My Substack Year
Plunging, posting, practicing and playing .
This week marks my first anniversary writing on Substack. I am thrilled to still be here. So often I start off projects with great enthusiasm only to peter out as things get harder. Substack has been nothing like this. For a start it hasn’t got harder, only richer and more surprising. Both in the writing and in community. So, it’s never crossed my mind to give up, or even skip my fortnightly post. Instead, the rhythm of posting has given my year a steady pulse of engagement, drawing me in closer to my place in the world and the times we inhabit. While I did not set out to make my posting a practice, this is what it has become. And instead of dwindling as many of my practices in the past have, it has become juicier as I have immersed myself into its flow.
I had not thought too much about all of this until in a recent post I included a small snippet about writing on Substack and found that others were interested to hear about my process. So, to celebrate my anniversary, here is my Substack story so far.
I came to Substack with both frustration and hope. For many months, I had been trying to get going with a new book. Every attempt was tortuous. I wrote endless outlines, toyed with titles and waited for flashes of inspiration. But whenever I attempted to get beyond this I plodded badly. I didn’t want to read my own writing let alone subject anyone else to it. My language felt bogged down in old habits of academia while my thoughts seemed stale and repetitive. I was stuck, missing the space that writing had occupied in my life for many years. It seemed there was no way through.
Meantime I was listening to a whole range of interesting podcasts, as I cooked and cleaned each day. This is where my flashes of inspiration would come from, as I encountered a range of speakers, ideas and projects grappling with the ecological crisis and contributing to systemic and cultural change. Before long this led me to Substack. I found a whole range of conversations going on here between writers and practitioners about the kinds of things that excited me. Craving conversations and community, I started subscribing.
After six months of paddling in the waters of reading and commenting, I decided to fully leap into the Substack river, setting up my newsletter Psyche’s Nest. I went in with a lifeline for my first post, drawing on an article I had written for a Jungian Journal. There, I had opened my piece with a story of a precious memory before proceeding into the theoretical paper required. Now in my first Substack post I could stay with my story and follow it to my heart. What freedom! My piece could become whatever it desired. No reviewers to please, no book proposal to fulfill.
My first posts stayed close to familiar shores, drawing and elaborating on stories from my book Climate Crisis and Consciousness. But pretty soon I recognised other currents at work when I wrote. The strongest current of all was the conversations that surfaced through comments made on my posts. To my delight, I was discovering writing as dialogue.
According to research, writers are the most neurotic and loneliest of all the creative professions. Stuck away in our garrets, lost in our thoughts, we can easily drive ourself nuts. My year on Substack has upended this stereotype. While I do still have an attic room I write in, my laptop now holds a community of thoughtful and chatty readers and writers who I think of and respond to as I write. I feel far from alone and far from disconnected.
Another difference showing up is in my writing style, brought about more by osmosis than design. There are so many fine writers on Substack. From them (you) I have learned to write directly, speaking out my thoughts, feelings and stories in a lively and accessible way. What a relief this is, although this change is far from complete.
My relationship to what lies outside my attic study windows has also flourished. The park I do my daily tai chi in, the canopy of trees rising above rooftops, the chatter of birds, all are a part of my writing life now. The old binary between being inside or outside, in human world or in ‘nature’, has given way to a continuum of connection
When I called my Newsletter Psyche’s Nest, it was as much aspiration as inspiration. This was what I wanted for myself, to feel nestled mind, body and soul in the place where I have the great good fortune to live. After years of writing about the big picture of climate crisis, I yearned for the intimacy and comfort that comes with being at home and belonging, here in a valley on Wangal Country in Warrane/Sydney. Writing about where I live, the Food Forest and Community Garden I work in most days has fostered my attentiveness, appreciation and attachment. No longer a passive yearner, I am nesting, observing the seasons and cycles and comings and goings of home.
Substack too has its rhythms and processes. My writing cycle starts with the pleasure and emptiness that descends every second Friday afternoon when I send off my latest post. The weekend stretches ahead of me. I can go slow, catching up with what I have neglected while writing, reading my way through a pile of juicy articles waiting for me in my inbox and responding to comments on my latest post. On Sundays there is yoga and then working bees in the Food Forest and Community Garden.
I emerge from the weekend refreshed. This is when, more often than not, I start to feel the stirring of my next article. Sometimes there is more than one stirring like this morning, when I sat down , with a memory of a dream I had yesterday, followed by dreamwork done later in the day in an online group. Both experiences left me thinking about community and my ways of connecting and not connecting with others. But when I dated my document, I recognised the anniversary date and followed my impulse to start writing from there.
Beginning to write any piece has always been a struggle for me. When I wrote Climate Crisis and Consciousness, I made endless attempts at my introduction. But on Substack, I have learnt to just leap in. As long as I have an impulse, there is a springboard. And the dive in, though not graceful, has become increasingly energised by delight. I have learnt that joyful writing flourishes with trusting the process. After a year of never being stuck, I believe that something will happen. The unknowns of what and when is part of the delight.
Writing my first draft is freeing, letting words stream on to the page, enjoying not knowing where they will take me. No matter how messy, whatever I get down gives me something to craft over the next week. Once 500 words are on my page I relax, knowing that most days ahead I will return to my writing, may be for 15 mins, may be for an hour. Some days I like what’s on the page, other days I am critical but not in a way that stops me. I know if I stick with this, something will happen. The day before I post I go with whatever I have, search for an image or two , agonise over the title (definitely what I find hardest). And then its Friday, I do a final polish, press the post button and start the cycle again.
Knowing that whatever I am writing here is one of a river of posts, relieves me of stress and strain. Perhaps a few people will read it, perhaps many. The surprise of what lands is another part of playing on Substack. As is the resonances between what I post and what others post at around the same time. So often there is synchronicity, something which to me is a deepening, not a lessening. Because what really appeals to me about Substack is that it hosts collective reflection and supports possibilities for cultural change in response to these times.
In just one year Substack has swept me through commentary to writing to community. There have been workshops which have fed my creative flow, thank you
and . And there have been collaborations that grown from comments on posts. and I have co-faciliated a beautiful conversation circle on minding and mending the world, where we share rituals, projects and poems in a small group meeting monthly. And more recently invited me to write for her compilation Hope – A Scrapbook , and then interviewed me on a Substack live. I loved watching familiar names pop up in the audience, relishing the embodied experience of our being together at the same time, all focused on what grounded hope might mean in our world today.People bring their lives, places, hearts and minds to their Substack posts and reading. While I know there is plenty of performance going on here, I am finding so many people who are here for good, prepared to engage with what is hard, opening to connection and cultural change. This is the paradox I love, that by becoming more focused on where I am in the world I have found belonging with others across the world, bonding over losses and griefs, inspiring actions, planting seeds, and tending to our nests one post at a time.
How about you ? Where is Substack taking you? What brought you here, what have you found, what has surprised or delighted you?
Love this Sally, thanks for writing ✍️ it. And happy Substack anniversary✨🌟💖🌷🙏🏼🕊
What a heartfelt and encouraging commentary Sally. I’m still dithering over Substack, reading heaps, recommending lots, especially through my little ‘Stories in our Times’ group. But I recognise your experience of Substack in camaraderie and conversations in that ‘Stories’ activity. It’s another prompt to action. Thank you.