Five years ago today, this book hit shelves and changed my life:
Thank you to all the readers who’ve come on this journey with me. I wouldn’t be here without you. 💛
This missive isn’t about The Last Namsara, though.
It’s about letting go of old dreams so you can make way for new ones.
Five years ago, after selling my first trilogy, I also bought my first house—a dream my husband and I didn’t think would ever be possible for us. The house was a little bungalow on a misty island in the North Atlantic, and it was a total wreck. The moment we walked through the front door, we were greeted by a giant hole in the ceiling. It was dripping water into no less than five buckets.
We fell completely in love with it.
We’d been looking at houses for almost a year, but none of them felt like The One. Until this one. It took quite a lot of TLC to bring it back to life, and now our little yellow house has sheltered us during some of the best and worst days of our lives. During the pandemic, my husband renovated our ramshackle fishing shed and turned it into a romantic getaway for friends, family, and even strangers.
But if I’m being honest, it’s not home.
My life on the island looks beautiful and adventurous and interesting (which is another way of saying it looks good on Instagram) but over the past year, I’ve realized everything is more meaningful when I’m closer to the place I grew up and the people I grew up with. It’s a difficult realization to come to.
When our daughter was born, we quickly realized we wanted to raise her near our families—who lived 3000kms away. We tried to make it work by spending part of the year on the island, and part of the year close to them, but the rising cost of living has made it impossible to keep doing that. So we’ve put our little island home up for sale.
I fought this decision for the longest time, thinking that if we just tried harder, we could make it work. Because leaving means I have to say goodbye. It feels like a failed dream. Every morning this summer, I sat on the back steps and stared at the sea knowing I’d have to let it all go. Knowing this might be the last time I ever set foot in this place that I love.
I’m trying to cultivate hope, though. (In this and other ways.) When I cleaned the cabin for the very last time, after our very last guests left, I found myself looking around at this good, beautiful thing we’d made and had a realization: my husband and I have made a lot of good, beautiful things in all our years together. So isn’t it more than likely we’ll continue making good, beautiful things? I don’t yet know what those things are. But that in itself is something to look forward to.
When I toured with E.K. Johnston a few years ago, she signed copies of her book, The Afterward, with the phrase: Find the next dream. I’ve spent most of these past few months with those words in my head, and it’s made me realize that the next dream isn’t so much new as old. The overwhelming feeling I’ve had since the birth of my daughter is an intense desire to hone in. To simplify. To return to the things that are most important to me, and cut away everything that isn’t absolutely vital.
You may have noticed the format of this newsletter has changed, and that I’ve moved off of Mailchimp and over to Substack. I made this decision because Substack feels a lot like what Instagram was in the early days. Innocent. Unfiltered. A way of connecting with people who had the same interests and building an intentional community around those interests. Is it just me, or does Instagram feel like it’s on life-support these days? I never see my friends’ posts. My feed is mostly reels and ads. A lot of creators who were drawn to Instagram for its beautiful simplicity seem to be really disheartened by the direction the platform has gone in. I’m not giving up on it yet, but I am moving my focus here: to long-form posts and more community-building. I don’t want to be a brand, I want to be myself, and my hope is that the latter will be easier to do here.
You are, of course, free to unsubscribe at any time. But starting this Fall, my aim is to send more personal newsletters (as opposed to promotion-y ones) and to send them more often (instead of just quarterly). I have lots of plans for this space, but I’m going to keep it simple for now and begin with a poll:
Thanks for weighing in!
My next email will be about my writing process and how I wrote my upcoming book, The Crimson Moth (a Scarlet Pimpernel-inspired romantasy featuring post-revolution witches—more on that soon!). There will also be a sneak peek of some very pretty art.
In the meantime: here’s to dreaming new dreams.
I hope you’ll join me.
xo Kristen
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I always love seeing updates from you! Big changes or changing dreams are so hard... I have one that I'm facing and some days it feels paralyzing. I hope all works out the way you hope and look forward to updates!
I just made the same newsletter move and it’s so refreshing. I’m glad you’re enjoying it too!