Existential musings of why I'm here

Photo by Art Lasovsky on Unsplash

History of my love of writing

Writing has been a part of my life for ever since I was 7 when I wrote a book about my crocodile obsession (my parents had it bound, bless them). In college, I studied English for the sheer joy of reading and writing. Amusingly, my English degree is actually utilized and pairs beautifully with my PhD in Genetics in my Senior Medical Writing job where I communicate complex clinical trial data to doctors and patients.

I’ve shared musings of mine on/off over the years on my blog, but my blog has never been a place for consistency, but the writing repository when the urge to write overtook me and words were spilling out of me. Instagram served as an additional place for me to jot down ideas, but the barrier existed that those ideas needed to be accompanied by a well crafted picture/hashtags/writing style. Likes didn’t matter to me, I just wanted others to read my work.

I love writing and it is truly how I process the world, but I am realizing that to grow as a writer, I need to be writing whether I am inspired or not. Enter Substack.

Enter Substack

Substack is a site that allows authors to send free and paid newsletters out to subscribers. I first heard about Substack from

Karen Swallow Prior

and

Katelyn Beaty

, two of my favorite writers/thought leaders in the Christian space. Both of them send out regular newsletters that come to my email inbox, but are hosted through Substack. These newsletters sometimes have themes but other times are thoughts and musings related to what they are reading or discussing with others.

Substack meets a few needs that I have identified as barriers for me to write:

1. One thing missing from my blog was for people to subscribe and receive updates. Sure, people can subscribe to RSS feeds for blogs, but few do. I appreciate how Substack puts the subscription element front and center. As a writer, you want people to read your work and it can feel disingenuous to always share your new blog post every time you write one. The subscription model of Substack means that those who sign up for your Substack will be notified, so you don’t have to do the notifying.

2. With both my blog and Instagram, I was not on any timetable for posting and thus I didn’t write as much as I would like to because of the lack of accountability. If people actually subscribe to a newsletter I write then I will feel accountable to write and deliver. I also believe this will help me to consistently write and not just write when I feel like it. Most goals in life are not accomplished without accountability, so I recognize I need some accountability in this area of writing.

What can you expect from me?

I love deep conversations. My favorite thing in the world is sitting across from someone at a coffee shop or in my home with a cup of coffee or tea in hand connecting over knowledge, ideas, or thoughts.

I intake a lot of different ideas through reading widely and extensively and listening to podcasts. Making connections between ideas from different genres is really fulfilling because it broadens your understanding within both fields. My PhD involved interdisciplinary research across genetics, cell biology, physics, and bioinformatics so I truly value interdisciplinary thinking and hope to incorporate that within a newsletter.

My desire is to use this newsletter as a way to converse about ideas I’ve been pondering and reflecting on. I expect these ideas will be across many different areas from science, to Christianity, to reading, to grief, to friendships and many more. As a Christian, my beliefs inform how I think about the world, so I foresee posts that detail how the ideas I’m noodling on relate to my faith. Science is my day job so discussions about the scientific process and how to think about science in the news especially with AI on the rise are all within the realm of what this newsletter would discuss.

Overall, I view this newsletter as a vehicle to share how I’m learning and growing as a person which tends to tie into what I’m reading or listening to. It’s basically a peek inside my brain.

My goal for myself is to write consistently whether or not I think I have anything poignant to say. I wrote so inconsistently on my blog partly because I thought my opinions were not anything new in the grand scheme of things. That may have been the case, but it is still worthwhile to write if only to grow in the practice of writing.

I plan to send out a newsletter every 2 weeks likely on Sunday afternoons or Monday mornings. As of now, I don’t plan on doing a paid subscriptions because the purpose of this Substack is for me to be accountable to others and just write!

Please subscribe below!

If you’re interested in my musings, please input your email below and you will be sent my latest newsletters when they’re written! I’m excited to have a vehicle to share more of my thoughts and ponderings, and I hope you’re excited too.

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