"Women in literature wanting to be alone and seeking pleasure"

5 Thoughts I'm Having

Photo by Alex Hawthorne on Unsplash

Dear Friend,

As 2024 races toward its grand finale, I continue to reflect on where I want to go as a writer (and as a person, in general, if I’m being honest) in the new year and beyond. It’s a thought pattern typical of me (and you, if I were to guess) this time of year.

Last week, Substack Reads posted “What to expect in 2025.” In it, various Substackers provided commentary on changes they’re anticipating in 2025 in the areas of fashion, food, culture, literature, and sports.

Some fellow Substackers are: predicting the rise in popularity and “joy of grilled hispi, also known as pointed cabbage”; anticipating that tea will take center stage over coffee in the new year; and betting that American athletes will get caught up in gambling scandals with the rise of online sports betting.

But two predictions caught my attention more than cabbage and tea (though I did just purchase a lovely new electric tea kettle—I’m becoming so European!).

Ochuko Akpovbovbo of as seen on had an interesting (and predictable, but not in a bad way) thing to say about the future of media in 2025 which got me thinking. She said:

You probably don’t need me to tell you we’re heading toward a serious power struggle between traditional and alternative media in the coming year—but I’m telling you anyway. Everything we’re already seeing—the ongoing decline in trust in legacy media, paired with the rise of alternative personality-driven media via social media, podcasts, Substack, and private newsletters—will come to a head in 2025.

In today’s 5 Thoughts I’m Having, my first thought is this:

1. I find Ochuko’s prediction interesting in the era of America’s soon-to-be re-inaugurated former president suing many legacy media companies for defamation and in the era of many legacy media reporters, both TV and print, turning to formats like Substack, newsletters, and podcasting in order to take ownership of their own content or to simply step back from an extremely difficult (toxic) environment, for whatever reason. (One of my favorite Substacks: Changing the Channel with Kirsten Powers.)

   So, yeah, while Ochuko’s prediction is pointing out something we’ve all been witnessing, she’s pointing it out in a way that we all need to sit up and really consider what that really means. If we are truly not going to trust legacy media… and if everyone turns to “alternative personality-driven media via social media, podcasts, Substack, and private newsletters”… Where are we getting your factual news? Who are we trusting?

   In terms of online forums like Substack, what communities will we belong to and participate in?

   Now, more than ever, the idea of community—both online and in real life—is becoming important to our well-being and to our ability to consume knowledge and the “right” kind of news.

And then there was the prediction from Emma Gannon of the Hyphen (my newest favorite Substack that I just purchased a subscription to for the next year!) about a particular publishing trend that caught my eye:

A publishing trend that is not slowing down: women in literature wanting to be alone and seeking pleasure. Publishing in 2025, there’s Pathfinding, a book about the power of women walking; The Way Through the Woods, a witchy guide to finding your path; and Women Among Monuments, on how women needed ‘permission’ to have solitude over the centuries. My own novel, Table for One, on three intergenerational women seeking time alone, is publishing in April 2025.

While Ochuko got me thinking about the importance of communities we can trust, Emma points out a trend among women to seek solitude, something I’ve been know to mention in the past. Here are the rest of the 5 Thoughts I’m Having about both community and solitude.

2. “Women in literature wanting to be alone and seeking pleasure…” I truly love this phrase. While I mention the need for community above, the need for the contradictory alone time is often on my mind. I’d love to normalize the ability for women to take time for solitude in 2025. We don’t need permission to seek alone time—to travel alone, to take a Saturday to be by ourselves, to choose a hobby that doesn’t include our children or our spouses or anyone else, to grab a book and curl up on the sofa this winter and read. The fact that women are writing about this, as seen with the trend described by Emma, tells me it’s important.

   The above phrase makes me want to sit a spell and define what “alone time” means to me, and what items truly bring me “pleasure”?

3. While Substack is not without faults, it’s my favorite place to spend screen time at the moment. It’s a place where I can both read and write about things that interest me. It’s also a place where I can be alone with those interests, or I can join communities of like-minded people. I can pick and choose who I enjoy reading or trust to get information from. I get to control which subjects I wish to fill my brain and which communities I choose to interact with. That information is delivered to me either via email or through an app. I prefer the app because I already get too many emails, and with the app, I choose when I wish to be in front of a screen. I’d like to continue to be very intentional with the media I consume in 2025. I hope you’ll join me in that intentionality.

4. Speaking of too many emails, or notifications of any kind… Social media continues to be something I intentionally stay away from, for the most part. While I enjoy knowing what my friends, both near and far, are up to, I do not intend seeking that information by scrolling through an exhausting algorithm. I prefer catching up with friends by phone or text. I’ve written a 5 Thoughts I’m Having post on the subject, but I’m saving that for the new year.

5. One of the thoughts that I continuously have regarding this Substack ties into the items above. I’m hoping showing up here each Saturday will inspire me to write more consistently, but I will only show up here if it’s sparking that creativity and bringing pleasure during the limited alone time that I have. My #1 goal in the new year is to finish the fourth novel in the Paynes Creek thriller series. (The first book in that series, Death is in the Details, is currently free on every ebook platform.)

I hope all of you have the happiest of holidays. And I hope you’ll join me here on Saturdays in the foreseeable future for 5 Thoughts I’m Having. Sometimes it will be 5 thoughts about something specific, something I’ve read or watched, and sometimes the thoughts will be completely random and independent of each other. Either way, I look forward to hearing the thoughts you’re having about the thoughts I’m having. See what I did there? Join me in the comments below. Or just drop me a ❤️.

Until next time,

Heather

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Thanks for reading. This newsletter is a consistently inconsistent publication of my thoughts. You can find more of my shorter thoughts and links to things I’m reading in my Notes.

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