I'm not raring to go

some thoughts about starting slowly, and a reflection on my first 'proper' year on Substack

I’m not raring to go.

I haven’t really got a clue about what I want for 2025 and I’ve hardly started processing 2024. This is not unusual for me but, perhaps for the first year, I’m also not panicking about it.

I’ve always found the frantic New Year energy jarring, like everyone is dashing around screaming while I felt a deep need to ease into the new year after the excesses of consuming and socialising of the festive period.

I’ve always wanted to take my time, look around, move slowly, feel the cold, damp air on my cheeks, before retreating back inside to the warmth of my home, but the tension with the outside world’s demands to make plans, set goals, start fast, overhaul my life, body, business, was often intolerable.

When I shared this frantically-sluggish feeling last year on my Instagram account, a kind person suggested I look into the idea of Imbolc:

So I have, and everything I have felt every ‘New Year’ of my adult life (and possibly before) suddenly makes sense.

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For this turn around the sun, I intend to listen far more carefully to the rhythms of the natural world to which we belong.

January is going to be month of reflection and wonderings. Of thinking about the year that has left, and the one that is to come. A whole month to resist moving forwards, to embrace being unproductive (as far as living in capitalism will allow for, hello mortgage etc.), to take note of what has nested deep in my bones and allow roots to spread unseen under my skin that will nourish me in the months ahead, rather than the hurried scribbles of previous Januarys that left me feeling scrambled, disconnected from myself, and already behind.

By the beginning of February, as we hit the midpoint between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, I hope to be ready to step into renewal. As the bulbs awaken from their slumber to push up through the soil, and the birds start to sing, I will set things in motion and begin what, in March, I will stretch and explore and grow.

Even as I’m typing this, other things - things I had not even connected to this new-to-me idea - are falling into place.

I started this piece as a review of 2024’s intentions for Substack (scroll down for that) but it has turned into something else and I’ve just realised that yesterday, in a quiet moment, I drew a sketch of a plan for my business that almost perfectly maps onto this idea of what I’d like Jan-March to look like.

It seems accidental but I have a feeling it is not.

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✨ COMING SOON ✨

JANUARY

🌳 write your own Instagram Manifesto - a non-linear workshop that will invite you to examine the complexity of the interplay between your life, emotions, and desire to reach more readers vs what Instagram wants from you. We’ll spend around an hour together to deepen your awareness of how Instagram currently acts on your life, and how you can seed a more generative chapter of your time on Instagram, that is, how can you set yourself up to use Instagram in a way that means it works for you and not the other way round? This pre-recorded workshop will be free for all readers.

⏳ the Bookstagram Directory will be released. A resource to expand your network, save you time and give you confidence when you start to reach out across Instagram to find people who will help you find your readers. This will be available to buy as a one-off purchase and members of TMI will receive an exclusive discount.

FEBRUARY

🌱 a webinar to support your strategic use of Instagram to find your readers - free to all readers, this will talk you through how to create a framework to support everything else you do on the platform. Think of it as a trellis to support your growth.

⚡️ SPARK! workshop: spend 90 minutes with me to generate 100 (or more) Instagram post ideas that your ideal reader will love. This will be ticketed; members will receive an exclusive discount.

MARCH

🌻 a deep dive into how to GROW your Instagram account in a way that feels satisfying and aligned with your values and priorities, including a guided GROWTH SPRINT, for members only

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A year on Substack: looking back at 2024

This is what I came here to write and the rest just fell out of my brain, but this feels like as good a place as any to start this month’s unproductive meander through some reflections…

At the end of 2023 I wrote a list of 10 commitments, or intentions, for how I wanted to show up on Substack. In that post I said:

The platform is young and the shifts are seismic and happening at pace. The evangelism of some of its users makes me wary, and we’re nowhere near finding out whether Substack can deliver on its promise to create ‘a different kind’ of social media-publishing hybrid platform.

So, while the upheaval plays out I’ll be taking in the landscape, observing those who endeavour to shape it, and in the absence of a well-defined culture to subvert, I thought I might as well create my own in this microscopic corner of the internet.

A year later, I’m not sure how much more I know about Substack ‘culture’ which seems still to be in a state of flux, but I have built myself a little corner over here that I like very much so, because I like learning in public, I thought I’d revisit some of the intentions I set…

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My 10 intentions, plus some reflections in italics:

1. I commit to challenging myself. Can I publish consistently? Do I have enough to say?

   Happily, I’ve managed to publish consistently for most of the year. Alongside my paid subscriber content I’ve also settled into publishing a rhythm of monthly posts for all readers, plus free ‘gift’ articles when I have time to write them/ I don’t have time to write them but my Magpie brain takes over 😉

   After one short break that I did take from publishing here I wrote about how this made me feel in what is my most popular post so far:

   Is Substack really 'The Great Escape' from social media?

