Corbie Cof · Captain's log

The build is still hard

Having my artwork move and having a direction feels better. I also need paid work now.

The build is still hard.

Having my artwork move and having a direction feels better. I can see more of what I’m trying to make. But yesterday I was learning another unfamiliar process: save things here, upload them to GitHub, have Cloudflare pull from GitHub. I can visualize the steps, but I still don’t fully understand how everything connects. This is completely outside the work I used to do.

I’m used to building and shipping with an external deadline. A client needs something by a particular day. There are parameters, people to work with, and a point when it has to go out.

Now that decision is mine. The website probably could go live. But there are a few more tweaks, and the content doesn’t quite feel like me yet. I keep getting ideas before I’ve had a full stretch of time to work through the ones I already have.

I need the website to be proof of my capabilities. It needs to work as a portfolio, explain what I’m offering, and give someone a clear next step. I want it to show how I think through storytelling and how I make decisions.

Getting an outline together and having Claude code it has been the easier part. Refining it so the message is there, the interactions aren’t overdone, and the whole thing doesn’t feel rushed is harder. That refinement feels like part of the proof of who I am as a leader, designer, creative director, and creative operations person.

The Shopify Winter ’26 site gave me a lot of inspiration. I like how the format and visuals change around what they’re trying to highlight. That appeals to the part of me that wants to play with different things and see how they work. I want to find my own way to use that kind of movement with restraint.

Then there are the case studies.

Claude picked up numbers and examples from my résumé and put them into the site. They weren’t necessarily the things I would have chosen to highlight. But when I try to say what should replace them, I’m not sure.

I know the work was hard. Thousands of slides. Alignment across teams and locations. Building a team and workflows. Helping get a general session ready, where partners get onstage to share the information people came to hear.

My responsibility was a specific, vital piece of a much larger event. I also worked within limits. I didn’t have full control, and I wasn’t brought into all the conversations. There was often someone between the presenter and me, which I hated because it didn’t make sense.

I can talk about that work topically, but I can’t share the visuals. I don’t know yet how to make those stories convincing, or which ones demonstrate what a business wants from fractional leadership. Maybe there’s self-doubt in that too. I know what it took. I’m less sure how impressive it looks from the outside.

And the investor conference is about to happen without me there. It sucks not being able to support my friends when I know this is the crazy crunch time.

When I think about Corbie Creative, I think about building somewhere freelancers can land and grow. Somewhere working as a team gives them a real return on their time.

I also need paid work now.

If I could bring people in today, I’d want someone to identify prospects and make those first contacts. I’m happy to show up and be the voice of Corbie. I’d want someone technical to help make the workflows work, legal support, and people to bounce ideas off.

I miss the writing-on-the-wall sessions with my team. I miss someone being able to say, “That’s a shitty idea,” or, “That’s a great idea,” and working through it together.

Last week, I stepped away from screens and went to a park in Denison. I listened to birds, walked, took pictures, and explored without knowing exactly where I was going. I sketched on paper two days in a row.

The paper buckled. The pencils weren’t quite doing what I wanted. My water leaked. I got better paper for my traveler’s journal, but even with the imperfect setup, the output felt pretty enough.

I came back refreshed and made serious progress on the website.

Getting the footage off my devices was another story. Some larger files wouldn’t transfer. The window when I had time to work with them passed, other things became priorities, and now the footage is another thing waiting in the back of my mind.

There are school pickups, the house, errands, and a few available hours that never feel like all the hours I want. My computer is struggling to run everything. I’m waiting for the EIN after the website didn’t work when I applied. Money and health insurance are part of why the timeline feels pressing.

I’d love to do workshops eventually. Hiking and sketching with other people sounds wonderful. But right now I need a steady stream of client work and the bills covered before I can give that idea the time it deserves.

AI has helped me get much further with this website than I could have on my own. I guarantee it wouldn’t be anywhere near what it is without it.

It still doesn’t feel as solid as it would with a team.

I am making progress. I can see that. I’m still figuring out how to make the work represent me well enough to share, while fitting the build into the life I actually have.

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