After Six Months on Substack

Writing About Writing

Now that I’ve been posting to Substack for six months, I wanted to take a little time to reflect on my experience here and share what my intention is for the future.

Sometimes I forget why I initially started this Substack. The hope when I started writing for this platform was to reach my “one” with my stories. The idea came from Erin Phillips, an author I discovered through Instagram, and encourages writers to keep a specific person in mind as they create. For me, my “one” is someone who is suffering from OCD or another form of mental illness and feels stuck in a brain that acts like their enemy. I wanted my words to show them that they’re not alone, to give them hope for a better future, and to encourage them with the wisdom I’ve gained.

But I ran into a problem. Pretty soon after starting this Substack, I sunk into the worst OCD / depression flareup I’ve ever had.

And it lasted four months.

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

May through August felt like I was wandering through a wilderness. I was questioning everything about my faith and life choices, and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t escape the what if thoughts that looped in my head again and again. I’d experienced depression in short pockets of time before this year, but during the summer months, I felt like I was being drowned by it. The days became one long smear of uncertainty and dread, and I felt little hope that God was ever going to lead me out of it.

(Spoiler alert: He did!)

I decreased my frequency of posts on Substack during that time, but I didn’t stop writing completely. I wanted to honor the commitment I had made to this platform. The content I chose to write about, however, looked different from what I initially expected. I had intended to focus more on my victories over OCD and what had helped me find freedom from it, but those plans went out the window as I was dragged deeper and deeper into its lies.

Instead of writing about how I’d defeated my mental illness, I found myself writing more honestly about how it affected me (like in Take Care of Her Light For Me, or my Five Things essay). As I wrote from inside the storm rather than the outside, I felt more empathy for my “one” than I did before.

I found other things to write about, too. I wrote about seeing the Gospel in movies like The Wild Robot and Moana 2. I wrote stories and poetry(?) about my Man of Light, Jesus Christ. And I wrote essays based on ideas or experiences that seemed to pop up out of nowhere, then pour out of my fingers in an hour long writing session.

There was a part of me that felt like an imposter. I was writing about the promises of God’s love and the beauty of His world, but behind the words, I was struggling to believe the truth for myself.

Who was I to keep writing about the light when I was in such a dark season?

Or…maybe that’s exactly what I was meant to do.

Maybe God was teaching me to keep pursuing the light, even when it felt out of reach.

And maybe that’s how He helped me find it again.

(I’d be lying if I said everything was “fixed” now, but I’m extremely grateful for where I am these days compared to the summer months.)

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

Not everything that I wrote in the past six months has been perfectly sculpted for the “one” I set out to find, but I think that’s okay. My posts haven’t gotten tons of engagement like I hoped they would when I started on this platform, and my subscriber count has only ticked up a few numbers from where it started in April.

But as I think back to the beginning of my days on Substack, I’m reminded of another “one” that I wanted to write for. And that’s the true One, the only One whose opinion of my work really matters.

If I’m writing for Him, then I can trust that He’ll use my words in exactly the ways He wants to. It might mean my account never goes viral or makes a big splash, but I can rely on Him to bring my stories to the people that need them. Maybe my writing will offer some much needed encouragement to someone I already know, or maybe it will bring empathy to someone I’ve never met before. Either way, I have to surrender the outcome to him.

I certainly haven’t been writing to Him with that kind of sacrificial mindset all the time, but I can remember when I started learning to.

Let’s rewind a couple of years. When I was 23, I began a writing project that took me about eighteen months to finish.

(Confession—it was my first ever fan fiction.)

((Yes—I am a nerd.))

I had no idea that the story was going to get so big and become so important to me, but it did, so I poured my full heart into it. And in the process, God taught me how to write for Him. I saw Him sanctify my methods of writing, what I was writing about, and who I was writing for. Though the journey was littered with dozens of OCD spirals, it still ended up being one of my favorite stories I’ve ever written.

Over a year has passed since I completed that project, and already I’ve started forgetting some of the lessons it taught me. But I want to remember. I want to practice writing for the Lord and trusting that if I work unto Him, He’ll use my offering in whatever way He sees fit.

So as I continue on this Substack journey, it’s my intention to remember who I’m writing for. My one, and my One.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Before I end this, I just wanted to say that another beautiful thing about Substack is the people it’s allowed me to connect with. Some are people who I’m not personally connected to, but whose writing I have enjoyed and gained wisdom from (I’m looking at you, Christina Lynn Wallace & Griffin Gooch). Others are new friends that I’ve gotten to connect with (hi, Kathy Young & Holy Committed!). And one is a person I get to know and love in real life (love you, Kati Lynn Tena).

Substack has challenged me in a number of ways, but it’s also held a lot of beauty. I don’t know what the future of my path as a writer will look like, but I don’t plan to stop writing any time soon. If anything, I’d love to start developing a more regular habit of it. Whether that looks like committing to more essays or working on some kind of longer project, I’m looking forward to seeing how God will work through my words to bring more light into the world.

If you’ve been along for the journey so far, I wanted to say thank you for engaging with my work. Even if that means just reading an essay here or there, your support means a lot :)