#27 – On what I learned from being on Substack for a year

Happy one-year anniversary!

Hi friends!

I hope your September is starting well!

They say that September is the other January because a new season and a new academic year is beginning in many parts of the world.

I feel a sense of refresh every September, and I definitely did last year too! Because, guess what? This month marks the first-year anniversary of Saran Wrapped Letters (SWL)! Happy anniversary!!!

Whether you subscribed from the first week or you found SWL sometime over the past year, thank you so much for being here. Every reader and subscriber gives me so much encouragement to keep going! Thank you!

So, in honour of this newsletter’s one-year anniversary, I’d like to share with you some reflections on what I learned over the past year from running this tiny little newsletter!

Before we get started, I’d like to ask: Is there a particular kind of post you’ve enjoyed more than others? I’d love to know! Please leave a comment or reply directly to this email. No promises, but I will keep that in mind for future posts 😊

Learnings from my one-year experience on Substack:

The more you share your writing, the less scary it gets.

If I am being honest for a hot minute, I honestly did not sleep well the night that I launched this newsletter/blog because it was such a spontaneous decision (lol). My default inclination, for years, has been to hide whatever I write from others (even from my own sisters, who are my nearest and dearest), so this blog felt very much outside of my comfort zone. And even though I still get mildly nervous each time I publish something, my nerves have become much calmer over the past year. It may sound cliché, but I’ve learned that the more you do something, the less scary it gets.

Substack is one of the kindest corners on the Internet.

I am not a big social media person, but I feel so drawn to Substack because the interactions and the conversations I’ve had here have been so positive and uplifting. There are so many amazing publications here, but just to name a few I’ve enjoyed over the past year:

Beyond with Jane Ratcliffe

interviews,

Between a Rock and a Card Place

essays, and love letters in

Letters From Love with Elizabeth Gilbert

. I truly hope that Substack will continue to be the wonderful community that it is today and nurture this sense of creativity, kindness and togetherness.

Engaging with other writers’ work is rewarding on its own, and it also helps with growing your network on Substack.

While many SWL subscribers are either people who know me in real life or people who read my work online and decided to subscribe, there is also another group of people who found SWL out solely through my interactions on Substack. Based on my limited experience, I found that engaging with other writers’ work is rewarding on its own and it is also a great way to expand your network.

I also saw my subscriber number increase whenever I shared this blog on my other socials (and I’ve done it exactly twice over the past year, haha!). Honestly, I feel a bit shy sharing this blog on my other socials because some of my posts here tend to be personal, and I don’t know how other people (say, on LinkedIn) will react to the personal nature of this blog. Nonetheless, I will try to post more about this blog in the future, but in the meantime, if you feel inclined, please feel free to share this blog with others who you think might enjoy it. It’d be so fun to celebrate this one-year anniversary by welcoming some more subscribers.

A lot can be overwhelming. Fewer can be manageable.

When I first started on Substack, I ended up subscribing to too many newsletters than I can reasonably read. As a result, I felt overwhelmed and ended up ignoring most of them. For me, reading others’ work is one of the most rewarding aspects of Substack, so currently I am unsubscribed from some of the newsletters I originally subscribed to and try to read every post that lands in my inbox. Having a reasonable number of subscriptions and reading them at an average-slow pace has been so helpful in enjoying the Substack experience.

I love writing. If anything, running this blog has reaffirmed that I love writing.

I re-learned that just the act of writing (even if it does not make it onto Substack) brings me so much joy. Few things make me as happy as the moment when I write a sentence that truly and eloquently expresses something I have felt or noticed. Writing is truly the great love of my life, and Substack has helped me revitalize this love.

Thanks to the

Substack

team for creating this wonderful platform, and of course, my most effervescent gratitude goes to you, dear reader, for being here and sharing in my joy of reading and writing.

Sending so much gratitude your way ❤️

With lots of saran wrapped love,

Saran

PS: If you have any kind of feedback on how I can improve this newsletter, please let me know! I am open to hearing any comments or suggestions you may have.

PPS: I visited Montréal in August, and here is a picture of the beautiful St. Lawrence River near the Grand Quay of the Port of Montréal. The atmosphere of the city felt celebratory when I visited so I feel that it is fitting to share it here:

St. Lawrence River near the Grand Quay of the Port of Montréal