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What is Notes from the Town Hermit all about?
Hello and welcome to Notes from the Town Hermit, a haven for the overthinkers and deep-feelers who search for reasons why life should be worth living.
A Sort-Of-Maybe Schedule
You can expect a letter from me on most Mondays. Fiction is posted on Fridays.
Why subscribe?
…you explore universal experiences through your personal lens and put words to the obscure, which helps me both learn and feel understood. Even in your slow read posts, you find connections to real life. And you don’t shy away from the difficult topics, like grief, illness, mental health, and the challenges of writing. —
I write so you feel understood. I write so you don’t have to feel alone in your struggles, and I write to help you find strength to face challenges with courage and dignity. The world can be a scary place and let’s face it: life is hard. You don’t have to go it alone.
Free
Occasional personal essays, opinion pieces, and long previews of my monthly recommendations and book analysations
Membership ($10/month or $50/year)
If you choose to become a member, you get:
My personal essays on grief, motherhood, mental and chronic illness, infertility, and adoption
Sneak peaks and updates on publications before everyone else gets them
Access to community features like threads
Warm fuzzies from the knowledge that you are directly validating and supporting my writing
How do you know if you should upgrade to paid? Consider the following questions:
Do you feel a rush of delight and excitement when you see my emails?
Do you find yourself opening and reopening my letters to read them more than once?
Do you want to participate in this community of kindred spirits?
If you’ve answered “yes” to one or more, consider joining my paid membership.
If you answered “yes” to those questions but are unable to upgrade for whatever reason, send me an email and we’ll work something out.
No matter what, your presence in this space is valuable to me and you are a cherished member of this fellowship.
Why a membership?
My primary reason for having a membership is because I’m fairly reserved but I want to be able to share about things close to my heart without fear of it spreading all over the internet. I also want to be able to go deeper with my community, and this allows me to do so while maintaining personal boundaries. I’ve experienced unkind people on the internet before, and this is the best way I have found to protect myself and ensure that those who are coming into the more vulnerable space are actively invested in me and my words.
Some kind words from a few who have found value in my work:
Yeah, but who are you?
Here follows an introduction of sorts:
I am a deep feeler who likes to pretend I feel nothing. I am a lover of books, particularly those written by authors dead at least twenty years. I am more at home among a grove of trees than a crowd of people. I live far too much in my own head. I have been described as reserved, intense, and heartless. My name is Tiffany. While the facets making up a whole person change from time to time, certain core things remain the same. In my thirty-four years, these are some constants in who I am.
I have always been fairly resilient to tides that tell me what I ought to be, but I am still a person with feelings. I am not immune to the opinions and criticisms of others. But I am also learning to treasure my own voice. I would rather have a hundred followers in whom I have found a kindred spirit, than a thousand who don’t really care about me.
I wish to create a safe space for those like me, who don’t feel quite at home in this world, who feel too deeply and think far too much, for those who want so much more out of life. I have been searching for the reasons why life should be worth living and invite you on this journey with me.
We are a Fellowship
Words hold power. So does your village. Without mine, I never would have found the courage to free my writing from the bars of my personal journals.
And obviously I am a Lord of the Rings nerd.
The Fellowship set out on a quest to rid the world of an evil force. They come together from vastly different backgrounds for a common purpose, and in so doing, forge bonds that last lifetimes. Each member continues to fight for goodness, even after the Fellowship splinters, even when they don’t know whether the others are still fighting or even alive. Each does his own part anyway, and because of their combined efforts, the darkness is defeated.
This is what I hope to convey in this space: that in some small way, and in spite of our differences, I am working to lighten my little corner of the world; may this give you courage to keep fighting too.
There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.
—J. R. R. Tolkien
So here we are, strangers from distant lands, friends of old. Whether you are just passing through or you stay awhile, let this be a haven of sorts while you are here.
With Love,
I definitely wrote about that here. https://www.theauthorstack.com/p/growth-or-something-like-it
This is that bit. Thanks for shouting it out. Glad it resonated :)
Lots of people ask me why I’m so concerned with people monetizing their work. While I appreciate lots of people just want to write, what I have seen again and again is that, eventually, if you don't make money on something, you will burn out at it.
Heck, you might burn out if you do make money on something, but you are sure to do so if you don't.
This is because passions are often hard and expensive, and laying in bed surrounded by books is easy. It's much easier to zone out and play video games than to do the hard work of this blog, or my podcast, or even writing books.
My podcast, The Complete Creative, ran for 200 episodes and made me a total of $100. I loved that podcast, but eventually, it became impossible to put in the resources required to make it better, because it wasn't making any money.
I couldn’t pay for advertising, I couldn’t pay for a better editor. I couldn’t do anything to make it better.
Since I couldn't improve on it, the show stagnated and became boring.
I've met so many people who had to abandon their dreams because they couldn't grow it effectively. Either they didn't have the money or audience to make it worthwhile.
So, they gave up. Maybe they didn't abandon their dream entirely, but it became a hobby they only did sporadically when they had time, and no longer shared it widely with the world.
Yes, some people took it up as a hobby and then got a job, but most people just abandoned the thing they loved because it became too hard to push that boulder up a hill with no reward.
There are only so many hours in a day, and it's hard to spend the few free hours people have on something that costs a lot of money and doesn't grow at all.
However, when you see growth in something it becomes very easy to invest more time and money into it because all your hard work is paying off.
This is why I think it's so important to learn the marketing side of things; because then you will see growth in your business, and invest more into it. Then, there will be more cool things in the world, and I can buy them all.
Even if you make no money, you will at least find more people to appreciate your work. Many creators say they don’t care about the money. I have never met one who didn’t want to find more people that resonated with their message.
Love the tree symbol! The evergreen the always alive symbol of the evergreen spirit. 🌲 Always keeps going!