I write most of these posts out, roughly, by hand. It's all part of Doing The Work.

There's something about the winter solstice that always lends itself to reflection for me. It is dark and cold and the fleeting light mirrors the rapid dwindling of days at the end of the year. There hasn't been much light in this whole long, grinding year, that is for certain, but today, before the sun sets on this shortest day, I wanted to reflect not on the terrible bits (though there have been a lot) but instead on the one thing that has sustained me through them: Doing The Work.

For me, this year, The Work has largely been writing. I've written more words this year than I've written perhaps in any year before now. I wrote them for myself and for you, not for an ever-shrinking freelance check. I did it by setting a goal of writing 36 posts this calendar year, a number I'll hit exactly despite some of the tragedies and travel of the year meaning that I barely posted in June and August. It was an arbitrary goal, one that nobody was enforcing but myself. But, especially as things fell apart, it sustained me in a way that was a good reminder that The Work matters.

This year The Work saved me.

It's not the first time The Work has done that for me and certainly won't be the last. And so I guess I feel I owe The Work something, a defense, in a year that over and over we've heard about how new tools—offered by men richer than they have any right to be—can save us from The Work.

But here's the thing: There's no shortcuts, not really, to Doing The Work. There's no shortcuts to how it can save your life. The Work is everything. For me, the discipline and rigor of writing regularly brought structure to a year that fell deeply off the rails for many, many reasons. These men are out here insisting that the rigor and discipline isn't worth it, I am here to say: It is.

It is not easy. It is messy and frustrating (so frustrating) and it feels like it can take forever and half the time all you want to do (all I want to do) is quit, but here's the thing: All the mess and frustration and the tangents and mistakes and learning and everything else that goes into actually making a thing from nothing adds up to something that you miss with a prompt. It adds up to The Work.

That work, in all its chaos and messiness, is The Work. And that work will sustain you. It might not make you rich (it sure hasn't for me) but it fills you. And this year, I needed that more than anything. Next year too, most likely, as we suffer through the continued indignities of an authoritarian regime. The Work will be there, ready.

So as the days get longer, as the sun ascends just a little bit more, as 2025 rolls into 2026, Do The Work. Do it the hard way, the long way, the slow way. There is no other way. I'll be there toiling alongside you, getting frustrated, wanting to quit, and pushing through, all of us, each and every one Doing The Work the only way that it can be done, together.

Speaking of Doing The Work, I'm doing something different this year. I'm compiling my favorite pieces that I've written in 2025 into a little perfect-bound zine called They Can't Take Us All, and I'd love if you preordered it.

The act of Doing The Work in this space has been so liberating to me, but digital writing is ephemeral and I think that capturing some of these pieces in a form that feels permanent is nice. So I did it and I'd love if you grabbed a copy.

It'll ship in January, and will be a limited run, signed and numbered, so reserve your copy now to ensure you get it. Thanks!