I Don’t Want to Pick a Niche. I Want to Live.

✎ on creative chaos, questionable business ideas & the exhausting business of trying to become one thing

I have a problem.

Well, several, probably. But let’s focus on the one that led to this blog.

I like making things.

Not one particular thing. Not one neatly categorized, algorithm-friendly thing. ALL the things.

Crochet? Absolutely.

Candles? Why not?

Tiny monsters made from socks with mismatched button eyes and questionable personalities? Obviously.

Journals, planners, miniature art, random craft projects I saw on the internet at 6:00 AM?

Yes. Yes. And unfortunately, yes.

My creative interests have the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel in a craft store.

And for some reason, I’ve spent an extraordinary amount of time trying to turn that into a problem that needs solving.

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The Great Niche Crisis

Somewhere along the way, I got the idea that if I wanted to do something meaningful with my creativity, I needed to pick a lane.

Find my niche.

Build a brand.

Identify my target audience.

Develop a product line.

Apparently, enjoying myself wasn’t a sufficiently sophisticated business strategy.

So naturally, every time I discovered something new that made me happy, my brain immediately started drafting a business plan.

Could I sell these?

Would anyone buy them?

How much should I charge?

Could this eventually replace my corporate salary?

And before I knew it, something that started with Oh, this looks fun! had become a full-blown entrepreneurial feasibility study.

Exhausting.

Especially when you consider that sometimes I just want to make a weird little monster.

But What If Nobody Wants My Weird Little Monster?

That’s the other side of this particular circus.

Because the moment I start thinking about selling something, the doubts arrive.

Everyone crochets.

There are cheaper candles.

Nobody wants to pay what handmade things actually cost.

Why would anyone buy something from me?

And maybe some people won’t.

Actually, plenty of people won’t.

But I’ve been asking the wrong question.

Instead of wondering whether every creative experiment could become a successful business, maybe I should be asking whether I enjoyed making it.

Did it make me happy?

Did I learn something?

Did I spend a few hours doing something that made the rest of the world disappear?

Because those things count, too.

Even if nobody buys the monster.

A Small Problem Involving Storage Space

Now, before this turns into a manifesto about making seventeen thousand crafts and filling every available surface in my house, there is one small practical consideration.

I have limited space.

And hobbies cost money.

Yarn doesn’t magically appear. Neither do candle supplies, fabric, paint, or the approximately four hundred different notebooks I’ve convinced myself might finally be the one.

So yes, I’d love to sell some of what I make.

Not because everything needs to become an empire.

But because it would be wonderful if my creative adventures could help pay for themselves.

Make something. Enjoy making it. Maybe find it a new home. Use the proceeds to make something else.

A tiny, self-sustaining ecosystem of creative nonsense.

That sounds lovely, actually.

Enter: Change of Subjects

Which brings us here.

To this blog.

I’ve decided that instead of choosing one creative identity and desperately trying to stick with it, I’m going to embrace the fact that my interests change.

Frequently.

Sometimes hourly.

This is going to be a place where I write about my life and whatever happens to capture my curiosity.

Some days that might mean crochet creatures and handmade candles.

Other days it might be books, writing, witchcraft, journaling, or some obscure little rabbit hole I stumbled into while supposedly doing something productive.

There will probably be experiments.

There will definitely be unfinished projects.

I reserve the right to become passionately interested in something on Tuesday and move on to an entirely different obsession by Thursday.

And occasionally, I might make something wonderful enough that I decide to put it up for sale.

But I’m not building this space around a product category.

I’m building it around curiosity.

Around creativity.

Around the simple pleasure of being interested in things.

The Subject Is Always Subject to Change

I don’t know exactly what this blog will become.

For once, I think I’m okay with that.

I’m tired of feeling like every interest needs a purpose, every hobby needs a business model, and every creative impulse needs to justify the time and money it consumes.

Sometimes joy doesn’t arrive with a five-year plan.

Sometimes it arrives as a half-finished crochet creature with one crooked eye.

And maybe the whole point is to follow it.

So welcome to Change of Subjects.

I can’t promise consistency.

I can’t promise expertise.

And I certainly can’t promise that I’ll still be interested in the same thing next week.

But I can promise curiosity, creative chaos, and the occasional questionable decision involving craft supplies.

The subject is always subject to change.

And I think that’s exactly how I want it.