Goodbye, For Now 🏡 (#39)
Beloved readers,
This will be my last Long Way Home🏡 issue for the foreseeable future.
After much deliberation, I've decided to put the newsletter on hiatus after this issue. It's been a hard decision to make.
Writing this newsletter for the past 10-ish months has allowed me to put into practice all the second-hand insight I had passively absorbed over the years about how to write good material consistently and build a creative venture from scratch. Every week was filled with new lessons I hope to take with me everywhere I go.
I'm so grateful for all the friends, family, and especially the friends who feel like family, for all the words of encouragement since the very beginning of Long Way Home🏡. Any creative project that requires us to stumble out in the open, in plain sight, long before we feel ready, is terrifying at first. We expect that feeling to go away after a while, and although the feeling does change, it certainly never goes away.
I would have turned away from the newsletter much earlier had I not had such a reliable support system. To everyone who has taken the time to reply to a newsletter issue, send me a text, or bring it up in person, your thoughtful feedback and support has been so motivating.
I'm making this decision because some professional and personal obligations have come up that require my full attention in the short-term, and I anticipate that to stay the same for at least a few months. These past 4-5 weeks, I've worked my hardest to juggle both, but I've realized that I can't manage everything while still consistently being proud of my output, week after week.
What makes this decision especially challenging is that I told myself that I wouldn't let other obligations get in the way of this promise that I made to myself—to follow through to at least 52 issues before even thinking about stopping/pausing. More than anything, it feels like I'm letting myself down. A small part of me thinks that if I just manage my time better, if I just work a little harder, if I am just a bit more efficient, I'll be able to make it all work.
A larger part of me, however, knows that pausing LWH🏡 until I'm able to get a better handle on things is going to guarantee the sustained quality of the newsletter. I never want to publish something I'm not proud of. As I've learned, when I have too many priorities, nothing ends up being a priority, and everything suffers.
Publishing original essays that didn't (to me) feel derivative and trendy was extremely important to the spirit of what I was trying to build with LWH🏡, and writing short, unoriginal essays to get by would have bothered me more than pausing altogether.
All that to say, there will be no new essay about creativity or emotional intelligence this week, or next week, and there probably won't be one for the next couple of months.
I have every intention of picking Long Way Home🏡 back up. I need to. In the short time I've stuck with it, I've developed some creative confidence and a database of my best ideas. I've grown a deeper appreciation for the newsletter-writing community that commits to publishing new content each week, and I have a much more realistic idea of what it takes to grow an audience. It's a foundation I need to build on.
Here are three of my major insights so far:
Distribution/self-promotion deserves more than half the effort. If writing take 4 hours, at least 4 hours should be spent posting your work in different online channels and forums to get it in front of people. As I wrote in multiple issues, this can feel gross and inauthentic, but it doesn't have to be. It's a necessary part of the process, and everybody I admire did it early on in their journey.
The best work happens once we're already in motion. I'm never going to have a eureka moment musing on my own. Once I commit to starting and the fingers start typing is when 80% of the best ideas come.
Finding a community online to learn from, to contribute to, and to struggle with, is make-or-break, no matter what you're trying to do. We're in such an exciting time for building things on the internet, and we will always be able to find people to support and grow with, however niche our interests.
If you're reading this and you have a secret (or not-so-secret) desire to create on the internet, or you've tried in small ways and want to commit to something more substantial, please reach out. I'm always happy to chat and I have so much more to say about my journey that won't fit in a newsletter issue.
Again, thank you so much for reading this little experiment of mine. Whether you are my newest subscriber or you were one of the first, it means the world.
I’ll be back before you know it.
Out for an adventure,
Vandan🏡
@vandan_jhaveri