Reintroducing Coasting
Getting back on track and a flick through the archives
Hello! I’ve spent some time this week revamping this newsletter - updating the about page, writing new welcome emails and planning out content for the next few months - and I figured it might be a good opportunity to do a reintroduction.
But first, let’s go back in time for a second. It’s September 2022 and I’ve spent the summer sort of living in my van (aka also spending a lot of time at my parents’ house and hogging friends’ spare rooms). I’m in the middle of a month in Scotland and I’m in Wetherspoons in Fort William, which is where you’ll have been able to find me most mornings. It might not be the image that first comes to mind when you imagine the digital nomad dream, but Wetherspoons actually makes for the perfect co-working space: plug points, wifi, unlimited coffee refills for £1 and nobody cares how long you stay. I should be working on a book draft that I’m already six months late handing in but I’ve just found out about this thing called Substack (late to the party, maybe?) and I’m busy setting up a newsletter.
I was really excited to try and grow a community here and build a bank of useful content, full of ideas for adventures, details of my favourite routes and spots, behind the scenes of freelancing and being nomadic, personal pieces of on being in your early 30s and having chosen a slightly less traditional life. A place to share writing that felt a bit more intimate, I guess, than a website and less soul destroying than spending lots of time on some social media content that only a tiny fraction of your audience ever ends up seeing (cheers algorithm).
I’m a big fan of the paid subscription model too. I strongly believe that if we want to read/watch/listen to good stuff then we need to make it financially viable for people to create those things, and this is a way I really enjoy supporting my favourite writers, podcasters, etc. I can’t afford to subscribe to everyone I like and sometimes I dip in and out and scale back depending on my own circumstances, but they’re direct debits that I never mind seeing come out of bank account each month (unlike my car insurance, ugh). This is something I wrote about in more detail when I turned on my paid subscriptions for this newsletter early in 2023.
And things got off to a good start. I was in a good rhythm of sending out two posts per week and my subscriber count (both free and paid) was steadily growing. I was figuring out both what I wanted to write and what other people wanted to read, and there was something about the whole thing that just felt really fun and really nice.
Then somewhere along the way it all unravelled a bit. I was finding life quite hard and couldn’t work out how to balance that with writing honestly. I was aware that there was a limit to how much people wanted to read about me being miserable, yet somehow it felt disingenuous to tell you all about an amazing hike I thought you should go on when actually I’d spent all day in bed. And the thing about being self-employed is that although you do have the luxury of setting your own schedule and can take some time to recoup when you’re feeling rubbish, nobody is going to pay you when you don’t get out of bed. So you add being worried about money into the mix of whatever was wrong in the first place, and then you end up in a soggy spiral of feeling really sorry for yourself which isn’t motivating at all.
While 2024 has been a marked improvement on the two years prior, I feel like I’ve never really got back into the swing of things over here on Substack. I’ve shared a post most weeks recently but had a hangover of embarrassment about my past patchiness and a bit confused about what my ‘offering’ is. But feeling embarrassed is a rubbish reason to not at least try to get back on track - so that’s what I’m doing now.
I’ve got a long list of things I’m really excited to write about, broadly divided into two categories:
Running, adventure and the outdoors: sharing everything I know from nearly a decade of adventures! Route suggestions, adventure ideas, ultra-running advice, gear reccomendations, etc.
Writing, books and freelancing: all things writing and books, what I’ve been reading, behind-the-scenes of my ongoing mission to spend more time outside and less time on Zoom.
The way I see this panning out is that on Fridays you’ll get a weekly newsletter (probably a bit more personal, what’s been going on that week, current favourites and recommendations) then most Tuesdays you’ll receive more of an article or guide. All subscribers will receive two newsletters for free each month, plus news and updates about new books, events, etc. An annual paid subscription works out at less than 90p per week and for that you’ll be able to read all content in full (1-2 new pieces per week) as well as getting access to the complete archive. I also really went to experiment with some audio content and more discussion threads.
I’ll be kicking things off next Tuesday with all the details of staying at YHA Black Sail, the legendary Lake District hostel you can only access on foot (and top tips on routes to avoid after we ended up in scree-based hell).
If you’d like to join the Coasting community, then I’m currently running a special offer so you can have a month’s free trial to see what it’s all about.
Those of you who are already paid subscribers, I’ve rolled your subscription over so you get an additional 30 days for free too. Thanks so much for your support and for sticking with me!
I’m not writing from Wetherspoons today, but instead from the kitchen table. This has its advantages: the coffee’s probably better at home and there aren’t any big groups having a boozy Friday lunchtime to distract me. The downside is that I’m not in Scotland, so peaks and troughs. I’ve blocked out the afternoon to go and do some navigation ahead of my Mountain Leader assessment which is getting scarily close. It looks like it’s about to start bucketing it down but I guess that’s even better practice?
I hope you all have a great weekend. If you’re looking for something to read, then here are some of my most popular posts from the archive:
Whatever you write I enjoy reading Elise and I always look forward to seeing your posts land in my inbox - however frequently or infrequently that is. I think we can place loads of pressure on ourselves to be what we think others need (talking to myself here too!!) when what we most need is for you to be you - whatever that looks like. I loved reading Coasting because you were honest, funny and showed the reality of adventures (and as someone who's never done one, I had epic levels of respect!). Self employment is like being on a trampoline I think, one minute you're loving it, you've had a fantastic experience or something has gone brilliantly, the next you've convinced yourself no-one will ever want anything you do ever again and you're eating jammy dodgers for inspiration and feeling overwhelmed - me last week :-).
Long ramble, but keep doing what you're doing, it's great.