Off Substack to Stay on Substack

withdrawal tactics while functioning as two selves

Dear Temporary Disappearers,

The more time I spend reading other newsletters, the less I want to produce a sentence of my own.

It’s something atmospheric.

Like walking into a cocktail party where everyone is already mid-conversation. The air has been spoken into. Glasses clink. Someone is finishing a story. Someone else is adding a clever aside. You’re holding a thought in your hand but the room already has momentum, and your thought dissolves politely before it can become a sentence.

Substack can feel like that sometimes.

Notes scrolling past. Writers talking to each other in public forums. Essays responding to essays. The sense that the conversation is always happening, and that the correct posture is to remain conversationally available.

It’s lively. It’s communal. It’s the antithesis to getting any interesting work done.

Writing, I think, prefers a temporary disappearance.

Maybe not dramatic–though dramatic moves are *chef’s kiss for writing–but at least a short absence from the room is required so a thought can finish forming without immediately feeling like it needs to be shared.

My current solution is to pretend the cocktail party of Substack is actually a library.

I arrive quietly. I place something on or pull something off the shelf. Then I leave again.

I try not to wander the aisles too long while I’m still writing. I try not to peek at what everyone else is shelving in real time. This preserves a small bubble of oxygen for whatever sentence is still trying to form.

The Notes function. I can dip into Notes once the writing is done. Otherwise, the writing evaporates into social commentary.

And the last trick is to read dead people when I’m drafting. Dead writers are considerate companions. They are not keeping up with anything. They are not using their writing talent to join discourse. Instead, they are simply sitting in their books being interesting.

These tactics leave plenty of room for a person to think.

Meanwhile, IRL, I’m doing the opposite of withdrawing.

A mindfulness workshop I’m guiding through the philosophy department at the library is already underway-a small project that grew out of the feeling that, in moments like this, gathering people to pay attention together might be one small useful thing to do.

The second of three sessions is tomorrow. We’re learning to meet our minds from different angles. It’s virtual and free, so you can join from anywhere. If that sounds appealing, you can still jump in for tomorrow, March 16, or for the final session on March 30.

At the same time I’m preparing for the Los Angeles screening of my film, which involves the opposite skill set: leaving the quiet room entirely and inviting strangers to join you in another one. If your LA local or know an LA local who likes new-wave experimental film and stand up comedy, feel free to pass the word and come say hello!

Writing asks for withdrawal.
Events ask for appearance.

So lately I’ve been toggling between two versions of self: the one who disappears long enough to write a paragraph, and the one preparing to appear before other humans and explainin why they should care about a movie.

Both strangely intimate acts drawing from the same small reservoir of energy.

Which is why, when it’s time to write, I try to stay out of the cocktail party and sit quietly in the library instead.

Eventually the sentence arrives.

And once it’s safely on the shelf, I’m happy to wander the room again.

So if I’ve been a little quiet here lately, it’s not because I’ve wandered off. I’ve been toggling between selves: the one who disappears long enough to write a paragraph, and the one who shows up in rooms with other people.

As always, thanks for being the kind of readers I want to keep showing up for. I promise to return with something probably strange, possibly useful, and hopefully worth placing on the shelf between us.

To your disappearances! May they give you something worth bringing back,

Abigail