TL;DR I’m taking a break from the newsletter to work on my book, my brain, and a vision for the future of this space.

Starting Monday, April 21 all paid subscriptions will be put on pause. You will not receive any new charges, and the clock will pause, so this break will not count toward existing monthly and annual subscriptions. This will happen automatically; there is no action needed on your part.

If you’d like to read the story behind this, you’ll find it below.

And this week’s card is below that.

I’ve been working on the same post for a couple weeks and just can’t stick the landing. The issue isn’t editorial. I know exactly what I want to say. It follows a fairly standard formula. (It’s a list, for goodness’ sake!) Yet day after day, I’ve found myself staring at a blinking cursor, questioning everything.

People talk about being “blocked” like it’s an absence of ideas, a well run dry, a dark void where inspiration once shimmered. But in my experience, it’s more like the emotional equivalent of a blinking detour sign, or a stubborn cow blocking the road. Something that must be moved, dislodged, broken down, exorcised, acknowledged. Something that needs to be said.

*

One recent afternoon, while avoiding the evil cursor, I began reading Simon Critchley’s Mysticism (which I heartily recommend). He writes:

“To write is to aspire towards, even to hope for, the mystery of a clearing that is other than the self, the vast windowless sunlit room of living experience. To write is to participate in the struggle to efface oneself. The problem is that the self keeps getting in the way. We look for a clearing, but as we go through dense woods and undergrowth, we keep getting dragged back into the darkening landscape of doubt, the self-doubt that haunts and hunts the writer at every step.”

Ah, yes. There it was. That pesky self.

It was very much in the way.

I sat with this, trying to access the root of my frustration, the core of why I not only couldn’t finish the post, but felt so bothered whenever I tried. And layer by layer, it surfaced.

*

I started this newsletter at a notably low point in my life.

On a personal front, my mother and much-beloved dog had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, within the same week. On the work front, I’d become — slowly, organically, almost without my noticing — a career ghostwriter, the often-invisible pen behind nearly a dozen books by famous names.

Much ado has been made about ghostwriting in the media lately — from glamorizing to lambasting — which I find funny, as it’s a very cut and dried work-for-hire agreement. The writer is offered a fee, and some level of credit, which in most cases they don’t expect (or even want). I found that to be a more than fair arrangement, especially when the project in question was a memoir — not my life, not my stories.

Contrary to popular belief, I often found it spiritually rewarding — helping someone realize their dream of writing a book can be deeply meaningful work. As with all jobs, I learned as I went — about boundaries, getting people to open up, how to tell the difference between a client who agreed to a book as a branding exercise vs. one who was truly invested in the process.

And I learned about my own limits. The year before launching this newsletter, due to shifting publication schedules, I wound up with three manuscripts due in a very short period of time — three books to produce, simultaneously, over about as many months.

Throughout that process, I imagined the hard part was in the writing. As soon as I cleared the hurdle of that last draft, I thought, I would finally breathe. But to my surprise, the hard part came after.

This was far from my first rodeo, yet I wasn’t prepared for the emotional crash that arrived upon the books’ publications — the feeling of burn-out spawned by projects I could not speak of, the torture of seeing lines quoted in book reviews and interviews while holding the secret of their origin. But what haunted me most of all was the nagging feeling that I was doing myself a disservice, by not giving my own writing the same level of blood, sweat, and tears. By choosing to remain hidden, not because of an NDA, but because it was comfortable.

*

The feeling is perfectly captured in a New Yorker essay by J.R. Moehringer (a writer oft referred to by the oxymoronic descriptor of “most famous ghost”) about working on Prince Harry’s memoir. It culminates with a story of his young daughter asking what a ghostwriter does. “Imagine if one of your classmates wanted to say something, express something, but they couldn’t draw,” he tells her. “Imagine if they asked you to draw a picture for them.”

The definition lands with his daughter, who says she would do it.

“Daddy, I will be your ghostwriter.”

My wife laughed. I laughed. “Thank you, sweetheart,” I said.

But that wasn’t what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was “No, Gracie. Nope. Keep doing your own pictures.”

I saved the hard copy and regarded it like a holy text.

*

Could I create the space to write something that felt strange and vulnerable and beautiful and cringe and whatever else I wanted, even if no one had asked for it? Thus, Between a Rock and a Card Place was born. The name was ungainly, chosen off the cuff because it made me giggle. I didn’t know what scared me more: that no one would read it, or that somebody would.

For the first eight months, it was entirely free, and I poured my whole self into it. My only goal was to produce something each week, and my hope was that it found its way to someone who might enjoy or benefit from it. It was work, sure, but it felt like something greater, too. Something, to borrow Simon Critchley’s words, that allowed me to efface the self while still remaining true to it.

Eventually, I decided to “go paid” for a few reasons. First, to spiritually claim that my work — my words — had value. Second, to help with discoverability, as Substack prioritizes paid newsletters (the “leaderboards” are populated according to revenue). Third, with the hope that the income would allow me to take on less freelance work and devote more time to the newsletter.

Going paid ushered in a buffet of emotions including wonder, gratitude, and a creeping sense of feeling beholden. Curiously, the latter did not stem from subscribers themselves, but to the will of a larger system.

Critchley again: “We know that the modern world is a violently disenchanted swirl shaped by the speculative flux of money that presses in on all sides.”

*

If you’ve been using the Substack app over the last year or more, you’ve no doubt noticed some changes. (If you haven’t, and have no clue what I’m talking about, I’m jealous.)

There’s been a lot of noise about the launch of video, the push of Substack Live, the increasingly crowded nature of newsletter-land. And it’s undeniable that the tone has shifted. Yet I don’t fault Substack, a for-profit business, for doing whatever they deem necessary to attract new subscribers and grow as a platform. Even a panacea for writers is no good to anyone if it isn’t long for this world.

