When I started my daily column, it was a course-correction and I didn't fully understand the downstream implications.
That became abundantly clear for me today thanks to an email that landed in my inbox. I was sitting in my office feeling conflicted about the falling snow outside. Fat flakes wafted past a backdrop of pine needles and that's the kind of scene that makes my nervous system kick off its shoes and get comfortable. But I'm also desperately ready for sunshine-and-short-sleeves season.
So when I opened the Sub Club email about new openings for writing submissions, I found myself in the perfect place to re-read a couple of my old essays and judge their fit for the pitch-call.
I'm not someone who revisits old work. I don't look at old pictures, I don't read old journals, I don't pour over childhood mementos. But this seemed a fitting reason to go looking—especially since I've been keen to pitch more of my writing to publishers.
As I read, I felt more and more torn between thinking it was good and wondering why my more recent stuff felt like it'd slipped pretty substantially...
what happened??
Surprisingly, it didn't take all that much sleuthing to figure it out. Looking back, it seems kind of like I used to write like a journalist, but... you know, while publishing personal essays. At least, that's the vibe I got while re-reading today at my desk.
Some of them seemed to really connect with folks. By summer 2025, though, I noticed a growing translation gap in my writing where the distance between myself and my readers started feeling insurmountable. So I started writing a daily column to get more storytelling reps by practicing with a shorter format. I've been writing it for 201 days now, and I feel as though I've been successful in closing the gap that originally inspired the whole thing.
Throughout that time, I've also been writing weekly Substack essays and promoting the column at the end, but those have never felt quite right if I'm honest. It's like my problem inverted itself—now it feels like the daily column both carries my voice and resonates with readers, but the essays don't. And I finally get why: the essays I'm writing are story-driven with no closure, because they're following the format of a column.
Whoops...
maybe I boomeranged.
This just in: Old dog learns new trick, forgets all others.
I think I started to drift toward the personal blogger avatar. Not fully—just in the use of "casual voice, casual style" persona. Which is because I thought maybe my work had initially been misaligned with its intended readership, and that by embracing a looser, more raw and more story-centric writing style, it could be discovered by those who'd enjoy it. Somehow, it never quite managed to find the new "casual voice, casual style" personal-story corner of the internet I'd been looking for.
Looking up from my computer and out the window at the snowy scenery, a potential answer feels clear to me now... keep writing my daily column, but stop stitching together weekly vignettes for Substack.
Instead, I think properly reintroducing long-form essays to my publishing practice, but without weekly pressure, could be a good bridge. That might put me back in "my lane." Better yet, it feels like it honors my "zone of excellence." And, I've realized, I'm likely to get there by blending my approaches—combining the journalistic essayist and the personal-story-driven daily columnist. That seems like it best allows me to surface insights and frame them in a way people can really sit with.
Which, feels extra exciting because that's always been my goal.
So... maybe it was a spiral-staircase, not a boomerang?
When's the last time you outgrew something? How could you tell?
onward.
For more on this daily column and The MAP Year Project, read the backstory here. And if you know someone who'd appreciate this, pass it along.