I don’t really write anymore. Or rather, I don’t write the way I used to, about myself, the self-as-subject, the self-as-lens. I kept a diary, and then a blog — hacking my way through blogspot’s html, all sensitive girls were coders in 2005 and I dare you to claim otherwise — and then it was the heyday of the personal essay, and I commodified myself for $50 a pop, and I loved it. I loved carefully sculpting my feelings playdough into little stories and then having some editor or website assign them meaning. I loved giving my life a capital-N Narrative, very Main Character Syndrome, slowly piecing together an existence that felt more full, more important, by virtue of it being accompanied by a twee illustration or photo collage. And I loved that I could do that through words. I am not, could never be, an Influencer, cannot get it up to turn myself into any kind of brand. No filter can make you look as good as a well-crafted sentence can.
Much has been said about the decline of the personal essay (and of its possible rebirth), but the truth is that writing for the internet has never been profitable, not really, and nearly all the outlets I worked with have shuttered. I recently discovered the entirety of Man Repeller appears to have vanished into the ether, Leandra having chosen to funnel the money she was spending on the domain back into tiny crocheted skirts, I guess (this isn’t shade, all eras must end, and I personally don’t think MR deserved all the backlash but THAT’S FOR ANOTHER NEWSLETTER), and while at first I bemoaned those words, tens of thousands of them, gone for good (what, like you save your DRAFTS?!), I then felt a sharp thrill of freedom and went and deleted my Twitter, too.
So now you’ll never know what I was thinking in 2016.
I still call myself a “writer,” but the truth is I haven’t published anything since…oh look, 2021. I’ve done other things. I had kids, weathered the pandemic, bought a house. I did a lot of “content creation,” which is a nice term for “writing things that sound good so that other people will buy stuff.” Some of that work I am genuinely proud of. Some of it is just the thing you do to get by. I wrote a novel and got an agent and signed a two book deal (and that’s for another newsletter, too). I thrifted a lot of really good little pots.
In the meantime, Substack happened. And yes, it has its problems — hooboy, does it have its problems — but every morning I scroll through my little newsletters, all these people sharing their feelings (and more, obviously — ideas, calls to action, analyses, how to style a rugby shirt in 2024), and it’s the closest we’ve come, I think, to the absolute glory that was Google Reader (RIP). And — and! — it is providing a source of income to writers I’ve followed from platform to platform, in a model that is both flawed (media corporations still haven’t figured out how to pay writers well or monetize without chum, and I’m not sure what if anything they’ll learn now) and freeing (users get to support the writers they love, writers are not beholden to the whims and vagaries of publishers).
All of this is to say that if all the cool kids are blogging again, then I want in! I want a place to share my feelings about whether or not to have a third kid, about Baby Reindeer, about tradwives and hormones and the death of ambition. About midlife crises and the new Miranda July novel and the cozy divorce era and Botox. A place to talk about how it feels to publish your first novel after 40. The impossibility of finding flattering pants.
Welcome to Cry It Out, a space where we let our feelings run wild, knowing that someone on the other side of the wall loves us no matter how loudly we scream. Subscribe (or unsubscribe, if you’re confused about who I am and how you got here), comment, tell a friend. I’ll see you back here next week.
(I’ve taken to announcing I’m going to start a newsletter roughly every week or so, but right now the sun is shining and my wisteria is budding and the fledgling grackles have left their nest and I found a great navy linen shirt at the thrift store today so why not say yes.)
Self Soothing
This roundup of the essays that defined a micro-generation. “Cat hair vagina” sparked a nostalgia so deep, a gut-wrenching longing for the days of gchat and office jobs and coworkers whose gasps you could hear from your cubicle and know exactly what line they’d just read. (Caitlin’s Substack is a must-subscribe.)
Alix E. Harrow’s Starling House, the gothic mystery-romance (romystery?) you didn’t know you needed.
A silly beaded necklace via our corporate overloads that makes me feel like a teen again, not that I need any encouragement (clearly).
So excited to read this!!!!!!!!
So thrilled to see this show up in my inbox!!! Perfect newsletter name, too.