The next chapter. And you're part of it.

What happens in "the post after that post?" Come with me on a little journey, friends!

It’s more than a little daunting to write the post after the post in which you open up your soul and expose your innards to the world. In part that’s why you haven’t heard from me for a bit. It’s been a time of reset for me in a lot of ways.

(We’ll get to that in a sec… bear with me.)

The truth is, I hadn’t intended that post to go in that direction. I started to write about Morra’s book, and the next thing you know, I got a surprise visit from the Muse of Extra Long Prose and Personal Revelation (let’s call her Clioipe) and words slithered from my brain down to my fingers and into the keypad, getting something out of me that I hadn’t realized needed to come out in the first place.

The comments and notes I received I’ve been next level: Recommendations, links, solidarity, words of incomparable support, and questions from people who needed support of their own. It meant the world.

Because this is why I do this.

One comment that really stayed with though, was from a long-time reader who confessed, I had no idea — I guess I’m surprised you hadn’t written about anxiety before.

It made me think about what we think we know about the people we don’t know. (With a big hat tip to Malcolm Gladwell who literally wrote the book on that.)

Writing authentically doesn’t mean writing everything. I think when we get to “know” a writer online, it’s easy to confuse to two. However, this is not my journal. It’s not my therapy and it’s not my confessional. My writing never has been. It is, however, honest and always will be. It’s hopefully connective. I never want you to feel like you wasted your time coming here.

Enter: The reset.

I have spent the past few months since the start of I’m Walking Here getting my groove back, building an audience (and I’m so so grateful for you all, times infinity!), connecting, reconnecting, and being extra sure that I can be accountable to you and to myself.

The answer, I’ve found, is: Yes. 100% yes.

I’m finding so much joy in Substack generally — this is fast becoming the app I click first in the morning — and in my space here, particularly.

So I’m officially planting my pole.

But this requires a big leap…

(ready?)

I’m offering paid subscriptions.

I’ve loved writing here for free for the past few months. I’ve loved creating conversation around topics that matter to me, and hearing from readers that what I write matters to them, whether they’ve known me for years or just found me.

I have also loved the fact that I can do all this right here on Substack, without running ads, without sponsored posts, without affiliate links to products, without you wondering whether I’m secretly plugging something, without secretly passing your data to some serious bad guys.

There are a lot of places for those things. (Well, not the data shenanigans. But that’s another post I wrote in another place.) I never begrudge writers and independent publishers for making a living through advertising. Heck, I work in ad agencies! So, yay for great ads!

But…I don’t want this to be one of those places.

Here, you will never be the product.

And so here I am, asking you to become an early adopter, a patron, a supporter of my writing, a mensch-and-a-half — and subscribe to I’m Walking Here.

You can still subscribe for free of course! There will be plenty from me for free. But I have some extra goodies in store for those of you willing to invest the price of a latte each month. It’s even discounted until the end of the month. Just for you, dahlink.

Remember how we were talking about honesty, way back like 2 minutes ago? Well here’s some more honesty:

It’s super hard for me to ask to be paid for my writing.

Like, crazy hard.

It’s much easier for me to say, “aw, you liked what I wrote? That’s payment enough!” And sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn’t.

I have no partner here. No sales department. No parent company. No producer. No team of writers.

Right now, I’m just a girl, standing in front of an audience, asking them to love my words, even while I borrow some of them generously from noteworthy romantic comedies that have held up pretty darn well over the decades.

I’m so excited for this! I have so many things to share! But for now, here’s a picture of me smiling.

photo: Jon Armstrong

I’m grateful to all of you original free subscribers. More than you know. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me already.