The Ancient Technology of RSS

And February Rabbit Holes

How have you been?

Since taking my foot off the gas here at Substack I’ve freed up a lot of time and creative energy. If you’re feeling pressure to post weekly it’s worth asking yourself what your intentions are. If it’s all about growth there’s no doubt there is a benefit to posting weekly.

But if you’re looking holistically at your creative ecosystem there may be another rhythm that’s better for you.

Illustration of Yggdrasil (Norse Tree of Life) from The story of Sigurd the Volsung and the fall of the Niblungs by: William Morris.

The time that I didn’t spend writing newsletters I’ve been…

• Reading Norse poetry.¹

• Baking sourdough bread.

• Studying The Wheel of Time from a craft perspective.

• Trying out a new note taking platform called Obsidian.²

• Working on my anthology project.

• Curating my feed (and subsequently reading more Substacks.)

As an elder of the internet, I’d like to take a moment to point out the ancient technology of an RSS feed.

An RSS feed is a chronological, non-algorithmic feed of what you choose to add.

It is basically the holy grail of the internet.

But we left it behind in favor of the siren song of social media.

Before socials, if you wanted to follow updates from multiple sources, you used an RSS reader. Every blog and podcast has an RSS feed (even Substack.)

It’s baked into the DNA of the internet.

What I’ve done is moved most of my Substack reading to a free RSS reader called Feedly.

Most RSS feeds will automatically pull the post and strip away the formatting - meaning you don’t see certain Substack features like embedded posts. I have my Feedly set to open all posts in the web browser. (Here’s how.) This also makes it easy to comment or share. There are lots of ways to show love to posts without subscribing.

My actual subs are now the newsletters I read pretty much every time. The ones I don’t want to miss. If I have time to read more I can pop over to Feedly to see what’s new or to check certain categories like Food or Art.³

I’m also testing out the app again since learning this…

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I haven’t done much art making recently because I’ve been focusing on curation projects (like

Neurokind

& Entwined.) But I have submitted a poem to Motherlore magazine and am preparing works for Painting at Night and Mothering.

I’ve also been doing a lot of journaling and research for my fiction novel. I’ve started writing at my antique secretary instead of the couch and it’s been a lovely change (I’m writing at it now.) Davy has finally reached a stage where he’s happy to play LEGO beside me while I write and it’s a game changer!

sarahdshotts

A post shared by @sarahdshotts

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Other bits and bobs I’d like to recommend this week.

Read

My favorite new sub is

SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE CLUB

. It reminds me of old days of the internet. Just because social media wants us all to yell over each other and be content machines doesn’t mean we have to comply. This post is a great place to start.

Self promotion can be easy breezy

If you’re neurodivergent I can’t recommend this post by

Louise Brown

enough. This sounds deceptively simple, but if you struggle to make time for the things you love this process can be revolutionary.

Looking back this is how I climbed out of a very dark place in 2020 to where I am now.

Moving from Burnout to Balance

I also enjoyed this piece by

Tara McMullin

using sensory overload as a lens to view work stress.

Sometimes we need to reduce the number of layers.

Too Many Layers

Here is a wonderful piece about book writing from

Katherine May

.

Every creator works differently and I love hearing specifics about process.

How I start a new book

Watch

Font and design nerds this is worth opening Instagram for.

ellecordova

A post shared by @ellecordova

Also, this whole feed of embroidered books.

lindenacresdesign

A post shared by @lindenacresdesign

lindenacresdesign

A post shared by @lindenacresdesign

Listen

Another process chat from

Helen Stephens

.

What comes first? The idea or the material?

Dear Helen, I don't really know your work or care much what you do

Play

We played a lot of Dreamlight Valley over the holidays. If you’re a Disney nerd and you like cozy games (where you harvest plants, craft, and collect things) this game is for you. I don’t know why I find this type of game play so regulating, but I just do. Here are some selfies!

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One Year Ago

This time last year I was reflecting on a year long creative collaboration with

Claire Venus

. Instagram brought us together and I’m so thankful for it.

Last Week

In case you missed it, my last post explored my experience submitting work to various opportunities and exhibiting art for the first time.

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This is an indie passion project! Here are some of the ways you can support me.

1. Leave a comment. (This one’s my favorite. And it’s free!)

2. Share this post.

3. Sign up for Self Publishing 101.

4. Subscribe or submit work toNeurokind.

5. Read my book! (Curious what I mean by creative ecosystem? Start here.)

Let’s discuss.

• How do you manage your Substack reading queue?

• Are you an internet elder? What do you miss about the old magic?

• What does your creative ecosystem need right now?

Cheers,

1. Specifically listening to the audiobook of this version (affiliate link) whilst reading along in hardcover and taking notes. I’m researching the Norns (Norse Fates) and Yggdrasil (Norse Tree of Life) for a fantasy novel I’m working on.

2. You can scroll down to the bottom of this post for a little update about how I’m integrating Obsidian into my hybrid (analogue / digital) note taking practice.

3. Actually if Substack created categories we could have one called “Favorites” and it would solve a lot of our overwhelm I think.