Notes from a Slow Beginning

Apr 09, 2026

These notes bring together part of what it felt like to shape the studio’s early online presence. They sit here as a calm record of learning, in real time, what belonged to the platform, what belonged to the work, and what belonged to me.

I remember feeling grateful that I would not have to build my own website first.
That felt like a gift.
A real one.
It meant I could bring a good portion of my vision for the first version of my online studio here.

— Still Unfolding

I remember looking at the revenue share and thinking: that’s fair.
That’s reasonable.
I liked the clarity of that feeling.
It made the platform feel like a workable exchange.
A place where I could try this version of the studio in public.

— Still Unfolding

I have long thought of myself as a confident person.
Then the silence here introduced me to a different texture.
Weeks passed. Then months.
Very little movement. Very little proof.
The self-talk got louder.
Part of what made it strange was how hard it was to tell what I was feeling insecure about — Substack, storytelling, wanting something deeply, or all of it at once.
It felt like meeting a part of myself that had been waiting for a very specific kind of room.

— Still Unfolding

I told myself I was doing market research.
And I was.
I was studying publications, watching their histories, looking at how they grew, what they posted, how often, how they sounded, how they moved.
I was benchmarking.
I was also, at times, gathering evidence for private dramas.
A few of the voices in my head were very committed to the theory that I did not belong here.
Some voices kept writing.

— Still Unfolding

I kept telling myself I was not comparing myself, only the publications.
Benchmarking, I called it.
Which was true.
And also a very elegant piece of language for an activity with emotional side effects.

— Still Unfolding

The growth has been slow. Slow enough for a lot of self-talk and some very interesting encounters with myself.
I never considered quitting, though.
Substack? Sure, maybe.
But not writing.
That was a reassuring distinction.
Substack is a tool. My creative practice is the journey.

— Still Unfolding

Then the first follower appeared.
Such a small number. Such a real feeling.
One person had raised a hand in the direction of the work.
I remember how much life a single signal could carry in those days.

— Still Unfolding

The first free subscriber took longer.
By then I had already learned a few things about silence.
So when it happened, the feeling was not loud.
It was precise.
A person deciding to stay near the work.

— Still Unfolding

Then a comment arrived on one of my posts.
The first one that really landed.
It was such a small thing in one sense, and in another sense it changed the temperature of the room.
A real person had met the work and responded from inside the meeting.
That mattered more than a great deal of advice ever did.
It felt like contact.
It felt like arrival.

— Still Unfolding

Every time another state or country appears on my dashboard, I feel a little spark.
I want that global map deep orange. Bright orange.
Something I made traveled.
Some part of me finds hope more believable when it appears on a map.

— Still Unfolding

My growth here is still slow. Slower than most, from what I can tell.
And somehow I feel steadier than I did at the beginning.
A little less thrown by silence.
A little less dramatic in my private interpretations.
A little more able to let the work be the work.
I still want readers. I still enjoy signs of movement.
And I enjoy the fact that I am still writing.

— Still Unfolding

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