Henrietta. O ; Article

So What If I am a slow writer 

When I launched my Substack back in November 2025, I had a laundry list of things I wanted to put on here. I set out to post at least two poems a week, long-format articles biweekly, weekly newsletters and a monthly reflection that would eventually be featured solely to my paid subscribers (of which I have none). I wanted to accomplish this within the first three to four months of using Substack. What can I say, my level of self-belief is somewhat delusional.
I saw Substack as a haven for my voice as a writer – returning every now and then, thinking of what I needed to work on next based on the articles, notes and feedback from other writers and readers on here. I didn’t know for the life of me what stopped me in my tracks. I ended up taking an unexpected hiatus from my Substack for months, forgetting at times that this space was intentionally created. Then I remembered
I was no longer posting poetry on a weekly basis, and my articles over time were of the rarest sighting. Now that I have had some time to reflect and I mean really reflect on many things, I have concluded that I cannot build many things at once without a grounded centre. I was splitting my time between too many things, not factoring in my full-time job obligations and the promotional needs of my debut collection What The Silence Gave Me, not to mention the French adaptation that was slowly taking form and many other things that I can’t dive into for the sake of brevity.

For months now I have been twiddling my thumbs wondering where my motivation to write long-format articles like this one wandered off to. I worried that I was experiencing a deep drought of inspiration or maybe slipping back into my perfectionist tendencies, but I realized the reason why I struggled to pick up a pen or type out text to a screen on my laptop is that I was deep in my creative process elsewhere. I was tied up in adapting and translating my debut collection to French, so much so that I no longer had the energy to focus on anything else. Simply put, I don’t know how to multitask, and I no longer feel the need to apologize for it. My creative process cannot be forced into something that it's not, no matter how hard I try to make it so…..


To be Continued on Substack 

Henrietta. O

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