ABL #8: One Year Later
Substack birthday sale + introducing a new format
Happy Birthday, ABL!
One year ago this month I sent out my first Substack newsletter to a whopping four subscribers. Today, 130+ of you have volunteered a space for me in your inbox, and a handful of you have even paid me to be there! If you have read or shared any of these posts, or subscribed at any level, or referred subscribers my way — Thank you, from the very bottom of my tender, purple heart. 💜
I’m fighting the urge from my inner marketing strategist to run the numbers, to analyze and pick apart the entire past year here. It’s still too easy to play the comparison game and rig it against myself so that I always come up short.
Here’s the truth though (brain, are you listening?):
Although I’m not where I wanted to be yet, I’m still farther than I actually expected to be. I hit publish on 12 editions this first year, which is about a dozen more than the year prior. And in the most obvious not-twist that still somehow surprised me, removing the pressure to publish as frequently (monthly free posts instead of bi-weekly) has given me the mental space to dig into ideas more deeply, the way I want to.
For the first time in years, or maybe ever, I have a regular writing practice. That practice has a support system: a cocktail of Notion idea banks, iPhone alarms, forwarded workshops, Focusmate sessions, and gold star stickers in my planner.
I haven’t had this much fun with writing since high school. For perhaps the first time in my adult life, I’m playing with writing instead of only working with it. In the past year I’ve published my first book review, my first movie review, my first author interview, and my first old-fashioned summer essay. Words and ideas and formats and genres have never felt more like clay: malleable, yes, but also messy, and much soggier than anticipated.
I’m working on releasing perfectionism, still. (Am I ever going to get that right?) Despite my best efforts, posts go live on whatever day of the week they’re ready. My inner marketing strategist can’t stand that either, but to my surprise, I feel an evil little joy in watching him1 writhe and cringe and gnash his teeth over all the “content best practices” I’m throwing to the wind. I don’t optimize my subject lines and I don’t dwell on open rates and I don’t care that this directly contradicts everything I used to teach my clients.
There’s a relief that comes from deciding something is acceptable — that it’s just OK instead of glowingly, exceptionally perfect. There’s freedom in allowing yourself to care less. Creativity comes from breaking things, even when “things” are just silly inconsequential formatting norms (not even real rules!).
New features incoming
I’m still finding the balance between the “burnout” and the “anti” parts of this newsletter. I worry that I’m hammering too hard on keywords (the marketer in my brain dies hard) and sharing too little about the rest of my life. There are countless small moments, half-baked ideas, and harebrained schemes that never get the ink they deserve because I’m too far down a rabbit hole on whatever ~BIG PIECE~ I’m working on for them to ever make it out.
I’ve also begun to notice how, in the mornings, I reflexively open Substack instead of Instagram. How over time, so many of my favorite newsletters begin to feel like catching up with a friend.
So I’m trying some update-style posts of my own, starting with this one. And later this year I’m launching discussion threads for paid subscribers. I want to foster more of the connection and community that I’ve found here this year, and ward against the isolation that burnout thrives in.
GIANT birthday subscription sale
To that end, and to celebrate my first year on Substack, for a limited time I’m offering 80% off paid subscriptions.
I don’t plan to offer a discount this steep again. So if you’ve enjoyed the previews of Reading Notes so far, or if you’ve been considering upgrading to paid for a while — or if you just need to be around other folks who get burnout and what you’re going through — now is the time.
A paid subscription gives you full access to Reading Notes, comments, and the new discussion threads coming this summer. You’ll also get occasional essays exclusively for paid subscribers, and you’ll be first on the list for even more paid features as they come (I see workshops and books clubs in the not-so-distant future).
If you’re un- or under-employed and can’t swing the subscription price, just reply to this email and I’ll upgrade your subscription, no questions asked.
Works in progress:
I’ve been quiet on Substack this winter, but I’ve been busy behind the scenes! Here are the projects taking up my front burners:
More author interviews! I recently finished my advance copy of
’s The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, and hope to chat with her for its April 9 release (preorder now).Gardening pitches! Need a writer to cover container gardening, planting for year-round color, or another horticultural topic? Please, email or DM me.
A long-form braided essay about soup, stress, and community care that I’ve been “finishing” for three years now (it’s become its own form of perpetual stew at this point).
A service-journalism explainer on the double-edged sword of positive affirmations (they can backfire, exacerbating the negative feelings they’re meant to resolve!).
What I’m Reading:
Sleepless: Unleashing the Subversive Power of the Night Self, by Annabel Abbs-Streets. This is a fascinating look into how darkness affects our (and especially women’s) brains. The book has a fever-dream quality but references a delicious number of studies to explain the neuroscience behind it, and I’m having way more fun with it than I expected. Here’s a snippet:
“At night I could not think in my usual ordered, logical way. Nor was l as cheerfully optimistic. I often felt wistful, pensive. I needed to turn ideas, conversations, memories, over and over. Time itself seemed to dilate. Thoughts, feelings, perceptions moved in slow motion. I was more inclined to question, to doubt, to mull. My hold on the world felt less assured. All this seemed to be a good thing — reflective, less frenzied, less striving — as long as I could maintain a modicum of control. And yet control came less easily. I was more likely to bubble into rage, which came and went like lightning. I could slip — at the drop of a hat — into regretful, swallowing sorrow. There was a volatility to my Night Self that sometimes unsettled me.
”But there was also a way of thinking that I liked: looser, unstructured, gauzy. Thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories seemed borderless, edgeless — like water. And my night brain made no attempt to define, order, shape, or judge.”
Lots more ARCs of new nonfiction! Next is Dr. Meg Arroll’s Tiny Traumas: When You Don't Know What's Wrong, But Nothing Feels Quite Right (published in January). And I have two different burnout-themed books waiting on my NetGalley shelf: The Cure for Burnout: How to Find Balance and Reclaim Your Life, by Emily Ballesteros (published last month); and Burnout Immunity: How Emotional Intelligence Can Help You Build Resilience and Heal Your Relationship with Work, by Kandi Wiens, Ed.D. (coming April 23).
The Burnout, by Sophie Kinsella (of Confessions of a Shopaholic fame). I’m technically no longer reading this, but I am delinquent in returning it to my library. I was impressed with how this novel handled burnout and stress recovery, and am still sitting with both the library copy and the temptation to write a whole separate piece about it like I did with Emily Henry’s Beach Read.
That’s all for now! Thanks for a gentle first year here.
Talk soon,
💜 Chloe
The marketer in my head is a lean-teamed, fast-scaling, thought-leading Hustle Bro who sounds suspiciously like Gary Vee.