Letters from the Homestead: December 2021
Fasting from social media, remembering how to be a teacher, and beginning The Year of the Writer.
Emily Dickinson called her Amherst home “The Homestead.” I lovingly call my apartment in St. Louis the same thing (although I definitely get out more than Dickinson). This monthly newsletter is my attempt to work through what it feels like to put down roots as an artist in my own Homestead. In it, I’m honest about what’s saving my life right now, what’s hard, and what I’m pouring my energy into.
(If you hate it, don’t worry; you can unsubscribe anytime through the link in the footer. And if this e-mail found its way to your inbox by other means and you dig it, subscribe below!)
A social media break I didn’t know I needed…
In early December, I offloaded my social media apps from my phone, determined to give myself a real break from the noise. The first few days were hard. I felt the itch of old, familiar finger patterns, wondered what the rest of the world was doing, and resigned myself to the reminder that no one (other than my parents) logs into Instagram with the hope of seeing one of my posts.
After the initial discomfort, it was amazing to me how easy it was to just drop off the side of the digital world. Things grew quiet. I read more books and collected new ideas. The only “social app” I kept was Pinterest, and I found I liked it better for my long-standing curation of that profile. (I love the image scroll of Pinterest—my feed is mostly recipes, pictures of Doc Martens outfits, memes, and portraits of Patti Smith. Ideal.)
It’s a hard fact, but no one cares if you don’t post a Christmas picture, you know?
One thing I’ve noticed over the past month is the “shared illusion” of social media. This may seem terribly obvious, but it was striking to me to suddenly be attuned to it after blissfully ignoring it for so long. In any given community, there is a collective viewpoint of individual community members that’s informed by whatever gets posted on social media: viewpoints of stability, chaos, beauty, luxury, penury. I kept catching snatches of conversations with my friend groups where someone would mention something posted on social media—often in a negative way.
Yes, no one cares if you post a Christmas picture, but the mere fact that the picture is out there cultivates some sort of public impression of yourself (for better or worse).
This unnerved me because it made me realize two things: 1) social media is mostly a community-created illusion of personal impressions, and 2) there is likely always someone judging you if you post—so maybe just get over it, sweetheart.
My month(ish) away from social media (which is still ongoing) has made me consider what my new “rule” of socials will be going forward. Will anything change? Will I come up with some new boundaries? Will I just go back to the old patterns, the ones that make me feel like I’m screaming to be noticed, but, ya know, in a cool way?
I don’t know.
I do know that social media is an extension of the self—but not the self.
A friend of mine in grad school used to say that “You never like anyone more after seeing them on social media; you only like them less.” This was over ten years ago, though, and I don’t think his claim still stands. There are actually many people that I only know through social media, and they feel like kindreds just the same.
Regardless, I’m grateful for this Substack newsletter. I’d rather write letters than tweets any day.
The Year of the Writer / My 2022 Writing Goals
I’ve always liked the idea of choosing a word for the new year, a single word to shape all that is to come. But my memory is usually short, and I could not tell you what “word” I chose for last year—or the one before. I remember a conversation with my therapist in late 2020 about “taking up space,” in which I tried to suss out what it would mean for me to fill out my apartment as a place that was exclusively my own (as opposed to a shared home with a partner). But that conversation was as far as I got in terms of choosing a “word of the year.”
This year, though, I know exactly what the word is: “Writer.”
I spent the first two years of this pandemic writing my way through looming isolation and anxiety, and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon. Writing saved me during this time. It saves me every day.
I wrote about this goal a little in my most recent Secret Letters post, where I explained what I’m taking with me into the new year and listed thirty-four things I’ve learned in thirty-four years of life. This post is for paid subscribers, but you should be able to see a preview through this lil’ link below:
My 2022 Writing Goals:
Write two new plays. Five years of consistently writing plays made me faster, and I’m wildly grateful for that. I want to write two very weird and (hopefully) very funny plays in 2022: Margaret Fuller Magic Show and Choose Your Own Adventure Hallmark Christmas Movie Play. They are exactly as odd as they sound.
Finish a new novel. I’m about 12,000 words into a new novel project called The Children of Pope Joan. It’s a big, sweeping book about a strange, burly idea—and I have no idea if it will work.
Write a proposal for a non-fiction book. I have some ideas, and I enjoy how forgiving the “proposal” format for non-fiction can be (the proposal is a massive chapter outline with sample chapters, but not the whole manuscript). Not sure how this will end up, but I’m actively thinking about it. If you ask me about it, I will tell you a different answer on an almost hourly basis.
Keep up the newsletter with militant consistency. This newsletter and its Salad Days and Secret Letters offshoots are my most favorite things I write. They keep me honest, writing regularly, and carefully in tune with what my shifting interests/loves really are. It took a year and a half of writing Letters from the Homestead for me to fully see how essential this kind of writing is for me. I am a better writer for writing in this space.
