Slowing Down
Hi there, and welcome back to Solitary Daughter. In case you missed it, my last essay was about the line between fan and critic.
A quick note to subscribers!
For the next few months, I’ll be pausing paid subscriptions and taking a summer writing break. Those of you who have paid for annual plans will have your subscription extended for the length of this break when payments resume in a few months. You will get a heads up before your payments resume, but please get in touch if you have any questions or concerns.
I won’t be completely offline, just working at a slower pace. The weekly link round-up will be paused, but I will still be sharing essays with you all every few weeks. Thank you, as always, for the support. I love this space and getting to make it my own, and the fact that there are so many of you here continues to blow my mind.
Why the break?
I’m looking at it like a brief sabbatical for creative replenishing. I want to have more time to spend researching every essay that I share here. But I also want to paint, finish all the books I haven’t had time to read, write a few short stories, stretch my hips once in awhile, and sit outside in my garden enjoying the glorious (and fleeting) prairie summer.
This platform constantly reiterates its messaging about growth and the need for consistency to achieve it. And I understand why. My hard-wired consistency for the first year and half of this newsletter certainly paid off in terms of ‘growth,’ but these days I’m finding myself more interested in sustenance. I had to ask myself if I was pushing myself just to prove that I could, and if so, whether I’d lost sight of the reasons I’d started the newsletter in the first place. Now, I’m considering the possibility of re-assessing the structure of this space like a restaurant might re-assess its hours (that is, seasonally).
So, you’ll still see me in your inboxes this summer, just not every week, and maybe not always on Sundays, either. There will be a few guest essays, interviews, maybe even a few ~collabs~ with fellow writers. Otherwise, I hope you’ll also be taking it easy over the next few months too.
What’s on your summer bucket list? Let me know!
Yessss take a break, be replenished! I hope you have the best time.
An inspiration! Have a great break.