Friends, I’m just going to cut to the chase: I have decided to take a mini-hiatus from the newsletter to focus on my essay collection. There are only so many hours I have in the day and the summer left me depleted—I got a ton of client work, which I desperately needed, but between that and some personal upheavals, it’s been a struggle to dedicate much time to my creative writing. I’m hoping that I can make more headway in the fall, now that I am more financially stable and my emotions are more settled.
I’m calling it a mini-hiatus because I’ll still send out a monthly newsletter updating you on my writing life, much like my editions on the Tin House Summer Workshop or my ordeal on renting an apartment as a freelancer. However, there will be no additional content.
For that reason, I am pausing all paid subscriptions. What does that mean? It means that your billing cycles will be frozen. If you are a monthly subscriber, you won’t be charged until I unpause the publication. If you are an annual one, your subscription will be extended for however many months the publication is paused. You can learn more about pausing publications here. I will make sure to send a notice a few days before I unpause it so you don’t get any surprise billings.
If you prefer to cancel, here are the instructions.
I don’t know how long I’ll pause the publication for, but I’m expecting it will probably be like this for the rest of the year. I also want to return with a better way of moving this newsletter forward so that it best serves the readers and myself. I’m not going to lie, the amount of competition on Substack is fierce and I’m finding it overwhelming to cut through the noise.
Thank you for your support and please don’t abandon ship completely! You’ll still hear from me once a month and, hopefully, you will still find it useful or, at the very least, entertaining.
That is so smart and self-aware - I just dropped a post yesterday with the opening
"My writing has been pretty spotty over the summer. I guess I quiet-quit without knowing it. "
I totally get where you're at. This is very common rn on Substack - I keep reading about creators' burnout. Maybe we can develop a virtual "recharge ranch" where we can share some ideas, thoughts, cares, or concerns about our Substacks. Seeing the rapid growth of other platforms adds feelings of inadequacy that I'm sure others share. Maybe if we acknowledge these hidden fears, we can better address them. Just a thought bubble here . . .
Definitely understandable! I only write my newsletter once a month-ish and it's a lot for me.