Over the past couple years, something else occurred. Illustrious friends and acquaintances from my publishing and ghostwriting days arrived on Substack and casually shared that they were drawn to the platform because “the money was too good to pass up.” They were offered advances to join the platform, and hopefully bring their audiences with them.

I’ve seen many recent posts bemoaning why some celebrity who is already wildly successful would utilize paywalls, or why Substack continually promotes big accounts over smaller writers who could use the exposure. It stands to reason that Substack needs to recoup their investment.

The money was too good to pass up. My friends’ words loop in my head as I try in vain to maintain my subscribers, hold sales on subscriptions in an attempt to make up for churned income, and consider hiring a Substack consultant to coach me through it. Somewhere within me, a voice whispers, remember why you started.

The playing field isn’t level — at what point in history has it ever been? — but these days, the tilt has started to feel more like a climb. Or, in the case of my own graphs, a black diamond ski slope. I don’t take it personally — I respect (and understand!) anyone who can’t subscribe, or unsubscribes, in a faltering economy amid a veritable Greek chorus of people hawking subscriptions.

These are strange times lived within flawed systems. You do you, you know?

But also, me do me. And I realize that maybe I haven’t been.

*

Lately, when I sit down at my computer, it’s with a queasy feeling and grumbly disposition, which makes little sense when it’s to work on a project started out of love. If I created this space, then reason tells me I also have the power to shape it. I won’t rattle a cage I built for myself.

Yet the longer I sit, the more I see, this is eerily similar to the feeling I had when I started out three-and-a-half years ago — like I’m working in service to someone else’s vision, while not trusting or pursuing my own.

The upshot is this: I came to Substack to prioritize my writing. Ironically, that is also why I’m stepping away.

Put another way, I came here hoping to find myself. But now, I’m ready to lose myself.

*

I’m not quitting — I love you, I’ll miss you, I’ll be back. I’m taking a break to finish the draft of my book, which demands faith, grit, and the sort of delusional self-belief that this platform (and its copious graphs) has a way of complicating.

Beginning Monday, April 21, all paid subscriptions will be put on pause — meaning you will not receive any new charges, and the clock will be stopped, so the time away will not count toward existing monthly and annual subscriptions. This will happen automatically; there is no action needed on your part.

I suspect it won’t be too long — we’re probably talking weeks, not months — but I value your support, and want to allow for whatever time it takes without feeling pressure to produce.

After weeks of stuckness, fearing perhaps I’d lost my ability to form sentences, these words flowed out of my fingertips in a single sitting. (To be fair, it was an absurdly long sitting, with snack breaks, but still.)

The block is gone. The road looks clear. And I’m excited to see what’s next.

As always, thank you for reading. I’ll see you soon. x

Card of the Week

Here is this week’s card for the collective, as well as some thoughts to carry into the days ahead. As always, this reading is not meant to be predictive, but is offered as a path to reflection. Read it, ponder it, journal about it, use it however you’d like. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

While I’m in the habit of quoting Simon Critchley, here’s another one:

We have too much self. We are too full of ourselves. We always have too much us in us.

In recent days, I’ve been reminded how we often turn to art and spirituality in times of need. The poem, the prayer, the painting. The yoga studio. The song. The class. The connection to someone or something beyond ourselves.

The concept of wellness — just typing that word makes me flinch a little — has been co-opted as something to be purchased or possessed. But this week’s card asks: What does it mean to be well?

How do we go about feeling well? How can we create a sense of wellness for ourselves and others?

It seems like a trick question, if not a downright cruel one, in a world full of heartbreak, illness, unrest, and uncertainty. Yet The Hierophant challenges us to call upon our faith — our own personal definition, outside of any external belief system — to help us craft the answer.

What never fails to move you? It could be a swell of music. It could be a favorite text. It could be a voice or method or philosophy that helps you breathe a little deeper. It can be solemn or serious, but it doesn’t have to be. Humor is a powerful mover of energy.

The trick, if there is one, is that true wellness may live beyond ourselves, in art and beauty and music and literature. These portals allow us to get back in touch with our true essence, reconnect with our purpose, and soothe the parts we sought to heal through more material means.

The Hierophant is sometimes called “The Pope” in early decks, or things like “The Mystic” or “The Seer” in more contemporary ones. But this card’s applications go well beyond the spiritual. Just as often, it’s about stepping into our own wisdom and allowing it to guide us.

This week’s message encourages us to cultivate an ongoing relationship with wonder in the everyday, despite the apparent bleakness of our influences, environments, or circumstances. The source of wonder doesn’t have to be major — it can stem from a flower, a daily ritual, a photograph, a child’s eyelashes, a salted chocolate chip cookie. What we seek to access is the peace that comes from being drawn outside ourselves and momentarily connected to something that sustains us. No matter how secular, no matter how common, no matter how small.

Whatever it is you seek — answers, enlightenment, mysteries, miracles — this card says you can find them. They may be closer than you think. But they may also look different than you expect.

Indeed, they may not arrive as a flash of insight. They may be quiet, subtle, personal, slow. They may disguise themselves as some other challenge. They may take the form of a discovery you make in your own way, in your own company, nestled safely within your own self.

We often go looking — for love, for change, for excitement — as though they wait somewhere outside ourselves. As if we trudge a bit further, all will be revealed. But ironically, they all start within.

Connect to something greater, this week’s card instructs, and see what it draws out of you. Put on a song that never fails to transfix and let it lead you — past the fear, past the blocks, past the mumbling concerns of the ego — to something transcendent. There’s no need to question it. Lean into the spell, and let it be.

Before we sign off, the Hierophant offers the following meditation to carry into the days ahead:

Learning happens as we move through the world. Knowing happens inside us.