3 Years of Wonderings

What's working, what isn't, and what's next

Three years ago, I jumped on Substack and started writing. Somehow, I now have more than 100 subscribers. That is a privilege and a responsibility. Thank you. The idea that even one person sees my name pop up in their inbox and smiles—that is humbling.

I want to do better, to deliver the kind of newsletter you’re interested in reading. So, I’m trying an unscientific analysis. The three most read posts so far are: What does it take to call a place home?, Vulnerability Confessional, and Didion’s Dissonant Details. The least popular posts were three that earned exactly zero likes and zero comments: On Writing Feedback, Learning to Read Like a Writer, and Reading Slumps.

What’s the takeaway? You are more interested in me getting into my feelings than most anything I have to say about books. This is a problem. I thought I was writing about books and occasionally having a slightly public breakdown. It turns out you like the breakdown more than anything didactic.

I prepped a meal and labelled it a gift. What if all my ideas and failed drafts are also gifts for future Christine? Maybe it’s all in the labelling

It baffles, boggles, and bewilders that you actually want to read about my feels. I'm the one who overshares, at least that’s how I’ve often viewed my compulsion to talk about myself, to analyze and reanalyze and over analyze things. I remember being told as a child that when a person moved, it was like taking a hand out of a bucket of water. Once the hand is gone, the water doesn’t know it was there.

Well into my adult life, thanks to that lesson, I assumed people forgot about me when I was gone. Maybe that's why I wrote so many letters in school, or why old friends are always on my mind, because I live with a visceral fear of being forgotten, that I will come and go from this Earth without making a difference.

But then again, maybe there’s an opportunity in being forgotten. If nothing I do matters, then my mistakes aren’t a big deal. And let’s face it, in the scope of things, if my successes don’t have a huge impact (yet) then my mistakes probably don’t either. People aren't paying attention to me and my problems as much as I think they are. I try to keep my embarrassments private but I suspect my mistakes don't matter much either.

So what have I learned from three years on Substack? Well, that the world is not a bucket of water closing up after my memory. It’s more memory foam, remembering my impressions and also recovering from them. I am both remembered and forgotten, and both are good.

I can continue trying to hide behind intellectualizing my reading and my experiences or I can dig into my vulnerable moments and share what it feels like to be me, myself, and I in specific situations. The data says I should do the latter.

I'm getting those weird tingles telling me this is the right thing and I am scared.

I have to slow down. Hurtling forward destinationless is not helping my writing or my writing career. Even thinking about this feels like inertia, failure. Because people who really write have projects that are more than, just reflecting on how they fell about the world, right? I don’t have that big project in mind just yet and without one, I'm feeling a bit stuck. I'm not moving forward, I'm just spinning my wheels.

For those of you who know about Alberta snow (25 cm fell this week - again), you know that when your car tires slip, you take your foot off the gas. Hitting the gas, spinning wheels faster, never helps. It just smooths and packs the snow beneath your tires. Spinning your wheels when you have no traction is the best way to get yourself hopelessly stuck in the snow.

I’ve worked with Courtney Kocak in November and in the beginning of the month she had us think and write about our newsletters. It felt like she was asking me to show everyone my dirty underwear or to make a serious confession. After all kinds of thoughtful introductions by people who have projects and missions, mine was something along the lines of “Hi, my name is Christine and I’m an aimless writer.”

In the end, the whole writing with Courtney showed me how much time I’ve spent messing around - in the sense that I’ve participated in part of the writing project, but not made it my work to follow through. I’ve thrown out a bunch of ideas, but not done the harder work of making choices, of learning to say no. I’ve had a couple significant wins, but it won’t build into anything unless I develop a sense of purpose. It’s time to find and name the bigger project so I can start building towards something. I have to make choices. I have to give some things up so there’s space to chase bigger dreams.

I have no idea how to go about this or what it’s going to look like. I fear there’s a lot of tying up loose ends and rereading my own work. My daughter would cry out, “Torture! Blasphemy!” I’m not sure she knows what either word means, but the feeling is clear. This is not going to be fun. Maybe it will be worth it? How about I let you know next year.

Thanks again for every thing you read, every like you click, every comment you make. Signs of life mean the world to me and I’m going to keep working for them.