The Lost Year

Me and the Page
It’s just me and the page.
Eyeball to eyeball.
The first to blink loses.
That blank
poker-faced
bastard.
Not a flicker.
I think it’s winning.
-- Michael Swan

When I started on Substack, I thought I had it all planned out:

• Clever printmaker-and-self-accountability-adjacent newsletter name (Artist’s Proof).

• A decent starter list of topics to engage with:

  • Works-in-progress

  • The stories informing my designs

  • The process behind the prints

  • Tips and techniques

• A place to share the personal, ‘un-printerly’ side of me that is mostly kept under wraps.

• And, when all else fails: dog photos.

Like so many others who are equally soul-sick of the breakneck pace of social media, I wanted writing here to become an antidote to the instant gratification of Instagram; a long-player of life on the flip side without the need to chase numbers, or notoriety.

You see, aeons ago I received a postgraduate degree in Creative Writing. I never found the confidence to push myself after graduation, but I’ve had a few poems published, a few papers presented, and people sometimes still implore me to ‘please complete that manuscript!’ So, in this more relaxed community of wordsmiths, I felt hopeful, capable even. Besides, how hard could it really be to write a regular little missive to a loyal guild of subscribers? How much time do I honestly think is necessary to craft a fresh batch of words and visuals for the delectation (or maybe, denigration) of those of you tender-hearted enough to still support me here? I can make this happen, can’t I? I can make it happen just as thousands of others who use Substack have so diligently proven, right?

Well, what I forgot to take into account was that ‘I can’ can’t manage this journey alone. It needed ‘I want to’ for companionship. And, in 2025, ‘I want to’ was a fully paid-up member of the Fairweather Friends Society (FFS). Stormy days are perfect writing days, and, here in Devon, that’s often the meteorological norm. But I found myself choosing the waterlogged boots and rain-wrinkled hands of a hike in a deluge, anything rather than a few hours of warm and dry digital journalling. The day’s printmaking done and dusted by mid-afternoon? Miraculous: take a bow! And then, how about use the remainder of your schedule to start that Substack post, yes? No: instead take to bed, then use the remainder of your schedule to doom-scroll your self-confidence into the dirt.

Someone tell me I’m not alone here.

Yet, there were valid excuses. I did get busy. Last year I accepted a challenging and long-term research project with no real guarantee of success, and, at present, one for which I have to self-fund on a shoestring. Then, family incidents happened; medical scares happened; the unbearable unravelling of our world continues to happen.

So, as the seasons slipped by, The FFS gained traction. The more frustrated I became with my inability to juggle all the beanbags of, well, just being here in this world, the more I had to drop.

And, when all else failed: the dog died.

During the final six months of 2025, my husband and I were consumed by Gypsy’s palliative care. We knew it was borrowed time, but we also knew Gypsy would tell us when he was ready — and so he did. Now, I may have only just complained about the frequent tempests of the West Country, but on November 10th it was to be expected: a wintry day of sideways rain; the worst kind of day to say goodbye to the very best of boys. But the clouds did lift, briefly, for one last sniff on the beach. And just the smallest stub of a rainbow demanded our attention as we took one final drive together as a trio. For a glorious 16 years and 60 days, he was ours, and we were his. How apt, then, that an optical trick of water & light from the heavens was present just long enough to raise Gypsy’s memory skywards - though he will forever lie loam-bound: a little casket in our cottage; my woolly-faced studio assistant still chasing life, long after life.

The Michael Swan1 poem that greeted you at the top of the page is one of many of his that I return to often when I’m at an artistic impasse. In so sparse a set of words, he perfectly elucidates the anguish and tragicomic exasperation that comes with a writer’s block, or any such creative barrier. There’s often nothing more unsettling than being left alone with the menace of the blank page; I’m not a gamer, but how can the first level somehow feel like the final boss? Indeed, I could ply you further with another compendium of woe-is-me paragraphs, but the truth is, even if last year raised only sunshine and roses, I was still never going to tap out a single sentence on Substack.

Besides, in the grand scheme of everything, I am not so foolishly arrogant to as to think my writerly presence even matters. Here, I absolutely don’t matter. I’m merely a whisper, a whimper in yet another vast social network—regardless of how different I want this to be from all the other vast networks that we, as creatives, often have to inhabit in our hopes to be seen, to feel valid.

I titled this entry ‘The Lost Year’, even though I suspect it would be snappier, more amusing, to call it ‘The Fairweather Friends Society (FFS)’. But the reality is that I did lose a year. I did lose Gypsy. In culmination, I suppose I lost myself. And, of those three incidents, only one of them can ever attempt to be restored.

If I truly want to find myself again, I have to succumb to the ultimate cliché (as if you haven’t read enough of these from me already): I have to seek myself out in the places I have been, and want to be. So, here I am. I’m back. I hope you don’t mind. And I’m grateful for your steadfast presence here after so very long.

Credits & apologies

Photos 1 to 3 — Emma at Freckle Photography.
Photos 4 and 5 — Rachel Snowdon.

If you find typos, please know that, despite proofreading, I am only human and simply missed them prior to publication. With any luck, I will return here to rectify the rogue mistakes, though who knows how many months down the line that may be. If you’re reading this via e-mail, an extra apology for never being able to edit those initial errors out.