On loving your work, and people!

Dearest gentle reader,

Any Bridgerton fans in here? Just me? 🤭

I gotta say, a lot’s been happening with me lately on a spiritual level. In fact, I feel like an imposter writing to you now.

I’m turning 33 in two months, and I’ve realized among other things that I don’t value connecting with people nearly as much as I should. Since 2017, I’ve put work on a pedestal, and my personal relationships have suffered greatly.

I don’t think I have any true friendships.

That’s not me pointing fingers at anyone. If anything, it’s me pointing at myself.

It’s jarring to look back on the last decade and see how empty my life was. I’m sure some of you can relate.

My brother got married to a beautiful person 8 years ago, and I’m ashamed to say I haven’t had a single meaningful conversation with her. We’ve talked, and we’ve been nice, and shared some laughs, but I’ve never sat down, looked her in the eyes, and asked her how she was truly doing. I never got to ask her why she named her kids this, or that, and how much the bible means to her. What her favorite verse is. Why she loved the Twilight books. What she loves about my brother. I never asked her any of that.

I have someone waiting to be my sister who I’ve stiff-armed for years.

It’s appalling behavior. All the while I’ve preached about giving a sh*t about your readers online.

I do care about you all. I have made friends online the last few years. But I never let any of them get close to me. I never got truly close to them, either. I’m working on ending that cycle this year.

As I look around, I see so many of us aren’t great at true connection, either. That’s not judgement… just fact. So many of us just don’t know what it looks like. Nobody’s shown us. There’s too much trauma to wade through, too much insecurity and fear as well. I get it. I have all the sympathy in the world for that.

As a man, showing my true feelings in public feels like getting naked in front of strangers. It is the most unnatural feeling ever. But the spiritual revolution raging in my mind is slowly changing this feeling.

Love takes many forms. I know my Mom loves me because she’s always there when I need her. I know my Dad loves me because he tries to talk to me nearly every day.

I think the most pure form of love, though, is seeing someone fully.

Seeing the world through their eyes. Being insanely curious about them. Loving who they are.

In 10 minutes, I could learn more about my sister-in-law than I’ve gleaned in 10 years of “knowing” her. Isn’t that sad? It is, but it’s also exciting.

It doesn’t take much for someone to take their armor off in front of you. I’ve found it easier, in some senses, than slipping out of a shoe. All you got to do is really give a sh*t.

In the past, I’d ask people questions just to keep the conversation flowing. I’d do these things to “play the social game.” I didn’t actually care all that much. That led to me asking shallow questions, which perpetuated shallow connection, I guess.

You see how it’s all connected?

The biggest realization of all, for me, is that changing yourself is the best way to change your reality.

Recently, my sister and I reconnected after years of hardship. She distanced herself from my family, and drew some boundaries. I took it hard, and painted her as the villain for years.

Last summer I had a change of heart. I don’t know what happened, but I realized that I didn’t even really know my sister. I didn’t know what she loved nowadays. I didn’t know why she chose her husband to be her husband, etc. I didn’t see her at all.

I sent her a message asking for forgiveness, and started taking more of an interest in her, and everything suddenly changed.

She started texting me back right away like she used to do. And now we talk all the time. We share our souls with one another. I see so much beauty in her.

It was an absolute miracle.

And then I realized, in the midst of all this, that this must be deeply cathartic for her—to be seen by someone in her own family for the first time. What a mind job that was to realize. It showed me how lonely people can really be, even when things seem “okay,” or even “good” on the surface.

Witnessing how radiantly my sister reacted to me seeing her made me want to do this with everyone. I want to give everyone that gift. I want to see everybody for who they are as much as I can. I want to see the good that people can’t even see in themselves.

I found this “spiritual awakening” oddly bled into my creative work.

Around the same time I reconnected with my sister, a video on my abandoned film analysis channel started getting views. This was around the time I announced my new AI Youtube channel. It was weird. I suddenly yearned to make videos about movies again, and I abruptly abandoned the AI Youtube channel I JUST MADE and started making videos about The Incredibles, and Spirited Away, and Andor.

Talk about a swift change of heart!

It must’ve been weird for you all to witness. I’m sorry about that.

But I’ve done well since coming back! I’ve grown my channel by 4,500 subscribers since August, and nowadays we’re getting 40 new subscribers per day, and I’m making about $600 per month.

I get the feeling that if I continue, I can take this channel wherever I want it to go.

Which brings me to this newsletter. What the hell is going to happen to The Writing Long Game?

If I’m honest, I haven’t really been “feeling it” here on this Substack lately. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just.. I’ve been an online course seller for so many years and all that has gotten stale.

If I hear someone say sales funnel or landing page these days I start sweating. 😆 I’m ready to shake things up, like I’ve done so many times in my career.

So.. here are my plans for 2026..

I have a Substack connected to my Filmalysis channel. I publish the raw scripts there, along with screenshots of whatever film I’m analyzing. In the last 30 days, we’ve grown by about 50 new subscribers.

I know 50 new subscribers isn’t a ton, but if I can get 50 per month, I can get 100, and if I can get 100, I can get 150 and so on.

I’ve started shouting out my Substack in videos, which does lead to folks subscribing, and I’ve also noticed that Substack and Google are distributing my articles.

To prove it, check out the subscription source for the last 14 subscribers we’ve gotten:

My goal for the first half of 2026 is to start garnering 100 subscribers per month to my Filmalysis Substack.

Then, maybe, I want to start showing you all how to grow a Substack with video. Long form, short form, Youtube, Tiktok, you name it. I want to show you how I’m doing it.

I understand that a lot of you probably aren’t interested in Youtube, or making videos. To that I say…. that’s fine!

But you should know that writing, even on Youtube, is central to my success. I write my scripts beforehand, and use this skill I’ve developed the last 10 years to make my videos special.

I think there’s a lot of cool overlap between video creation and writing if you’re open to seeing it.

Youtube is a hell of a money generator in its own right, too. You have Adsense, which can pay pretty well, and when you get big enough you can start charging $500 - $2,000+ per video for sponsorships.

I look at Substack like a substitute for Patreon, which many Youtube creators use. A successful Substack can make you $500-$1,000+ per month, acting as a more stable source of monthly revenue compared to the chaotic nature of Adsense earnings.

My goal is to use videos and the Substack ecosystem to create a bestselling Substack newsletter, while teaching you how to do it.

Look. There’s a million Substacks about how to be successful on Substack. Many of them are just pyramid schemes—I’ll come right out and say it. I don’t want to do that in 2026. I want to show you real examples of real newsletter growth, and how I’m doing it with Youtube. That’s exciting to me.

If that’s your cup of tea, great. If not, then, well, you can make a decision on whether to unsubscribe later when I start talking about Youtube (will probably be summer of this year).

My recent spiritual awakening feels directly tied to this new professional direction. I love movies. I feel all the feelings when I watch them and analyze them. It is deeply enriching to my soul.

Just like I want to deeply love people around me, I want to love my work. I want to be infatuated with it. And that starts with this film channel, and teaching you how to navigate Substack + Youtube.

It’s a HUGE risk for me. I mean, I’m only making $600 per month with Youtube right now. 😅 But life’s too short to not give your dreams a chance, and my channel is already starting to grow exponentially.

If I can figure out the Substack-Youtube connection, this newsletter will become the most valuable it’s ever been.

I figured I owed you all an explanation as to what’s happening with me, and what to expect moving forward.

Thank you for reading!

Lady Whistledown Tom Kuegler