Part 1: A writing season comes to an end

Last year, when I published a series about Writing Seasons, there was one season in particular that created a pit in my stomach.

The Season of Tending.

By the time I first put shape to Writing Seasons in 2023, I was in the throes of my own Season of Tending in a new-to-me way—this time as a diagnosed autistic woman who was diligently trying not to drag herself toward burnout. The entire Writing Seasons framework, in fact, was created because I needed a way to distinguish between my inner experiences and the environmental factors that seem to weigh me down more than others. When things change around me, sometimes it feels the same as something changing inside me.

But with Substack as my main home for writing, I was handling things differently than ever before. In a Season of Tending, we’re focused on a lot of outer work like marketing, branding, networking or learning a new platform. In between the delight of answering questions in discussion threads or comment sections of my personal writing, I was pausing often to touch base with all the signals of my body. Almost daily, I was asking questions like, “Was this too much? Do we need a break? Does this hurt?” 

Much to my surprise, the answer I got was, “Keep going.”

In this Season of Tending, I felt something coming back to me—in an online social setting, no less. As readers found me and their comments came in steadily every week, I received a fuel I’ve never known before. “Intoxicating” might be the best word to describe this connection with readers, but I think there’s also something regenerative for me, in particular. Especially as a person who has rarely felt heard or capable of capturing attention doing something she loved. Especially as the little girl who played contentedly by herself. Especially as the quiet teen who wrote pages and pages in notebooks and then shredded the paper so no one could find them. Especially as the cautious 20-something who tended to choose invisible roles like backup singer or proofreader or spreadsheet keeper. 

The sense of being heard whenever I publish a new post has been knitting me back together in the last year.

A Season of Tending planted more seeds than I imagined was possible

And it’s created a whole new reality for me that I never would have imagined. Lately I’ve noticed my days are filled with more tasks and a spark of ambition I haven’t felt since 2019. There’s no doubt that Cave of the Heart, my beloved interview series, was brought to life precisely because of the connection I felt with so many people on Substack. I also began to re-envision how I could work with writers one-on-one again. Soon I was feeling the groundswell of ideas and creative inspiration. While all this creative energy was bursting through the surface, I was also being pushed by the sense that something was escaping my grasp. 

I am the primary caretaker for my two-year-old daughter, Evagene, and the home I share with my partner, Lee, and our two dogs. In July we untethered from our quiet Colorado mountain life and moved back to suburban Dallas. Ever so slowly, I have been feeling the “boost” from my Season of Tending commingling with a growing weight of expectations pushing down on me. 

My daily Substack check-ins began to sometimes feel like my hands gripping a steering wheel too tightly. In October I started waking up at 4 and 5 a.m. with an urgent need to get to work—right away, this instant!—so that I wouldn’t lose track of my next tasks. I noticed a heaviness in my chest when I thought about opening my Substack dashboard or work email. And my writing rhythms began swirling a bit more sideways than usual. To my therapist a few weeks ago I described a picture in my mind: there are a dozen freight trains barrelling down disparate tracks toward me, and I have no way to know when, where or how they will collide.

I’ve also been hearing the language in my mind shift into darker, absolutist, even fatalistic, places. I was writing to my friend

Antonia Malchik

about this confusion. I posited that I have been answering too much to the weight of capitalism—where creation is often, inevitably, clobbered by toxic competition and comparison. And if there’s anything I loathe, it is these qualities. I especially loathe them when they push into my writer’s DNA or my spiritual compass. I told her, “I don’t know what this is. But I do know my magnum opus will not be created from the ashes of burnout.”¹

Because of this inner upheaval the last few months, I have been feeling uncertain about what comes next for my newsletter. I’ve been fearful that the wonderful friendships and feeling of connection and warmth in The Editing Spectrum could disappear—that this inner disarray was conclusive proof that I will never sustain my mental health and my connection to a writing Voice. I feared this was the end of everything.

Of course, right as I felt I was reaching a breaking point and pushing on every resource I have at my disposal, a door opened.

This feels like grief, I thought. 

Something is ending so something else can begin. 

I sat down slowly and let this sink in and eventually turned to my Writing Seasons essay to see if there’s anything about a Season of Tending that would help me understand what was happening. And the parting words in this essay jumped into my lap:

“...the moments of doubt, the unproductivity, the wandering, it’s all working together inside you to bring something new to the surface. We unnecessarily suffer as writers when we try to force or wish ourselves into a different season. I am here to tell you: whichever season you’re in is the season you’re supposed to be in. One day you may just find yourself ready for a Season of Tending or a Season of Craft, where you roll up your sleeves and feel the energy of your writing growing all around you. Or maybe you’ll find yourself in a Season of Musing, where the writing is finally coming to the surface, but messily and without a sense of self. The ebbs and flows are part of this packaged deal.”

I could burst into tears just reading those words. It doesn’t feel like I wrote them. It feels like someone wiser, more deeply compassionate and resilient wrote them for me right now, for today. With this renewed awareness in my heart and mind, I have begun to see that my Season of Tending has done its good work and laid a foundation for what’s next. And I feel pulled to a Season of Craft like never before. 

Of course, with a readership of more than 2,000 people, I also feel deeply conflicted about how to honor the needs inside myself to focus on my craft. I have been engaging with my deepest Listening skills and asking for guidance. I earnestly need both the wisdom of my heart and the wisdom of my mind to collaborate and show me what comes next.

In case you missed it, yesterday I sent paid readers a brief reflection on growth during my Season of Tending. Paid readers can access this post here, and I'll see all readers tomorrow with Part 2.

1. I do think some sinister influence from capitalism was also in the mix here. I’m beginning to suspect that when we writers stay too long in the Season of Tending, the elements of competition begin to crowd out other creative Voices. In essence, the regenerative elements of a Season of Tending can make such a season turn in on itself if we aren’t given permission to turn inward and away from the pressures of traditional growth activities.