Dear readers,
I’ve been writing this newsletter since November of 2020, when I used it to serialize my novel. When the novel was done, I continued writing essays and short fiction on here two or three or sometimes four times a week.
The time has come to stop doing that.
I’ve enjoyed writing here. I love writing; it’s something I do every day whether I publish it or not. It gives me great pleasure to put ideas into words and then put those words out there for people to read. But there are several reasons for me to stop doing this now.
I was going to simply leave substack for another newsletter hosting site, as substack has some questionable practices as of late (which you can google and find out about, I don’t want to get into all of that here). I even started the switch to Ghost, but Ghost costs money and I didn’t want to have to charge for this newsletter. I like putting it out for free. Then the more I thought about it, the more I realized that maybe writing Going It Alone wasn’t the healthiest thing for me anymore. There’s the sometimes agonizing process of coming up with something to write about a few days a week. And there’s the fact that I was putting my personal trauma out here as subject matter day after day and while it sort of purged me of those feelings - which is a good thing - it was also in a way causing me to dwell on them in the aftermath of writing about those feelings. Maybe I just don’t want to live that publicly anymore. It seems weird to me that I went from writing about being happy in my life one month to writing about being in the midst of heartbreak and despair the next. While I am trying to move on and become a whole person again, I just don’t want to catalog my depression anymore.
Am I glad I did this? Yes. I did some of my best writing here. I enjoyed it all, for the most part. I wrote about some fun things in addition to the emotional writing I did. I gained some new readers in the process, and it was nice to put myself and my words out there and have them be well received.
I appreciate everyone who signed up for this newsletter, and those who read it on the web off of my twitter links. Having an audience of a few hundred people for my writing felt really good, and the feedback I did get warmed my heart. I’m glad I was able to reach some of you, to make you feel something, to put words to your own feelings. The messages I received in regards to this were so nice.
I thank you for reading through my novel, and for buying the PDF if you did that. I thank you for sitting through my diatribes and musings, for reading through my heartbreak, for laughing at my exploits, for just being part of this experiment for five months. It’s been great.
I still want to write - I’m not giving up on that all together. Maybe once in a while I’ll throw some things up on Medium. Maybe I’ll make a collection of my essays into a digital book. Maybe I’ll do the same with my short stories. Maybe I’ll start another novel or finally do something with my 100 word stories collection. And maybe I’ll just lay low for a while. That’s a lot of maybes. But I’ve never been one to know exactly where I’m headed at any given moment. I’ll go where the tide takes me. I’ll use the space to keep you posted if I do anything I think you may want to read so don’t unsubscribe. I’ll be in touch. I just need to put this in my rear view mirror for now.
I wish you all well. I hope you have a lovely summer where you can get outdoors and do things again. And thank you again, from the bottom of my heart, for reading and taking part in this. Be good, be safe, be well, be excellent to each other.
Michele
I think it's a very brave thing that you've done, putting your trauma out in public like this, I don't think that I could have done that. You need to do what is best for you. We all process grief and trauma in different ways, and this was your way and now you're moving on to the next stage of grief for your old life as you process your new life. Much respect for what you are doing and I love the way you write and the stories you tell, and look forward to seeing that in whatever form it takes, even if it's a twitter thread. All the best and hope you can enjoy the spring and summer and maybe some live music later in the year or whenever that can happen.
I've been following you on your various platforms since 'asmallvictory' days, and I always look forward to your writings - even when I know it was hard for you to do, or was the byproduct of pain in your life. I know that may sound sadistic, but hear me out: Life is not all just sunshine and roses - and being able to share the 'less than perfect' times is a gift to yourself (for the reasons you already noted), and for _us_ - because it gives us insight into you and your heart, and allows us to share the pain with you, even if just a little. I'll be watching, and hoping to continue to hear from you, here, there - or wherever. Lately, I watch for your work mostly via this newsletter and Twitter, and hope that you'll clue us in so those of us that want to - can still follow you, wherever you go. BTW - I'm all in on Being Excellent To Each Other. It's something that as a species - we too seldom do.