New Year, New Newsletter

Welcome to work in process!

Hellooo and Happy New Year!

It’s been a long time coming, and this week I’m excited to bring you the first installment of my new weekly newsletter: work in process.

So often in life, business and publishing we’re told to “find our niche” and “specialize.” Our personal brands need to be narrow, the conventional thinking goes, in order for followers to know who we are and what we stand for. If we try to cover too many bases, we’re warned, our audience will lose the thread.

I listened to that for a while. Whoops!

Happily, though, I’m not just one thing. If you’ve read my writing, you know that I have a wide-ranging appetite for writing, books, running, wilderness, travel, adventure, culture, parenting, publishing, bicycles, rivers, flow, fiction, and Zen. A partial list.

I’m all things all at once, on any given day, in any given week or year. And, I suspect, you are, too. Congratulations! This is the definition of curiosity.

The more I thought about launching this newsletter, the more I realized that there is a unifying thread linking all of our individual interests. That thread is process: the inspiration, ideas, effort, practice, collaboration, instinct, originality, and experimentation that goes into any meaningful pursuit, large or small, ordinary or extraordinary, success or failure.

Earlier this week, on New Year’s Day, my husband, Steve, and our two teenage daughters hiked with close family friends to a remote, backcountry hot springs in the Jemez Mountains. Unlike the first time Steve and I went to San Antonio Hot Springs, more than 20 years ago, the gate to the forest road was open and there wasn’t enough snow to ski in. We could have driven the ten miles roundtrip, but it was our first outing of 2024, and we were determined to walk (sorry, kids!). Tire tracks in the packed snow indicated we would not have the springs to ourselves this time.

Two hours later, as we approached the rock pools, we heard gun shots and came upon a wild-eyed man throwing F-bombs from beside a beat-up pickup truck, six eight empty beer bottles sticking out of the snow in a row, and a huge, shaggy shepherd-mix sniffing the ground. “Let’s partttty!” he called, patting the gun in his pocket. There were eight of us and one of him, but the gun changed everything. We all got the same creeped-out, hair-standing-on end feeling, so we turned around and walked out of the canyon without soaking.

On the way down, the stream of traffic intensified, 2WD cars laboring up the rough, icy forest road; a gas grill wobbled in the bed of a pickup, preparations for a backcountry blowout. We were tired and sore from walking ten miles and disappointed that we hadn’t made it to the springs, but we’d still had a long, fun (mis)adventure with friends, and back in Santa Fe, we went out for nachos and beers, and laughed about the day.

The next morning, my friend Blair sent me a text: “Like so many times before, thanks for getting us all out on the trail—a 10-mile walk to a destination not worth going to. Instead the journey was where it was at!”

This struck me as a perfect metaphor for process. Our efforts aren’t always going to take us where we’d hoped to go, and sometimes the snow will suck, the way will be icy, the wilderness weirdly crowded, and we will face dubious characters, pointless destinations, and underwhelming outcomes. But the process of getting there, and back, is almost always more interesting than the result. What appears like a dead end could be a doorway. Everything feeds the next thing. Ideas are everywhere. You just have to pay attention.

I bring you this newsletter in that same spirit of curiosity and discovery. My intention is to let you in on my own processes—in art and sport, at work, in the world and the wild, and at home—and share others’ creative endeavors that inspire me each week. You can expect bits and pieces of what I’m reading, writing, wondering about, dreaming, trying, practicing, and noticing.

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work in process is also where I’ll share opportunities for practicing and studying with me, dates and details for future Flow Camps and writing workshops, as well as invitations to upcoming events for the release of mysecond book, Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World, a story of a wild and circuitous journey with surprising outcomes. Pub date is April 16, 2024!

Please help build word-of-mouth and bookseller buzz by pre-ordering your copy today, online or at your favorite indie bookstore! Thank you for your support!

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I’m kicking off 2024 with a tea + writing workshop this Sunday, January 7 from 3-7 pm MT at Folklore Santa Fe. This is an IN-PERSON AND ONLINE event, so you can join us by Zoom from the coziness of your own home! This winter afternoon retreat, co-led by Colin Hudon of Living Tea, will be a intimate, inspiring gathering that combines tea ceremony with sitting and walking meditation and writing practice—an ideal setting for dreaming your way gently into the new year. We’ll be sharing prompts and process ideas for writing and mindfulness, as well as habits and rituals to support you in 2024. Prices range from $55-$170. In-person spaces are nearly sold out; register now!

Finally, one of my great hopes for work in process is to invite more communication with you, my readers. As a WFH writer in the post-Covid era, I’ve been missing chance encounters and serendipitous conversations. Community is such a fruitful part of process, and it’s essential to flow. I’d love to hear from you!

For now I’ll be offering work in process freely, but in coming months I will make additional content and collaboration available to you for a modest monthly subscription fee. I’m still very much a Substack novice, so please bear with me as I figure things out. That’s part of the process, too!

I hope you’ll join me out on the trail, wherever it leads us; I can’t promise it won’t sometimes be random, but I’m pretty sure it will be worth the journey.

I’m very glad you’re here!

Xo Katie