V. H. King's Ink

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about withdrawing from certain spaces and being more present in others. A lot of this is rooted in my decision to delete Meta’s apps from my phone. I’ve always had an ambivalent relationship with most social media platforms, and that extended to how I used them to share my writing.

It’s been a relief, lately, to not have those greyed-out apps staring out from my home screen. Even in focus-mode, there was always the feeling that those apps were silently judging my (lack of) engagement. I’d argue that my mental health has improved a bit, but it wasn’t just because I deleted a few apps. I’ve had to re-examine my expectations and ambitions and ask myself, “Whose eyes is all of this for, anyway?”

The anxiety about missing submission opportunities or being harder for folks to find is fleeting. Substack has become incredibly popular, especially with Black writers building their audience. Many share essays, reflections, and wisdom from their creative journeys—and bring in a bit of income, from paid subscribers who support their work.

Every time I consider their pros over ko-fi—such as being a bit more well-known, and having a mobile app, and how much easier it might be to gain followers/ supporters and “get my brand” out there, at least two things hold me back. The first is Substack’s lackluster responses to misinformation and their failure to protect their marginalized users. The second thing is going to take a few paragraphs.

Back in 2018, a conversation with a friend spawned a self-prescribed challenge to write a short story a week. That endeavor has been on my mind as I consider what it is I really want to do. What I most derived joy from during that time wasn’t how many people were reading those short stories. I wasn’t necessarily concerned with building a following. What I looked forward to, what I most enjoyed, was the steady progress toward a final accomplishment.

I recognized a pattern in my approach: I would have no idea what to write for the first half of the week. Come Thursday, I’d be anxious that I wouldn’t be able to write anything and might miss a week. Friday and Saturday, something would come out—and I would post it. Every weekend. I did, in fact, write 52 short stories in a year.

I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve often excelled when working under pressure. I also know that I have consistently pushed myself past my limits in order to meet deadlines and exceed expectations. The cognitive strain prompts a period of brain fog, until my hyperfocus (and anxiety about failure) inevitably overrides my body’s demands for rest.

This cycle was absolutely in play as I wrote those weekly short stories, and although I’m proud of the accomplishment, I don’t want to set myself up for that again. I have already committed to adjusting my post schedule on ko-fi for the summer.

• A newsletter-style update on the 10^th, free for anyone who’d like to read it
• A subscriber-only post on the 17^th, featuring original artwork and a bit of reflection on what I hope(d) to explore in the piece
• A subscriber-only reflection on the 27^th musing on the ways I’ve celebrated my own BlackDisabledQueer Livelihood in my creativity

Sometimes I wonder if I’m backing myself into a corner again, especially with having to create paid content along with whatever I post here on my site. For the time being, I am counting on being able to work ahead—something I did not allow myself to do, during my short story challenge. I’m also remembering that I’m allowed to take a hiatus, whether scheduled or not.

Because that’s allowed.

In the years since my surgery, I’ve realized the need to build rest into my schedule. How do I do that when I don’t have a routine? Flexibility is the lesson I keep re-learning, and it centers on listening to what I need in the moment without judging myself for it. And then, of course, there’s the work of actually allowing myself to ask for and accept what I need.

Comfort, assurance, care, accountability, community. The best way to give myself these things is by trusting myself with others. Even though I’ve withdrawn from the things that made me easy to find and follow, I’m showing up more in spaces where I had once judged myself so harshly as to refuse anyone else to meet me with kindness.

Enough of that.

While I don’t have a particular “challenge” such as writing a short story a week, I don’t think I need one. I have plenty of projects to which I can devote steady progress. It won’t be easily announced in tweets and threads and status updates and stories and reels. I was never really good at those anyway, and I found them more exhausting than fulfilling.

I am better fed by knowing I’m working on the stories that I’ve carried with me for over a decade. So what if it takes me another ten or twelve years? I am comforted and encouraged knowing that I’m learning my gifts and putting them to work.