Reading · Saltee Goodness

Hi there!

Sara (played here by a much younger and better-groomed woman) peeking back into the world after an extended dalliance with the fertile Void.

It’s been a long time since you’ve heard from me in this space and I want to thank all of you who have hung in there and continued your subscriptions despite my radio silence.

I last wrote to you here on June 30th, at which time I declared that it was “time for me to spend some time in that part of the cycle of creating that is about restoration, renewal, and deeper rest.”

I was right, but my timing was a bit off. The summer had very little drift-time as I participated in two art shows and witnessed/supported my daughter and her fiancé who both lived with us all summer while they packed and prepared to move to California.

When the chaos and churn of all that action died down, I spent September in a daze - sleeping a lot, setting my work phasers to “minimum necessary,” spending way too much time scrolling and way too much money in wee hour online shopping binges, and generally trying to get my bearings in the new world order of life with no chicks in the nest.

And then it was October, and my energies started to perk back up, but I had more thinking to do before I was ready to re-appear here on Substack.

What to do about Substack?

Along with processing my daughter’s move, I’ve been doing a lot of mulling about my work life - assessing where I want to put my energies and what I want to let go of.

Social media is so beyond problematic on so many levels, it is a real question for all of us - am I going to continue to interface with these platforms, and if so, how? What are they good for and how can I participate without fragmenting my consciousness into tiny bits, fueling an unhealthy dependence on the dopamine hits of “likes” and “follows,” etc. etc. etc.?

I have to tell you, Substack has been on the bubble for me.

In the space of quiet I claimed in Sept-Oct I could really feel how uncomfortable I have become with the sheer noisiness of this platform. As a user/subscriber I am annoyed by the barrage of emails recommending other writers to follow, and super-annoyed when people I haven’t subscribed to suddenly start sending me their posts. I know that’s how this all works, and I’m sympathetic to anyone trying to build a following here on Substack, but as a user it is overwhelming and off-putting.

All those voices also make it hard to write - an activity which, at least for me, requires deep focus, concentration, and time.

All of which is ok as long as I felt myself to be in the company of other human beings who were similarly working to articulate something meaningful on a regular basis. But then came the heartbreaking realization of how much content here is now being written by AI. An already crowded and cacophonous space now feels like it has been invaded by robots who can pump out content faster and slicker than any poor writer who still believes in slow, thoughtful writing as a process of discovering and exploring the world within and around them.

And yet… I like having this space to talk with you. I like the challenge of having to pull my scattered thoughts together so that I have something of interest to share, and I love hearing from you in the comments when something sparks a memory or thought for you.

So here’s where I’ve landed for now.

I’m giving up the dream of growing a Substack following as an income stream. As soon as I let go of thinking I’m supposed to be attracting more paid subscribers, I can relax and can just do whatever the hell I want to do at whatever pace I want to do it. I am SO grateful for all of you who are paying subscribers and I hope you’ll continue supporting my broader work with your monthly or yearly contributions, but I’m not going to treat this as a platform whose purpose is monetization, so that I can be freer from the pressure to produce quickly and publish frequently.
Since I’m not interested in monetizing Saltee Goodness anymore - lot’s of other little changes follow:
1. I’ve changed the Saltee Goodness settings so that the full archives are now available to anyone - there will no longer be pressure to upgrade to paid so that you can see what I wrote last year. If you want to read an older post - by God, you should be rewarded for your interest!
2. I’ve removed all settings that prompt you to upgrade to paid, that prompt you to share posts with friends, that prompt you to recommend me, etc. If a post of mine comes along that you love and want to share I trust you know what to do without being harangued by an algorithm.
3. I can consider how often I want to post without being pulled into the logic that shallow frequency pulls in more subscribers than deeper work done at a slower pace. That’s the same logic that has brought us all the slop we are currently drowning in and I don’t want to be part of it.

Here’s what you can expect next:

For the rest of 2025 I’ll be posting here monthly, around mid-month. If that feels right, I’ll continue it into 2026.

In early November (yes, that’s next week!), I’ll be launching the first phase of a new website which will have an events-based monthly newsletter associated with it (like the existing Saltee Academy News, but with a new name). I’m feeling very comfortable and energized by the idea of reaching out twice a month, once there to share events and offers, and once here to offer some nourishing thoughts and reflections.

The only other social media place I’ll be showing up regularly is on Instagram @ sarasalteeart - where I post pics of artworks in progress, finished art works, workshop and event announcements, and pics from life on Whidbey island.

The analog beauty of sharing physical space
Other than that, I’ll be focusing on events and workshops that happen in person, face to face, in rooms where we can be embodied together. I believe we need that kind of community now, and I want the business I’m building to grow out of those grounded human relationships. (I’ll still offer a few online workshops a year to share my work with folks outside of the Puget Sound region - don’t worry!)

There’s so much more to say about what is coming in 2026, but for now I’ll just say again how grateful I am to you for subscribing to this newsletter and how much I value your support and readership!

I’m wondering:

Have you been making shifts in your relationship to social media? What is that looking like?

How are you doing as a Substack reader - do you find it pushy, AI-written and overwhelming, or are you still loving what it brings you and how? Some of both?

Back from the Drift

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