Remembering how to be a teacher
Going into 2022, I’m also thinking hard about some new teaching opportunities I’m taking on in the new year. After I left my job as a professor, I felt like I needed a long break from teaching. The daily work of being a university professor absolutely drained me, and the stifling religious context of my institution didn’t help much either.
I was just so, so tired.
When I told my dean in an April 2020 Zoom call that I was planning to leave, she said, “I don’t think teaching is done with you yet.” At the time, I brushed off that comment. It was a nice thing for her to say, but I couldn’t imagine going through the academic job market all over again just to end up right back where I was: exhausted, disillusioned, and rife with moral injury.
The long-lingering pandemic, however, made me think more about what it would be like to inch back into teaching on my own terms. I reached out to some artist friends about teaching creative writing exclusively for some different arts organizations in town, and I was so surprised to find that the opportunities were there—right under my nose. As it turned out, “on my own terms” meant only pursuing teaching creative writing (like plays) in an artistic context, not as a university adjunct. (Interestingly, an adjunct opportunity came up this past year, and I turned it down simply because I couldn’t stand to participate in a system that exploits the labor of untethered academics.)
So, now I’m thinking about what a whole pandemic of not teaching could have possibly taught me about teaching. The truth? Not terribly much. (It’s possible I’ve gotten worse.) I mostly just miss regularly being with learners who are interested in the same things as me. I miss the fellowship of a learning community, the rhythms of a course term, and the sharing of creative work. I miss coming into a classroom with an offering—and then just seeing what happens.
I’m a better artist when I’m teaching, and I’m a better teacher when I have space to commit to my work as an artist. When I was a full-time professor, I just couldn’t hack the balance, and the juggling drained me dry.
Here’s hoping this new year sees me getting the balance (close to) right.
What I’m reading this month…
Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall. This is the current definitive biography on the nineteenth-century wonder woman Margaret Fuller. I love reading about how purely ambitious and restless Fuller was; she was always on the move in her search for meaning, constantly frustrated by how she was a more desirable writer than a lover. The drama! I love it!
In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden. This is one of my favorite novels of all time: a book about a Benedictine convent. “Nun-fiction,” if you will. I love reading it at the start of the new year. It’s a book about vocation, home-making, community, and religious ecstasy—every time I read it, I get shivers when I hear the key lines: “What do you ask?” / “To try my vocation as a Benedictine in this house of Brede.”
Devotions: Selected Poetry of Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver. Slowly working through this collection of Oliver’s work, digging around for prompts and images that might suit some of the teaching work I have coming up next year. My favorite prompt I’ve found so far? Oliver has a line in one of her poems that reads, “This is the place.” Such a good starting line for a monologue or spoken word prompt. Maybe for a whole ass play.
Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chodron. One thing I badly want in the new year is more self-compassion, especially for my razzing thought life. This book is an example of me trying to tackle that.
How I made money this month $$$
I believe freelance artists should be more upfront about how they support themselves, so here is me attempting to live out that principle. Here are all the ways I brought in money to The Homestead for December.
A new romance novella for Scribd. Mary Bennet’s Little Book of Love (a queer Austen variation) will be out in the new year!
Audiobook narration. A bit of audiobook work this month, mostly for last-minute Christmas romance titles.
New play reading for a local theatre company. I worked for an afternoon as an actor in a friend’s new play about Percy Green and the Civil Rights Movement in St. Louis.
Facilitating online graduate literature courses. This is part of some ongoing gig work/consulting that I do for an online education company.
Paid Substack subscriptions. I am so grateful for paid subscribers to this newsletter. If you’d like to learn more about the paid option, scroll down to the bottom of this post.
Paperback sales for The Other Dashwood Sister by Miranda Markwell. This is a small bit of income, but much appreciated! You can pick up your own copy on Amazon through the button below!
Drink a cup of kindness, friends.
Happy New Year’s Eve, y’all. The pandemic is still going wild, so my New Year’s fun is small for this turn around the Gregorian calendar. I’m happy to report (to my mother—hi, mom) that I bought collards and black-eyed peas in advance to make on New Year’s Day for good fortune.
If you’re into yoga, I’m also starting Move: A 30-Day Yoga Journey tomorrow, the Yoga with Adriene yearly YouTube program. (By day three, I expect to ache.)
Tonight starts a new year.
I hope on January first that you’re able to make the day as sweet as possible, so you can confidently say, “So as today, the rest of the year.”
Yours ever,
Courtney, Mistress of the Homestead, and Noble Midge the Cat
P.S. - Consider becoming a paid subscriber of this newsletter!
