✍️ “I fit writing in the gaps and around the edges of life.”
Aisling Marron on building a creative life after law, motherhood, and a cross-Atlantic move.
📚 Editor’s Note: Writing Around the Edges of Life
Aisling Marron writes the way many people actually live — in fragments, in transit, between responsibilities, and with a sharp eye for the emotional texture of everyday moments. After more than a decade working as a lawyer in Dublin, she moved to New York with her family and, over time, found her way back to writing through Substack.
In this conversation, Aisling talks about letting go of rigid routines, fitting writing into the gaps of daily life, and why consistency and voice matter more than growth hacks or viral tactics. She shares how her Substack Notes from New York grew slowly and steadily without a pre-existing audience, why personal writing works best when you stop trying to please everyone, and how creative permission — sparked by The Artist’s Way — helped her start again.
This is a thoughtful, quietly powerful look at what it means to build a writing practice that adapts to life rather than competing with it — and a reminder that sometimes the most sustainable creative paths are the least engineered ones.
– Amy Suto
Editor & Curator of GuestStack
✍️ From the Desk of Aisling Marron
Where’s your desk these days — and what does it look like?
I don’t have a designated writing desk. It’s something I’ve thought about getting but never got round to it so I was immensely jealous when my 6 year old daughter came home from school one day, said she’d like a desk “for writing and stuff” and immediately fashioned one out of a low shelf in her room. She pulled up a little chair and now sits at her desk after school to write in her journal, write songs and generally plot and plan. She loves spending time at her desk and has decorated it so nicely.
I usually write at the kitchen table, I’m at it right now. Here is a photo, complete with cup of tea and plate of snacks:
I sometimes head out to write in different parts of New York. It’s great to get a change of scenery and to get out into the energy of the city. But really, I probably get most actual work done at home. I’ve recently written in the lobby of Citizen M at Times Square, which is really well equipped for any writer with lots of tables, outlets, couches, free wifi. The coffee is also self service and refillable! The Rose Room at New York Public Library is obviously astounding and just…speaks for itself.
Your Substack Notes from New York is a clever look at life in NYC as someone who moved from Dublin, and the challenges associated with starting over. What does “making writing your job” look like in your world right now with your Substack and any other projects you’re up to?
Before I moved to New York, I was working in Dublin as a lawyer and had done so for over ten years. I had never planned on leaving law but when we moved to New York for my husband’s job, with our two small kids who were then 3 and 1, it didn’t make sense for our family, or for me, to work as a lawyer in New York. For many reasons, including: The New York Bar (Another exam? No thank you). “You could register as a foreign lawyer and work without taking the bar!” a friend of mine helpfully suggested. But as soon as she said it, I realised that she had quickly found a solution to a problem I had been quite happy with, because she actually liked her job as a lawyer and it was dawning on me that maybe I did not.
Settling us into a new country, furnishing an apartment and figuring out basic systems and knowledge you take for granted when living in a country you grew up in (like: How to make a doctor’s appointment! Or: where to buy underwear!) became my priority.
I didn’t make time for writing in that period but felt no inclination towards it either. Now that I have more space in my life - the kids are slightly older and we are on steadier ground with regards to routines and feeling settled - I picked my writing back up and found I wanted to write about my experience of New York. A friend suggested Substack and when I looked at it for the first time (Summer 2024), it seemed like such a great fit and natural home for what I had in mind. I pretty much dove straight in and haven’t looked back! I’ve published a weekly newsletter ever since.
What’s one lesson you wish someone had told you earlier about the business of writing, creating, and/or running a Substack?
“Writing personal emails has been one of your favourite things to do for 20 years. Don’t overthink it, just do it. You will enjoy it more than you imagine”
What’s your writing routine like — or do you even have one?
I really don’t have a routine. I know I don’t because when people ask me when I write, I struggle to think when I do. I don’t assign specific time to it. At this point in my life and writing career, I’m prioritising my life and I fit writing in the gaps and around the edges of that life. l’m writing the answer to this question on my phone while at the hairdresser’s. I write while on the Subway. I do a lot of writing in my head, as I go about my day, and largely trust it will all still be there when it comes to sitting down and getting it onto the page. I send myself voice notes to help with this, write short notes on the docs app on my phone. It’s an ad hoc process but it works for me. I enjoy it.
Was there a moment you realized, “Wait… I can actually do this” when it came to sharing your experiences on Substack and starting over in a new city?
I did the Artist’s Way, on the recommendation of someone I trusted and admired and even though I never completed more than 4 of the 12 weeks involved, it really was life changing. I’m evangelical about it. If I get even a whisper of anyone stuck in a career rut, or at any life point whatsoever, I will appear out of the woodwork to say “Have you heard of the Artist’s Way”?
It very quickly reignited in me a desire to write, something that had been completely missing for so long. It suddenly seemed easy and joyful. With some really simple and practical prompts, it just got me out of my own way. Stories I would tell myself about why I couldn’t be a writer, that sort of thing. But it also affected my entire outlook and energy more generally. It was noticeable! I felt lighter and dressed differently. People commented on it! I was like that meme:
“You look happier - ”
“Thanks, I’ve done 4 weeks of the Artist’s Way!”
