A Confession
And a Coming Out Letter
Dear Substack Community:Strike that.
Dear World:
There’s something I need to admit – not just to myself, but out loud. There’s power in the commitment that comes with saying something publicly. I need to address this, not because it's surprising, or because it’s new, but because I’ve finally stopped trying to ignore it. It’s something I haven’t just hidden from others, but from myself – buried beneath my own expectations.
This is my coming out letter.
I am… a writer.
There. I said it. It only took a first book draft, a couple dozen essays, and more existential wandering than a monk lost in the aisles of IKEA to admit it out loud. And yet, I write it now with trembling fingers and a heart that isn’t quite sure if it’s brave enough or just tired of pretending. For months, I’ve been circling this truth, orbiting it with poetry and prose, falling in love with the verb of “writing,” but not being willing to accept the label as a noun.
“…because if you really knew what you were getting involved with, you’d run a hundred miles in the opposite direction. And you would not understand the full implications of what is luring you into a much larger maturity.”
He’s right. That spaciousness, the freedom to live in the doing of a thing, without naming it – matters deeply. Things need to go through a natural process, and if we hurry them too much, we can scare them off. We need to take the time to be in that liminal space of not knowing, to let our own truths take shape, without forcing them forward. And for me, that liminal space was a really healthy place to step into. I learned a lot there. It has been a space where I have been able to lean into the verbs: writing, exploring, reflecting. Verbs are safer. They move. They let us stay in motion, stay undefined.
wrote beautifully about this recently, much more eloquently than I could have here.Nouns, on the other hand, are still. They name things. They stake a claim. They demand something of you. But names, too, can be invitations. And it’s time to name what’s already happening. Not to draw a line in the sand, but to point gently at the footprints I’ve been leaving for a while now.
So here goes: I’m not becoming a writer. I am one.
Not because I went to a prestigious MFA program (although I deeply respect them). Not because I have a book deal (yet). Not because I have a cabin in the woods with a vintage typewriter and artisanal tea (although that sounds quite nice).
Simply because I write.
And still, it feels like a risk to say it out loud.
Maybe because claiming this word means stepping fully into a new skin. Maybe because it means truly letting go of an old one.
Maybe because part of me still hears the echo of inner voices asking:
“Who do you think you are?”
I’ll tell you: I’m someone who wrote 80,000 words and still doubted if they counted. I’m someone who crafted 50 poems and still wondered if they were real. I’m someone who left a 25-year career in strategy only to find that the strategy I needed most was one of self-trust.
So here it is, again – named, not for validation, but for clarity: I’m a writer.
Maybe if I say it enough, I’ll start to believe it. Who knows.
For a while, I thought it to be too much of a diversion from my prior life, working in the corporate world. I have no experience being a writer. What gives me the right to claim this path? And then I realized something. I have been writing for most of my adult life. For 25 years, I wrote for companies. Slide decks. Vision statements. Strategic narratives. I told stories for a living. But these were stories made to sell – not to feel. And they weren’t my stories.
Now, they’re mine.
It’s time to tell my story. It’s time to write about what I can’t stop thinking about – the things that feel most urgent, at this turning point in our collective becoming. It’s time to write about the messages I believe are worth our attention – especially now. We are in an age of transition. I’ve said it before. I stand by it. And it represents an opportunity for all of us. It’s an inflection point – a moment where something new and immensely beneficial might emerge, if we’re paying close enough attention. A chance to see more clearly. To act with more care. To meet this moment with greater intention.
I am a writer. Because I show up. I write. And I want to keep writing with more honesty, more attention… and a heart unarmored.
The Path So Far
This shift didn’t come from a plan. It came from silence.
In January, I attended my first Vipassana retreat. Five days of no talking, no reading, no writing. Just breath, sensation, and the orchestra of thoughts I hadn’t realized I’d been avoiding.
The experience was unlike anything I’ve ever done. There was no breakthrough moment, no cinematic crescendo. Simply a deep stillness that began to stir something I hadn’t heard in a long time. Not a voice exactly, but a feeling. A presence. A knowing.
When I came home, people asked, “How was it?”
And I said the only thing I could: It was ineffable.
But that answer didn’t sit well. Not because it was wrong, but because it was incomplete. So I started writing. And writing. And writing. At first, I just wanted to capture a few thoughts before they faded. But the more I wrote, the more I realized I wasn’t just describing the retreat. I was discovering something. I was making sense of something I didn’t know needed sense.
