Everything Is A Story. Her Manifesto is Our Theme Song.

Linda Caroll. She Had Us at “Hello”

Where do the pros go to improve writing and storytelling mastery? Linda Caroll does not write about herself, so I will.

Every Tuesday and Friday I watch for her Hello, Writer! Substack. It’s a big deal priority because I feel one percent clearer and stronger each time. That adds up to more than a 600% improvement, since Linda’s Substack started in 2019. Add to this Linda’s writing and editing for more than 12 publications on the Medium platform and her stories in print publications since 1997 for a more accurate grasp of her range and appeal.

Gifted. Professional. Communicator. What is your score?

The front door to the GPC Community is a self-assessment exploration with seven questions in each of three areas. We use it to get to know you and how to delight you. We don’t reveal your answers to others. We encourage you to use what you found out about yourself—your superpowers, to write stories instead of articles. We use your answers to create these feature stories about the extraordinarily talented individuals in our community.

What’s worth sharing is how many questions were “yes” for each person. Go here to look at the questions. Linda scored 6 out of 7 in all three areas. Linda identifies as a writer and community builder. That’s a rare and powerful combination of right- and left-brain abilities, which we value highly and fully support in the GPC Community.

Who Are You Naturally?

 Q: What have you always done with ease and grace? Think about what comes to you naturally and seems to be magic or more difficult for others to do.

The Essence of Linda. Her Words.

The summer my Daddy died we were sitting in the sun when he blurted that mama never knew what to make of me. Wild little thing climbing trees with sticks in my hair. Ran in the kitchen one day saying mama, mama, did you know stories are made of ABCs? And read from a book. Just like that. Not even in school yet. What do you do with a kid like that? I smile and say You buy her more notebooks and he laughs, remembering.

Then he stared into space, lost in yesterday like everyone who sees death out the corner of their eye and when he came back he put a gnarled hand on my knee and softly said, Chase your dreams, sweetheart, life is more than paying the bills. Two weeks later, I was weeping as I picked his casket, and after mama left, too, the clock started ticking louder. Ticking, ticking. With every beat of my heart.

Words have always come easy to me. I’ve been writing since I could hold a pencil and won my first writing contest at nine. But it’s a brutally hard way to make a living and the path is dark but as they say, it’s only in the dark that we can see the stars. And therein lies the dream. To polish the words, and polish and polish until they shine bright enough that maybe they light the way

It’s About The Reader, Not the Writer

Linda is Canadian. When asked to talk about herself, she offers a tiny story about Leonard Cohen, the Canadian songwriter, poet, and novelist. Even people who may not know his name have sung his most famous song, “Hallelujah.“

She said, “Leonard Cohen was once being interviewed on a show, so he read one of his poems and the interviewer asked him to explain what the poem means to him personally. Cohen read the entire poem again from beginning to end. I love that story because it sounds like the sort of thing I’d do.”

It’s all about the words for Linda. Then it’s all about the reader. It’s rarely about directing any attention to herself. The ultimate magic trick of a great writer is that even when Linda is describing an experience she had, it’s done through the eyes and lived experiences of the reader, who is having that same experience now or remembers vividly.

Credit Geralt on Pixabay

Gifted Awareness

Q: Is this true for you? Because you are a deep thinker, highly intuitive, creative, analytical, and curious, you bring a particularly complex dimension to professional relationships

Linda: I believe we all have exceptional potential, but we live in a world that tells us to work harder at what we’re bad at instead of leaning into what we’re good at. Teachers send reports saying a student needs to work harder at math or another student is failing science, instead of praising the areas we are strong in and saying, Do that more. With that said, I was reading at a high school level by third grade and accelerated through school, finishing two years early.

Maybe what others see as gifted is stubborn perseverance. The late Irving Stone spent his life writing novelized biographies of people like Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Lincoln, and Darwin. At the end of his life, he was asked if he had ever found a thread that runs through the lives of exceptionally gifted people. He said yes. They are beaten over the head, knocked down, vilified, and for years, they get nowhere. But every time they are knocked down, they stand up. You cannot destroy these people, and at the end of their lives, they have accomplished some modest part of what they set out to do.

