Oh hi. It’s been a wee while since I’ve shown up in this space.
Back in November, I had a small explosion of eyes on a few things I posted on here. In the grand scheme of things this isn’t a big deal: like, Jules, have some perspective, it’s not like you’re internet famous. Nonetheless, the readership of this newsletter more than tripled, and it sent me in to a bit of a tailspin. Suddenly everything I tried to write felt fraught, imposter-y, and poorly argued, and I thought maybe I should pull back and consider what I want this space to be.
So, over the winter, I decided to hibernate from Substack, and to come back to it when I felt ready. That hibernation just so happened to extend into springtime. This newsletter is one of four rotating writing side projects I work on, in addition to my full-time day job, and also life, and being a human, and existing, and feeding myself, and having friends and stuff. So here I am getting back on the horse.
Recently I’ve seen some chat here and there from Substack writers who are sick of seeing other writers write about writing. I get it! But I’m just so fascinated by the creative act itself: what creating does to us and for us. So unfortunately this is going to be some thoughts on that.
I feel like I should have written about February.
It was a wonderful month, but it kind of walloped me. I went to London to read a poem at Inkwell and to visit friends in the city. Yet I had this nagging sense, while I was enjoying myself, to be documenting it so that I could leverage it later into something. To use it as fodder for my writing. To take pictures of it all to put on my Instagram stories—or even just to have for myself, to remember it all.
My life sometimes seems so picturesque. It’s not a brag, I’m just happy. I live in Scotland,1 I think. I should have a Scotland blog. Or write a book about it. Or become an influencer. Or start a YouTube. Or write about it on my Substack. Or—
But I was tired. I travelled. I got sick. It was winter. So the post I could have written about my experience in that moment of literary community disappeared into the ether, gone forever: those moments no longer fresh for the recall, their sharpness and clarity and insight already eroding.
In May, I went to Dublin and County Wicklow, Ireland. I went horseback riding, visited a monastery, saw my favourite band in concert, and spent every night of my trip at pubs with friends. It was wonderful. But the same thing happened: I did something out of the ordinary and didn’t put it on the internet.
This happens all the time. It would be nice to write about my life in Scotland, but with a full-time job, a paid freelance writing gig on the side, plus the novel I’m working on—my most important and fulfilling writing project, the thing I want most to prioritise—it just doesn’t happen.
I feel guilty about this. It’s the same guilt I feel when my film camera spends months gathering dust on the shelf, despite my love for the medium. The same guilt I feel when I open my journal and see that my last entry was a month ago. Why do I feel like my experiences don’t matter unless I’m cataloguing them somewhere, or at very least not gleaning them, after the experience itself, for every iota of meaning and beauty?
It feels difficult—actually countercultural—to merely live in the digital age: to actively opt out from documenting my life in a place where others can see it. But those forms of documentation—Instagram posts, Substack pieces, what have you—appeal to me in part because they offer some external accountability for me to keep creating. They’re a designated place where I can exercise my creativity in a tangible way, as if to tell myself, see? I’m committed to the work.
In addition, they’re external proof that those things happened: a place I can go back to to remember my life now, just as it is. I’m envious of YouTubers who have been posting videos for years because they have all this footage of their past selves, or bloggers who have all their writing saved to this one place where they can look and wonder at how far they’ve come. Without taking the intentional time to process some experiences via making them into something, I do feel a little like my life is slipping through my fingers.
And yet that sounds completely ridiculous. To merely experience my life in the moment is not to let life slip through my fingers—it’s what it is to live at all. Who taught me that I need all the rest? To just live, without rushing or panicking to document that living, is richness enough. There is pretty much no doubt that we all need more of that: to live without posting about it. To keep some things to oneself.
Documentation without exploitation. Reflection without premature vulnerability. Artmaking without commodification. Posting consistently enough to get my work “out there”. Writing enough to make progress on the projects I most value. I want to balance all of these things. How are you doing it? Please let me know in the comments below because I would love to chat about this.
recent faves
✍️: Since I last posted, I had a short story (my first short story publication!!!!!!!!) published in Twin Bird Review. “A Practical Guide to Containing Your Multitudes” is about what it looks like in the present to care for previous versions of yourself. You can read it in their winter 2024 edition here.
📖: Last year I read tons of classics, but this year I’ve been reading nothing but fantasy / sci-fi. I loved Kaliane Bradley’s brilliant debut The Ministry of Time and have been enjoying Brandon Sanderson’s lecture series on how to write sci-fi / fantasy stories.
🎵: Ever since I saw them live last month, I have had Clancy by Twenty One Pilots on rotation. I’ve been listening to them since I was sixteen and I sorta feel like they raised me.
📺: Last month I watched the entirety of Severance and have been enjoying The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on an emulator—my first time playing it! I am bad at video games but I love video games.
🧶: I’m knitting a Stella Quilt Cushion by Laura Penrose as a birthday gift for my mom. Such a great way to use up stashed or leftover yarn.
This fact pending review since my UK Visa expires in December…!
ah yes the problem of anyone who starts writing / photographing / recording their life. I don't know the best way to avoid this to be honest. This is part of why I stopped my photography page on instagram.
I guess one way is to have a clear idea of the goal of your writing and then know if anything you've experienced recently can be referenced? Not as ore to be extracted but a well to draw living water from.
this is the risk of turning ourselves into brands, which our modern world seems to demand.
Very interesting topic and I'm glad to have found it! I’m completely green on Substack and have just barely figured out how to discover others, much less be discoverable. In high school I ran a Wordpress blog that was exclusively read by my friends, and we had a blast with it, tagging each other, narrating our shared experiences from different perspectives, exploring deep topics that would later be discussed at sleepovers. Looking back on those posts as an adult, I feel so grateful that I documented it for myself. And I got back into blogging to create another archive, this time to try and capture that precious energy felt during and after finishing stories. Unless you're aiming to build a paid brand, I think it can be pleasant to let direct interactions be somewhat incidental. Less of a gathered audience for a scheduled performance, and more of a mural on a virtual sidewalk for people to stop and admire should they choose. I also think blogging can be unique in that I'm more likely to record my experiences when it would be most enjoyable for me to do so (not at all a rule I follow or endorse for completing written works of fiction, where discipline is vital!)