Where You'll Find Me Next
I’m finding it really hard to accept that today is September 1 :(
TLDR: I’m moving this newsletter over to Substack, where it’s going to take a slightly different form. Your email will be automatically migrated over! That’s basically it. If you want the backstory, keep reading. Otherwise—happy long weekend!
When I started this blog, I purposely left it loose. There was no theme beyond whatever I felt like writing in a given moment. I wanted to let it evolve, and that would have been impossible if I had defined it with any kind of premature certainty. This determination to let it become whatever it was going to become was present, I can see, even in my first post, back in October 2020, during that chilly month we spent out in Montauk. Insofar as this blog actually does have a throughline, it’s been a total lack of structure. I write what I feel like writing! With whatever frequency I feel like.
I started this blog because I needed it. Re-reading that post from almost two years ago reminds me of just how lonely and difficult that first Covid fall was. I can tell how much I was craving structure, accountability, contact with the outside world. Using the blog to regularly* project my voice into that outside world seemed like a solution. (*Yeah … about that. At the outset I planned to send a post every single week, which clearly didn’t happen, lol.)
But the projecting, the writing, turned out to be a mere avenue to the real solution. This blog became an excuse to stay in touch, to trade emails and messages with people far and wide. I reconnected with friends I hadn’t seen in a long time. I wrote in a more personal way, and this opened up a different, deeper kind of conversation. There is something beautifully life-affirming when you find a way to make yourself vulnerable, and the world rewards that vulnerability. Now, in my case, you can’t actually see that reward—it’s certainly nothing material or physically tangible—but that doesn’t make it less real. What I’m saying is that, if I had to tell you how the process of writing this blog changed me, it would be that it made me a little more brave; a little more open-minded; a little more willing to take a risk.
Lately I’ve been thinking about where I want to take this writing practice from here. I love writing fiction, but I also love this other kind of writing, and I want to have both in my life. And now, after a few years of semi-regular blogging, I feel ready to put this voice to a more specific use. Let’s call this blog the 1.0 version. It was a thing I wrote for myself, without boundary, without structure, because that’s what it needed to be. But for the 2.0 version, I want to write something with a more clearly defined shape, with a more specific utility. I want to write something for you.
By you I mean: you the writer, you the artist, you the creative person. By you I mean: everybody, because creativity is just another word for freedom! Whether consciously or unconsciously, we’re all trying to figure out how to live in this world—how to live in a way that is compassionate and respectful—while also maintaining the integrity of our inner freedom, because without that, we’re lost. (Or, at least, that’s what I believe. If you disagree, that’s cool! Such is the nature of freedom!)
So, to that end: I’m relaunching and revamping this newsletter! I’m going to be starting a Substack in early September; the first post will go out next week. This 2.0 newsletter will have a theme. It’s going to be more professionally-centric, about writing and publishing and creativity. It’s going to have a name and everything. It’s also going to have a much more regular cadence. There’s still going to be a healthy dose of Me in the newsletter, because … well, I’m Me, there’s not much I can do about that! But where this blog has been decidedly amorphous, this 2.0 newsletter is going to be more practical, and to-the-point.
Do I feel a little nervous about making this change? Yes! Obviously! Is it possible that this whole thing is going to flame out and fail? Absolutely! But, look. I gotta try. What else are we doing here?
In terms of housekeeping: I’ll be migrating my email list over to Substack, so if you received this email, you’ll also be receiving my 2.0 newsletter. Yay! If you don’t want to receive it, you’ll have the chance to easily unsubscribe when that first missive goes out. Boo! But also, look, I won’t take it personally. Also, I’ve changed the sign-up form on this website so that any future sign-ups will be for the 2.0 Substack rather than this old gal.
This is going to be the last thing posted on this blog for a while. There’s a chance I might come back here to write things that feel too long-winded or loosey-goosey for the 2.0 version, but also, there’s a chance I won’t. (Though I’m not going to delete this blog or anything like that. These posts will live here forever, or until I decide to become a hermit woman who shuns technology, or whatever.)
It’s my hope that you’ll come with me on this next stage of the journey. That we’ll keep talking, that we’ll stay in touch! And so, if you have made it to the end of this far-longer-than-it-needed-to-be post: thank you. If you have ever given me an encouraging word about this blog: thank you. It was your feedback that gave me the gumption to keep trying.