10 Things I've Learned from 100 Posts on Substack
And how I hope to write the next 100
Two years ago, I was working a dead end job that I despised and looking for any way to light a fire in my vicinity.
Two years ago, the concept of starting a Substack came into my life.
My creativity and work has taken on an energy that I had been hoping towards for so long. There’s such a delight in the turn from feeling like you should be doing something to actually doing it.
This is my 100th Substack post, a milestone I longed for but did not promise myself. My official 2 year anniversary of my first post is in January.
As the nostalgic that I am, I’m sitting quietly with both the writer I was then and the writer I am now, and trying to map how we become the writer we want to be tomorrow.
Here are 10 things I understand now after these last 100 posts:
Routine is my friend.
Small moments hold a world of capacity.
Specificity reveals a truth quickly, and that truth is felt a lot deeper.
Simplicity is the root of my process. I’ve begun writing with pen and paper and throwing absolutely everything on the page. I begin with the most pressing thought and follow it to find what I think and how I feel.
Drafting is much more critical to my process than I ever understood - mostly because I never allowed it to play a part in my process.
Expansive thinking can be a great tool to set in a direction but the day to day grind is where I uncover the truth within myself.
I am more comfortable with not knowing, in general. With living in the liminal rather than the definite. With the searching quality of my creativity.
It feels like I need to better get to know what it is I want to say.
Worrying too much about what I want to say instead of just saying it might be holding me back.
I can’t force my work in a direction I don’t want to go or it will feel stilted and distant. That emotional disconnection is a quality I loathe.
I often think of the future and my goals, what these next 100 Substack posts might be, and I feel an uncomfortable sense of floating. I have struggled with this for awhile and getting to know myself and my thoughts, my point-of-view, my beliefs, feels like a place to start. Beginning this Substack was beginning that process, and now it’s time to get more intentional and settle in to the next phase of my writing life.
I continue to ask myself: What do I want to say through my entire body of work? What are my core beliefs that I hope shine through each piece I write? What shape is my community building going to take? What excites me? I feel like I’m missing a fundamental question I need to ask myself to find my direction for creative work. Right now feels like a good time to dig in and find it.
Two years ago, Julie Gammack asked me if I wanted to write columns and a door opened. I’ve felt myself expanding ever sense. Meeting new people, writing in new directions, letting my creativity traipse through the air like falling maple leaf pods. I feel it’s time to take everything I’ve learned within that expansiveness and focus it inward for a bit.
That’s all to say, I’m going to take a Substack break for the rest of the year.
I feel a sense of anxiety just writing this. Like I’m setting myself adrift in hopes I find treasure along the way. But I also know that lately this project has felt like a chore to complete and that’s not the way I want to approach my work. I wish I had this definite image of myself in January that I could say I’m working towards, but I don’t think finding my identity as a writer should begin with a end in mind.
I’ve written a lot about struggling to understand the concept of voice and how to find mine. I feel more grounded now in that sense. It’s that identity part that’s missing — I don’t know what I want to say even though I know how I want to say it.
I plan to spend the next 1.5 months feeding my creativity in service of finding a clear and strong sense of the work I want to put on this platform. I want not a sense of absoluteness but a sense of solidity. That uncomfortable sense of floating feels like my potential is emanating in all directions and landing nowhere meaningful. I feel like I am saying nothing substantial, and I feel like I am ready to level up again. I’ve outgrown the beginning. It’s uncomfortable to have no insight into what the next level is, but I sense that it’s ready for me.
This time will be spent journaling and writing to my heart and not a deadline. I’ll work on essays with no goal other than to feel what I need to feel. I will read and dabble in poetry and try to notice more. I’ll spend time with my family and friends and exercise and put my phone on Do Not Disturb. This is my time to breathe in peace and community and better understand this new creative self that has emerged the last two years.
I’ll be pausing payments until I return. While I’m gone, I hope you consider subscribing to a few of my colleagues in the Iowa Writers Collaborative. They’re all brilliant and deserve your support.
If you are a paid subscriber, I plan on still attending the Iowa Writers Collaborative holiday reception on December 13. We will gather in one of the newest buildings on Drake’s campus, the Tom and Ruth Harkin Institute for Public Policy, 2800 University Avenue, Des Moines. You can meet and mingle with the brilliant writers forging a new way for media to thrive in Iowa.
Please let us know if you can attend:
Otherwise? I’ll see you in January.