One Year of Substack

A year of learnings

Greetings, earthlings!

It’s my anniversary! Or birthday? This is post number 99! I’ve written a lot in the past year, mostly fiction, but I’ve also written a whole lot of Substack! I’ve published 99 posts and so many drafts that never went out. I love doing this. I crave writing even more than I do now, and if I weren’t worried about bombarding you all with a ton of emails, I would publish on here even more! (But I’ve found a workaround for that! Woot!)

I’m reflecting on what I learned in this past year… and I started during a major transition in my life. I’d gone from being burnt out at work to writing the first draft of a novel in 5 weeks, never giving myself a break. I wanted to rush and give myself everything I had given my previous jobs, which was all of me, all of my creativity, and energy. It was time to give that back. But when you’re running on empty, changes have to be made. I’ve learned my lesson, I thought, but it took me many months to learn about work-life balance. I’ll save all the things I had to unlearn for another post…

The most prominent thing I’ve learned is that I’ve tried to edit my life to lead a slower lifestyle. And I realized that that’s not really who I am. I’ve been forced to slow down, and I have found an ease with it, but for me, there is such a thing as too slow. And I need to honor and respect who I am and what works for me. And a slow life… at least my interpretation of it, doesn’t work for me. But also, clearly, a life where I’m going 100 miles an hour doesn’t work either. It’s not just about balance, but it’s about the kind of life works for me, and all of my quirks, habits, likes, etc. I don’t like being unproductive, and I like being around people.

Now onto the future:

A few days ago I was searching through this publication, and I felt a surge of pride. It’s not a feeling I feel often because I’m often hard on myself. But it was such an amazing feeling to scroll through and see my name on there, writing about things I feel passionate about. Writing on Substack takes a long time, but I do feel fulfilled by it, so it’s worth it to me. I think about it all the time! It’s seriously like a crush, I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about a post, or write one as soon as I wake up. Most of the time they’re so raw and real that I don’t post those, but there’s a clear indicator to me that there’s so much more I want to do with Substack. Year one is just the beginning.

As I mentioned earlier, I want to post most days of the week, but I don’t want to bombard you all with constant emails about what I’ve posted. I want to make this space more me. So I will be posting a weekly round-up of the things you may have missed. You will likely get emails 2 times a week. One of them will be a summary of the things you may have missed so that I’m not emailing you seven times a week. I haven’t quite figured out the cadence, but I’m excited to try it and just wanted to give you a heads up on that. If you want to join me on this journey, you’re invited!

Here’s something new in this week because I published it without sending it out, I hope you enjoy it!

This one is now free:

Below is one of my favorite paid ones that I’ve written, which I’m making free for the anniversary. I was in the flow, and feeling like a poet when I wrote it. Scroll down in this post because likely more than half of the content was locked:

I do want to take the time to highlight some of my favorites I wrote, I’ll do a top 4, because 10 might seem like too much:

Pretty Little Prayers

Side Quests: The Antidote to Living Your Best Year

Notes to Your Younger Self

The Riptide