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2. I commit to improving my writing. It’s a muscle and I’m sometimes slow to find the words that express my precise meaning. Maybe I’ll find this is just the way it is for me, but maybe I just need more practice.

   Long, reflective pieces where I’m pulling together threads of thought still take me an age to write, but I have found two things this year: I’ve allowed (I think) my written voice to relax a little, and become closer to how I speak, AND I’ve realised my main purpose here is to be useful to authors and writers so that’s the yardstick I’ve been getting better at using: is this useful?, rather than, is this perfect?

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3. I commit to using this space to figure out more of what I really think.

   With the exception of a group of pieces I wrote at the start of 2024 about the nature of Instagram, most of the writing I published here in 2024 has been practical in nature, so I don’t think I’ve used Substack in this way much at all.

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4. I commit to exploring ideas in greater depth.

   I have definitely done this. In fact, I’ve completely changed my work-flow and often use a Substack piece as ‘source content’ for my Instagram posts. I even created a video about my process for doing this for my Too Much Instagram members:

   A Writer's Guide To Repurposing A Substack Essay Into Instagram Posts

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5. I commit to testing my ideas about social media and beyond to see if other people find them useful, interesting or relatable.

   Just over 900 people have now signed up to receive my free posts, and just over 50 people are paid subscribers. This gives me confidence that people are finding my posts useful and interesting so this is a commitment I’m going to double down on.

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6. I commit to dialogue. I want to be in conversation with people whose perspectives can add to and enrich my experience and understanding of ideas and the world.

   At the start of the year this happened on a number of my own pieces as people brought me their own experiences of social media and Instagram especially, and I enjoyed their insights and perspectives enormously. As my output has evolved towards being more practical in nature, fewer of those conversations have happened on my own essays but I’ve enjoyed occasionally joining in with conversations happening elsewhere.

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7. I commit to a slower-pace of ‘input’, a balm for my dopamine-hungry brain’s self-destructive behaviour.

   This is the year I read ‘The Phone Fix’ by Dr Faye Begeti so my understanding of what’s happening in my brain, and it’s interplay with my phone, has evolved beyond what this intention suggests so this is a difficult one to evaluate. I’ve also realised how tiring I find it to read on a screen - phone or laptop - so I probably haven’t ‘slowed down’ my input exactly, but I have adjusted it.

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8. I commit to reading more insight and experience that feeds my curiosity or makes me feel seen and understood.

   See above. But also, most of the reading I have done here hasn’t been the kind of content I thought I would be reading. I thought I was here for the think-pieces and the life writing, but instead I’ve been reading more about the business of books and publishing.

   As an outsider to the industry there is so much I don’t know about publishing. Sometimes this is a good thing as I come with no baggage, or pre-conceived notions about the ways things are ‘supposed’ to be done, but at other times not having a ready-made network of publishing professionals to call on is a disadvantage. This is where Substack has been a gift so, while I like the idea of reading more of the beautiful writing that is here on Substack, I think it’s likely I will use it for ‘professional development, while mostly turning to books when reading for enjoyment, insights and curiosity in 2025.

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9. I commit to empowering writers to leverage the upsides of social media, while side-stepping the downsides.

   With the content I post to Instagram, alongside the free to read pieces I publish here on Substack, plus the launch of the membership in 2024, I know I’ve done this for a small, but growing, number of writers.

   The idea that we can use Instagram to serve our own agenda, without sacrificing our souls to the internet overlords, is a message I intend to keep spreading to anyone who will listen so expect to hear more of this from me.

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10. I commit to exploring whether Substack could be a suitably (relatively) low-fi home where I can host a community of writers who want to use Instagram more effectively to grow their readership.

    I did it! In June 2024 I launched the TOO MUCH INSTAGRAM membership here on Substack and for the last 6 months I’ve been delivering guidance, encouragement and inspiration to writers who want to use Instagram to find readers for their work.

    I’ve hosted 30 weekly WHAT ARE YOU POSTING? online advice chats; and published:

    👩🏻‍🏫 4 x Writer’s Guides to guide members through new Instagram skills

    🩺 5 x Ask Me Anything clinic to answer members’ questions in detail

    🎤 9 x guest interviews with authors and other helpful book people

    💡 4 x curated banks of post ideas for writers and authors

    PLUS members enjoyed free access to the DEFINE YOUR IDEAL READER workshop.

    The arrival and evolution of this membership is probably my biggest achievement of 2024 and I am excited to keep doing more of this work in 2025 😊

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To become a member of TOO MUCH INSTAGRAM, upgrade your subscription ❤️

Photo by Anastasia Pixner on Unsplash