How.
“You start a blog, or a YouTube channel, create a podcast, whatever your passion may be. You put some content out there, and a few people stop by and compliment your work. That’s when the madness starts.”

5. How the Slack Blog’s Content Strategy Works
“A blog is not made with sparks of excitement or ideas, but with words. Ruthless execution might create some momentum, but will not sustain it. Only an understanding and application of its underlying system will.”

That’s all folks! You can view all the rest of the community’s top submissions (10 more) here.

Be sure to tune in next Friday for another great weekend reading list that will make you a better and more informed blogger, writer, and/or content creator! If you have anything awesome to submit that others might enjoy, feel free to do so!

And don’t forget to help other fellow creatives find this nifty resource by sharing it around! Huge thanks!

PS: Run a blog, vlog, or podcast or any other creative endeavor? Start an accompanying homebase/community (like ours) on Snapzu (a platform for bloggers/creatives) and utilize it to effortlessly create and send out awesome routine round-up posts/newsletters like this to help grow your audience and newsletter 3x faster (among tons of other benefits!) It’s free! More info here.