Good enough for now
Audience, relationships, ego, and incessantly asking "why"
Welcome to So Relatable, a newsletter that helps creative folks improve their craft, achieve their goals, and eat better snacks. I’m glad you’re here! ✨
Hi, again. Did you miss me?
This newsletter seems to have morphed into a monthly missive rather than a bi-weekly email. Can you believe I used to hit send every single Sunday? While I can’t promise any particular cadence moving forward, I hope that my appearance, regardless of when it graces your inbox, remains a pleasant surprise.
As for why I keep disappearing, rest assured—it’s not you, it’s me.
When I started this newsletter five years ago, I focused on the creative process—mainly, mine. I used experiences from my life to illustrate artistic ideas and share personal details. During that time, I wrote and failed to sell two novels, bought a house, survived a pandemic, turned our front yard into a garden, became obsessed with rock climbing, ate countless snacks, and sent 164 letters to you about every step of the journey.
Then: a run of failures I didn’t want to dwell on. A crisis of creative confidence. Intrusive questions about what, and how, and why. After a life spent oversharing on the internet, my public persona began to feel like a stranger.
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Ann Friedman, author of one of my first and favorite newsletters, recently wrote about parasocial relationships and the line they force us to walk. “Any creative person who hopes to build an audience is under pressure to share not just their work but the intimate details of their life—to cultivate a relationship that feels real,” she writes. When I read this, I felt it in my bones. Of all my writing projects—published stories and essays, unpublished novels, freelance work, corporate content—it’s the self-published stuff that garners the most readers. My art is hit or miss; writing about myself is a slam dunk.
is another writer who thinks a lot about online life, but her POV is much different from Ann’s. She applauds parasocial relationships as a savvy strategy to build an audience that can support your artistic career. Which makes me wonder—who, exactly, is my audience? What, exactly, is my career? You, reading this right now—are you a reader, or a writer? Do you want to consume my work, or feel encouraged to create your own? Am I the protagonist of my story, or a supporting character in yours? And how much does all this actually matter?Ann, again: “There is always a cost to revealing yourself, so you better be sure about what you’re getting in the exchange. Is it book sales? Is it audience loyalty? Is this actually part of your creative practice?”
Since the beginning, I’ve claimed this newsletter is part of my creative process, that writing it is in service to something bigger, better, more prestigious.
But what if this newsletter is the pinnacle? What if this is as good as it gets?
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I’m going through a phase—call it midlife, I guess—where I’m asking myself why. Why this job, this friendship, this habit, this goal? Why this effort? Why these values?
The answers vary. For convenience, for ego, for fear, for love. For pleasure. For community. For ego, again, if we’re being honest. I’m trying to be more honest.
I don’t view this newsletter as a quid pro quo, but I know giving it up would feel like a loss. Of all my writing projects, this is the one I keep returning to. I’m not sure what that means, and that’s okay. Art is about questions, even when the answers keep changing. As long as we’re still asking why, we’ll be okay.
Snack Break
For someone with no children, I sure love a child’s birthday party. Celebrating a baby’s first year of life (not to mention the parents who kept her healthy and happy) is a joy and a privilege. Plus: cake! This particular baby loves Yoda, so she got a special Yoda smash cake, while the adults enjoyed a pistachio and coconut concoction that I will be dreaming about until she can legally vote. A perfect way to snack through a Saturday afternoon. 💚
Relatable Recommendations
Reading: The Blue Maiden by Anna Noyes, with whom I attended a writing residency way back in 2015. If you like weird and witchy stories about sisters on a remote island set in the 1800s, this is the book for you.
Watching: Dark Matter, an Apple TV series based on a sci-fi book Nathan liked. It’s been an entertaining romp through the multiverse.
Scrolling: I am here for this essay on opting out of upgrade culture via
. When we decided to get married, I was adamant about not wanting an engagement ring; for the wedding, I chose a $200 gold band, which I still love 12 years later. Bigger is rarely better!Growing: It’s summer, baby! Right now, we’re eating the last of the beets (much to Nathan’s relief), tons of cucumbers, the first ripe blackberries, and fresh basil on everything. Local friends, don’t be surprised if I leave a cucumber on your doorstep.
Feeling: The month of May went a bit off the rails due to work stuff, personal stuff, and physical stuff. Luckily things are getting back on track (as evidenced by the fact that I actually wrote a newsletter!). I’m hoping this bodes well for June. 🤞
Coffee Club Contributions
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👋 About Me: I’m Chrissy Hennessey, an enthusiastic snacker and native New Yorker living in coastal North Carolina, where I stayed after earning my MFA. My writing has appeared in a decent number of journals, I’ve received fellowships to some fancy residencies, and I’ve written three novels, all currently unpublished. This newsletter is a passion project I started in 2019 as a way to connect with readers and writers, share my creative journey, and build a community. Thank you for being here!
In that same phase myself, Chrissy. So, right here with you, questioning everything. I told myself when I started my newsletter that it was for me. It was a place to work through thoughts and just say the things I needed to say. I was not going to build a "brand," because I'm not a brand, I'm a person. I wasn't going to worry about what would get more followers or subscribers or whatever. But it's a struggle to stay true to that vision.
And as someone who has also written quite a few novels that have failed to be traditionally published (I self-published one of them last year), I find that I keep coming back to my newsletter because it's so much faster and simpler and more rewarding than writing a book and then querying it or sending out short stories that take 9 months to be rejected. So, it's instant gratification and I think given that everything else in a writer's life is so, so slow, that's totally okay.
I cannot remember how I found my way to your newsletter, but it is always a delight. I do miss seeing it every Sunday, but can't imagine how much work it is to keep up that pace. Just confirming that it is indeed a pleasant surprise every time.