I like that a lot. I don’t think of myself as gifted. But I know no matter how often I get knocked down, I will get back up again.

Credit Marco Palumbo on Unsplash

Professionalism Emphasis

Q: Did you become a professional on purpose or did your career path open a door into the profession you identify with today?

Linda: That question is far too sophisticated, weighed next to my lived reality. When my marriage ended, it became a question of okay, now what? Because I had a child who depended on me and no money. The first thing that happened when the papers were filed is that all assets of the marriage were frozen. Which left me with only what I had in my wallet so it became a question of what can I do to make ends meet. I wrote anything anyone would pay me for from magazine articles to resumes while I learned programming, because I thought it would pay better. I did programming for some years, and still do a little. But writing has always been the air I breathe and was part of my career before I got married and while it’s not always been most of what I do, it’s always been part of who I am.

Communication Emphasis

Q: Which of your communication skills do you seem to work on constantly, always learning, always evolving?

Linda: I could say writing but that would be inaccurate and incomplete. Several of my readers have commented that it astounds them that I read every comment and reply, and I try to. I can’t always, but at least the first hundred or so. Therein lies the answer. How can I move people with my writing and my words if I can’t see the world through their eyes? How sad would it be to get to the end of my days and never have seen the world through any eyes but my own, never have had any perspective other than my own? What I work at endlessly is having a better grasp on the human experience as a whole because I think it makes me a stronger writer.

Words to live and laugh by

The power of quotes and rhetoric is part of a GPC member’s thinking. These are words Linda lives by and uses with others to make clear what he teaches them.

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? ― Mary Oliver

Always be a poet, even in prose. ― Charles Baudelaire

Credit Taskin Ashiq on Unsplash

Most Impactful Linda Caroll Stories.

Many of our community members say they have been writing since grade school. A few recall a love for words, paper, pencils, Crayolas, and anything that moved words from their thoughts to somewhere visible, even before age 5. Writing for them is like breathing. It’s hard to say when it goes from writing for yourself or for grades to writing for pay. When a writer goes into payment land, the creative energy shifts from an obsession for words to an obsession for what words mean inside the minds, hearts, and shared experiences with humans.

Some may say that is the point when you become professional—when your knowledge of the customer becomes as strong as your craft. For Linda and others who achieve levels of “best-selling” and “highest-ranking” writers, it’s when the word prolific gets attached to your writing habits and daily output of pages, even if messy drafts.

Linda has been at the prolific stage since the nineties, when we used envelopes and stamps—before the first stages of email and web pages.

That’s why you can decide for yourself and create your own playlist of favorite stories by Linda Caroll. To give you a tiny jump start, here’s the list that connected well with professionals, communicators, and gifted minds.

If You’re Just Starting On Substack, Don’t Make The Same Dumb Mistake I Did. Substack January 2023

Please Fix Your Substack Welcome Letter Here’s what you’re doing wrong. Substack June 2025

My 5 Little Rules For Growing Substack To The Moon Without Being Pitchy. Most of the “advice” didn’t work for me so I invented my own little rules and they’re kind of right-brain but maybe you’ll find this helpful. Substack, April 2025

Seven Good Reasons AI Needs to Be Regulated Or Rebuilt. Technology should minimize human suffering not increase it. Medium October 2025

Fifty is When I Stopped Caring How Anyone Expects Me To Be. Medium July 2025

This is a story you’ll never forget because love, death, and family issues touch everyone. The words from this story that nailed the landing with our over-45 community of readers was this: “The only regrets I’ll take to my grave are the ones accrued before age fifty. Because fifty is when I stopped caring how anyone expects me to be.”

The Problem With Both Medium And Substack Isn’t The Platform. A plate of cookies might make you rethink your strategy on writing platforms. Substack September 2024