it's summertime and the livin is NOT easy!

in other words: I'm taking a summer break (and maybe you should, too)

Hi friends,

Happy pride month! 🌈 How’s it going? I’m on my second iced latte of the day, thanks for asking.

I have something to admit to you all today:

I am cheating on this newsletter with my novel.

*boo, hiss, tomato tomato*

I know, I know! But something had to give. For the rest of the summer, I’m pressing pause on new HYPER/FIXATED essays so I can give my book-in-progress a real, concentrated push.

At the same time, I’ll be reopening the substack archive and sending out some of my favorite early pieces—ones I still love, but that only about a hundred people or less were here to see the first time around. There are so many more of you now (over SIX HUNDRED!!), so I’m excited to share some of my early pieces again to fresh eyes.

Think of it as a little rerun season while I go finish the thing I’ve been a broken record about this whole time.

Why a break, and why now

As the great Ella Fitzgerald once sang, “it’s summertime, and the livin’ is easy.”

Well…sorry Ella, love you, but I respectfully refute that claim.

Some quick maths: I am juggling a new full-time senior editor job, a big fiction writing workshop coming up, a weekly substack essay, five weddings in the next three months, a 30th birthday looming at the end of the summer, and about 60,000 words (~220 pages) of a manuscript already written.

I sat down a few weeks ago and thought about my goals for this year. Despite very sage advice from the much older and wiser members of my writing cohort to take my time and remember I’m still young, I have decided that I must have a finished first draft by the time I turn 30 at the beginning of September. Think about it: A fat pile of pages sitting next to my 30th birthday cake. A huge milestone to commemorate another huge milestone.

Is it silly? Maybe. Is it a self-appointed deadline I also sorely need in order to stop kicking this can down the road? Most definitely.

Unfortunately, I also came to the realization that every substack essay I write here comes from the same creative and emotional well my book drinks from.

For a while, I’ve been trying to do everything all at once, and I keep hitting the same wall. I can either keep ideating and writing meaningful weekly essays, or I can go full-tilt on my novel.

I can either make this the Summer of Fun HYPER/FIXATED Content or the Summer of Actually Finishing My Major Draft.

Alas: The book wins.

But, dear reader, never fear! I won’t be leaving your inbox for good. I’ll be back soon, and I have some things cooking for you in the meantime.

What will happen in your inbox instead

I don’t want to fully disappear into the summer doldrums. I also don’t want to feed the algorithm a steady diet of half-hearted “quick updates” just to prove I’m still alive.

So, like your favorite 90s sitcom, I’ll be doing some summer reruns.

Over the next couple of months, I’ll be resurfacing some pieces from the early days of this space—back when it was small enough that I actually knew everyone on the email list by name. These are essays I’m proud of, and that shaped what HYPER/FIXATED has become, but they slipped past most of you while we were still in the double digits.

You’ll see those older pieces come back with a brief note at the top—when I wrote them, what was happening in my life at the time, maybe what I’d do differently if I were writing it today. Part of the fun, for me, is letting you see the earlier version of my brain in public.

If you’ve been here since the beginning, consider this a chance to reread with a different context. If you joined more recently, you’ll finally get to meet the backlist instead of only the front-facing new stuff.

What this means for paid subscribers

If you’re a paid subscriber: first, thank you. Truly. Your support is a big reason I can even think about carving out time for this novel.

During this summer stretch, paid folks will get:

• The same rerun essays as everyone else, plus

• The occasional behind-the-scenes note when I come up for air. If i’m feeling brave, this might contain some sneak-peek excerpts from parts of the book I’m feeling good about. Mostly, it will be updates on how the novel is going, what I’m learning by stepping away from constant new content, and the tools/systems I’m using to protect book time.

I’m not going to flood the feed with process minutiae, but I do want you to feel looped in on the thing your support is actively enabling. If it ever feels like the balance is off—too quiet, too noisy—I’ll adjust.

If taking a break from paid for a bit makes sense for you while I’m in this season, I fully get it. You can always come back. There is no moral test here.

What I hope you’ll take from this

pretending this will be my next three months when actually i’ll just be on the computer typing away

Maybe this post made you realize that you might need a summer break, too?

I suspect many of you are also juggling long-term work with the pressure to post, share, and ship constantly. If watching me put the newsletter on seasonal simmer gives you a tiny bit more permission to protect your own deep work—whether that’s a book, a business, a practice, or just your internal life—then this experiment will already feel worth it.

I’ll be back in your inbox soon with the first resurrected essay from the archive, plus the story of when and where I wrote it. In the meantime, I’ll have Scrivener open (either at my desk or on my phone on the metro), trying to get this first draft over the finish line.

See you in the archives,
Ashley

Before you go…

• THE COMPOUND by Aisling Rawle — I’m starting off my summer break early with this quick read. As the NYT Book Review says, “It’s fun to watch hot people do psychotic things in this novel. . . . Smart and provocative [and] so damn addictive.”

• Biking to work — it’s not like I invented the concept, but…there’s this amazing bike path that runs almost from my house in northern Virginia to

a 9 mile bike ride to work isn't so bad when you've got this scenery

• Couples Therapy (the TV show. but I guess I love couples therapy too) — oh my god, how have I gone so long without watching this show? My household is tearing through these seasons. Every time Orna leans forward and raises her eyebrows, I know either something crazy is gonna come out of somebody’s mouth or I’m about to hear the most profound, mind-blowing therapy speak. I love watching this show like a sociologist. The human mind is fascinating!