About

Profile view of a woman with long blonde hair, wearing glasses, and a patterned shirt, with the text 'EDITORIAL MODE' at the top.

Editorial Mode (n.) —

The art of turning your lived experience into creative expression with voice, style, and impact — your story, shaped into culture through an inspired aesthetic.

Editorial Mode by Kathy Patalsky, is both a tool and a community for creative women.

It describes that small, electric moment when you sit down at your desk (or wherever you create) with everything you’ve been living - the sparkles, the shifts, the emotional currents, the daily noise and imprinted memories - and shape it into creative work that carries clarity, voice, intention, and taste.

It’s the art of taking your lived experience and turning it into something the world can feel, too.

This process has never been about hustle or perfection - even though it’s normal to feel trapped by both.

Going into “Editorial Mode” is about soft ambition, passion, truth, and taste. Aesthetic and story. Feeling and form. It’s sharpening your point of view, owning your message, and letting your sensitivity work as your superpower — even when the world says you’re too sensitive or “too much.”

Let’s say this out loud: creative women shrink themselves constantly. We second-guess. We overthink. We let brilliant ideas gather dust. Editorial Mode is the antidote — the space where you make work you actually love.

And once you do, the confidence we all crave follows - real confidence. Not performative confidence, but the kind that comes from knowing your work is rooted in truth, beauty, light, and authenticity. It feels like you.

I’m Kathy Patalsky — author, OG blogger, photographer — and Editorial Mode is the practice I’ve been using for years. I’m finally giving it a name. Creative minds deserve a word that reflects the genius they’ve been using intuitively.

Editorial Mode is also the spark of community - bringing together the quiet creatives, the ones working alone all over the world but wired exactly the same.

Editorial Mode, in practice and in place, is for women who take their full, complicated lives and shape them into work that moves culture. Women who feel all the things - like tiny magical sponges - and still show up to speak, create, and share their story.

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CREATIVITY TRAPS

(Editorial Mode helps you move through)

  • Shrinking your ideas before they ever see daylight. Talking them down in size because your inner critic won the first round.

  • Waiting for perfection instead of momentum. This is paralysis in disguise. Launch something quiet and messy, not loud and perfect.

  • Fear of being judged. Hiding your voice inside drafts no one will ever see — convincing yourself “it’s not ready” when really, you’re just scared.

  • Overthinking until the spark dies. Sitting in your studio spiraling until the inspiration burns out — when the truth is, it was fear that smothered the flame.

  • Creating in isolation with no reflection or community. Forgetting there are like-minded women sitting right beside you in spirit — doing this exact work in their own little corners of the world.

  • Taking criticism personally instead of creatively. Creative work is personal — of course it stings. But only youropinion determines whether the work matters. Even the greats make average pieces.

  • Forgetting to live. Rest, joy, time off, and life away from the desk aren’t distractions — they’re fuel. You can’t make human work without living a human life.

  • Misunderstanding the creative timeline. Pauses, detours, and slow seasons don’t make you less professional. They add depth. They’re where your perspective matures, where your ideas marinate, and where your work gains its soul.

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  • Editorial Mode is a creative practice and a community. It’s the art of turning your lived experience into creative work with clarity, voice, intention, and taste. It’s also a space for creative women who are wired the same — even if we work alone.

  • For creative women who feel everything, notice everything, and want to shape it into work that moves culture — writers, photographers, creators, storytellers, designers, thinkers, feelers, multi-hyphenates, and anyone who lives life like a sponge.

  • Start by joining the newsletter, following along on Instagram, and engaging with the prompts and exercises. Editorial Mode grows from participation — from showing up, sharing work, and finding your creative rhythm again.

  • Because after nearly twenty years of creating on the internet, I finally realized the thing I’ve been doing all along…needed a name.

    I started my career as a vegan blogger — photographing smoothies on my apartment floor, writing recipes from my tiny New York kitchen, building a community before we even had the word “creator.” Being one of the first vegan brands on Twitter and YouTube.

    I wrote cookbooks, partnered with brands, fed the internet colorful bowls of plants, and somehow turned all of it into a real career.

    But underneath the recipes was always the real engine: storytelling. The writing. The voice. The way I process life through words and images. That part never changed.

    I told personal stories and gave heartfelt answers. Sure people usually just want the recipes and eyeball the stories, but not my readers. The real ones, came to know me. And that was everything to me.

    Then I became a mom in 2020, and my creative world expanded and stretched — not smaller, not less important, just deeper.

    Suddenly the things I wanted to talk about weren’t only food. They were identity, ambition, belonging, softness, reinvention, motherhood, self-esteem, pop culture, grief, joy, creativity…everything.

    I still cook vegan recipes every single day. It’s still part of my life and always will be.

    But the version of me sitting at my laptop now has lived more, felt more, grown more — and my creative work grew with me.

    Editorial Mode is the result of all those years and all those pivots.

    It’s the name I finally gave to the thing I’ve been practicing forever: taking your lived experience and shaping it into creative work with voice, clarity, and meaning.

    It’s not a niche. It’s not a phase. It’s a lifelong creative instinct.

    And I know I’m not the only one who works this way.

    Creative women are constantly evolving — becoming moms, changing careers, surviving hard things, growing softer and stronger at the same time. And still, through all of it, we sit down to turn our life into something people can feel.

    That’s why Editorial Mode exists.

    To name the process.

    To honor it.

    And to bring together the women who have been doing it intuitively for years — quietly, beautifully, and often alone.

    Editorial Mode is for us:

    the writers, makers, thinkers, mothers, soft-hearted creatives, and reinvented women who feel everything and still show up to shape culture.

  • Because my work has always had a point of view — Editorial Mode is me stepping into it, fully and unapologetically.

  • Right now, Editorial Mode is the brand, the practice, the conversation, and the community. Courses, audio, writing tools, and more will evolve naturally as the community grows.

  • Nope. If you’re a human who creates — in your notes app, your camera roll, your journal, your kitchen, your blog, or your business — you’re in.

  • Not at all. Editorial Mode is how you find your voice, shape your message, and clarify your vibe. You can absolutely come messy.

    But creators (in any form) tend to click with this immediately — because the goal here is simple: feel seen, supported, inspired, and motivated.

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A handwritten note taped to a white background with two pieces of tape, containing a message about making pretty things and loving each other, decorated with a small, simple flower illustration and the phrase 'CREATIVE GIRLIES' in the top right corne
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