For One Month, the Internet Named Everything I Made (My Newsletter Will Never Recover)
There's a moment in every creator's life when you realize you've been calling your project "Final Draft v7_REAL" for three weeks and nobody can save you but yourself.
Mine came on a Tuesday in March, staring at a folder of untitled essays. That's when I did something impulsive: I posted a Story asking my followers to name everything I made for the next month. All of it. Drafts, side projects, even my monthly newsletter.
They said yes. Loudly. And then the chaos began.
Week One: The Honeymoon Phase
The first few suggestions were almost suspiciously good. A personal essay about my grandmother's recipe box became "Cardboard Heaven" — which, honestly, was better than anything I'd brainstormed. My followers have taste. I was genuinely impressed and slightly threatened.
I started a shared note where every suggestion got logged, no veto power, no judgment. By day five, it had forty entries. By day ten, two hundred.
Week Two: The Wheels Come Off
Then someone suggested I rename my newsletter "Soup of the Day."
Reader, I almost did it. I had the graphic designed. I drafted the announcement email. It was only when my editor texted "please tell me this is a bit" that I came to my senses and remembered that a newsletter name is a long-term relationship, not a weekend fling.
Other highlights from the middle stretch:
- A half-finished short story about a haunted laundromat became "Spin Cycle of Horror," which is objectively delightful and I may use anyway
- Someone named a client mood board "Corporate Grief"
- Three separate people suggested variations of "Untitled" which, fair
What I Learned About Letting Go
Here's the thing nobody tells you about creative control: it's heavier than it looks. I've spent years treating my project names like state secrets, polishing them alone in the dark before revealing them to the world. Turns out, letting 4,000 strangers peek behind the curtain didn't diminish the work — it made it feel more alive.
There's a specific energy that happens when someone you've never met cares enough about your half-finished draft to argue about its name in your comments. It's accountability. It's momentum. It's a room full of people invested in whether the thing ships.
I also learned that naming is a skill, and crowds are weirdly good at it. Individually, suggestions ranged from brilliant to unhinged. Collectively, they averaged out to something genuinely useful. The wisdom of crowds, but for titles.
Would I Do It Again?
Yes, but with guardrails. Next time: the audience names drafts and experiments, but brand-adjacent stuff (newsletter, courses, anything with my actual name on the contract) stays in my hands. There's a difference between collaboration and handing over the deed to the house.
The month ended, I took back the keys, and my projects went back to having names like "Essay Draft v3" — but now, every time I title something, I hear the committee of followers in my head. One of them is definitely suggesting "Soup of the Day."
And honestly? The next one might stick.