What’s something you tried that didn’t work — and what did you learn from it?
Writing about what I want to write about always works better than writing about what I think people would like to hear.
How do you find or create opportunities for yourself as a writer or creator?
In all my life, I’ve found the best opportunities come from getting out and meeting people. Professionally and personally, I truly believe in networking. I don’t mean ‘networking’ in a corporate sense and I don’t mean it cynically. I mean you make connections with people and then you hear about things: opportunities, classes you might enjoy, a new childcare centre that might really suit you, the fact that your local bakery sells bread for half price after 7pm, a good podcast, new jobs, a gem of a hairdresser - you hear about these things from getting out and engaging with people.
Opportunities arise when you put yourself out there and that goes for online too. I credit my experience in an improv class with this, but it doesn’t cost me a thought to reach out to a publication to pitch a piece. The very worst they can do is not respond and yeah, you’ll probably get inside your head about how embarrassing it is that they didn’t respond but once you get over that, you probably have a great idea for a piece so write it anyway and put it out there. And who knows, they might just say yes?
On that - say yes if someone reaches out to you. You don’t have to say yes straight away and a good tip I use is to respond “Can I get back to you tomorrow?”. It’s helpful to buy a night’s sleep to try figure out if it’s actually your gut telling you to say no or if you are really just nervous and should do it anyway!
What’s the best investment you’ve made in your writing life (time, money, or energy)?
I’d have to say the Artist’s Way because it got me writing and excited to write again. I’ve bought multiple copies because I keep giving my own away!
Notes from New York is a bestselling publication here on Substack — what were the ways you grew it? Anything out of the ordinary, or surprising to you?
I came to Substack truly without any pre-existing following. My brain only has space for one social media platform at a time and having drifted from Twitter (RIP), I was posting on Instagram to my audience of a few hundred followers on a private account. When I started on Substack and announced it to my friends and family, I had an initial 200 subscribers. It really has been slow and steady since then. The biggest jumps in subscribers come from better writing, I find. There are no tricks. I’ve grown a following by trying to put out my best work every week.
I think what works for me is consistency: I promise a weekly post and I always show up for it. Subscribers tell me they look forward to it every Thursday.
My style of writing is uniquely my own voice. I know this because I met a subscriber who had never met me in person previously and they said it was unnerving how much I sounded like my writing when I spoke. I don’t have a huge following but I do have a very engaged one. I’ve a 60% open rate and 8% of my subscribers are paying Subscribers. I had an idea that I would turn on paid subscribers when I reached 1,000 subscribers but ended up doing it earlier for reasons I’ll explain below. I still remember who my first paid subscriber was and it was incredibly gratifying to think that someone would pay you for your words, simply because they enjoyed them. Though that initial feeling did briefly turn to a feeling of pressure as I thought: “Oh you can never give this up. This thing you were doing because you enjoyed it, you now have to do because people are paying you for it”. But do you know what? There is no pressure. The fact remains that I still enjoy it and if a day ever comes that I want to stop well then, I’ll simply hit the “pause payments” button which Substack has right there in the settings.
I strategically turned on paid subscriptions as a way to get onto the ‘Rising’ bestseller list. This is a trick I probably shouldn’t share but may be useful for anyone starting out: it is incredibly easy to get onto that list and it looks way more impressive than what it actually is. The list changes every three hours so if you gain even one or two paid subscribers, you will likely rank somewhere on the rising list in your designated category. With just one paid subscriber you can announce yourself as a rising bestseller!
After I made it into the rising bestseller list, I really focused on converting subscribers to paid subscribers. When you reach 100 paid subscribers, Substack awards you the bestseller badge which…looks good, it just does!
Paywalling posts has been the most effective way of converting paid subscribers. I also emailed my most engaged readers (which is information you can access easily in the Substack dashboard) offering a Cyber Monday discount on an annual subscription which had good uptake.
What’s something you’re currently obsessed with — and how is it influencing your writing?
I’m really enjoying Industry on HBO, which I saw recommended by Emily J. Smith in this post. It is about a new crop of graduate investment bankers working at a firm in the City in London and it was so similar to my and my husband’s experience as trainee lawyers in Dublin that my husband (who cannot bear cringe or awkwardness) was pausing it every few seconds because it was just too true-to-life. I’m always interested to see something I’ve experienced or something I considered maybe too ordinary to be entertaining, actually used as subject matter in storylines.
I really like Katie Clapham’s newsletter, Receipt from the Bookshop, for similar reasons: seeing the beauty and the humour in ordinary, everyday situations.
👋 About Aisling Marron, This Week’s Featured GuestStack Writer
Aisling Marron is writer of the hilarious newsletter, Notes from New York, where she provides weekly updates on day-to-day life in Manhattan as a mother of two young kids and relative newcomer to the city.