That’s when writing changed. No longer just a tool to explain, but a mirror to see. A way to understand myself by watching what showed up on the page.
The result was a draft of a book. A memoir, of sorts, called Light: A 5-Day Memoir Into Stillness. It started as a simple exercise in recall, but somewhere along the way, it became something else: a deeper remembering. Not just of what happened on the cushion, but of the parts of me that had gone quiet long before the retreat ever began.
That writing pulled something out of me. It awakened a part that had gone long dormant. I also started writing here, on Substack. I created this newsletter as a further outlet for poetry, for prose, for the thoughts that had been rattling in my mind, trying to find their way out. The reception here, and the warm-hearted collaborations, have been so touching. It has encouraged me to continue. To extend the thoughts in directions I hadn’t considered from the onset. I have such enormous gratitude for everyone that reads what I write, and especially those that engage with such thoughtful dialogue. Thank you for being here.
What began in silence didn’t just spark a book. It sparked a way of being I can no longer ignore.
The Work In Motion
Since that first retreat, the writing hasn’t stopped. Not because I’ve found a formula. But because something opened, and I haven’t been able or willing to close it again. The words keep arriving. Some come as poems, others as essays, others as fragments waiting in the margins to find their shape. I don’t always know what each piece wants to become. But I know they want to become something. And my job, I think, is to keep showing up and listening.
Right now, I’m editing my first book (Light). It will soon be released serially on a new Substack publication to invite engagement from those who want to walk with me through the process and offer feedback, before the final version is released in print and audio.
And that’s the beginning.
There’s a second retreat-inspired book already forming. Longer. Deeper. A descent into heavier territory that I’m only just beginning to map.
There’s also a biography of my father I feel called to write. He passed away three years ago this Father’s Day. He was a minister, a builder, a man of quiet conviction. In gathering his letters, voice memos, and handwritten notes, I’m slowly getting to know him again. A new kind of knowing him through his own words, and the ones I’m now learning to offer in return.
Beyond that? There’s a stack of outlines, titles, and seedlings waiting for the right time. I don’t know how long it will take. I’m not measuring this work in quarterly outputs. But the direction is clear.
And, none of this is powered by certainty. What keeps me going isn’t the metrics. It’s the moments. A comment that names something I hadn’t seen. A message from a reader who felt less alone. An insight I didn’t know was there until I saw it reflected back.
I keep a folder called “Letters That Move Me” – comments and messages that evoke connection. I open it on the hard days, the days I forget. Not as proof, but as remembrance, and reminder to keep going.
That’s what this is about: building something slow, attentive, and real. One word at a time.
The Tools
Some people have asked how I approach my writing practice. So let’s talk about the tools.
First off: no one cares whether I draft in a leather-bound notebook or tap away in Google Docs (I use both, by the way). And nobody asks whether I write on a Mac or a PC (it’s a Mac). That debate ended sometime around 2009, along with the charmingly smug “I’m a Mac” commercials.
But mention AI, and the air changes. Suddenly, the tools matter – at least, this one seems to (for now).
How come? Because this one is new. And new things, especially fast, mysterious ones – tend to scare us. And I get that. There are strong views out there about what constitutes “real” writing. Some worry that something essential gets lost when a tool like this enters the process. That it makes the work less personal, less present. That the soul of the writing slips away.
These are fair concerns that deserve our attention. I’ve written about this a couple times before (for those who follow my Notes closely), but I’ll state it again here for clarity. Perhaps the issue isn’t the tools. It’s the attention. Good writing isn’t defined by what we use to make it, but by how we go about it. How deeply we notice, question, and reflect. What matters is whether something was made with presence, curiosity, and a willingness to see clearly.
We fear the tools that change us. I can understand that. And, yes, AI can be misused. So can any medium. However, to dismiss an entire way of working is like saying the typewriter ruined literature, or that photography killed painting. Technology reshapes form, but it doesn’t erase the soul.
Every generation faces the temptation to gatekeep creativity. But art has always been about change. It evolves not in spite of new tools, but because of them.
So maybe the question isn’t whether we’re for or against the tool, but whether we’re open or closed to what change might make possible. To be for something is to be open to new forms of expression – expansions of thought, creativity, and growth. To be against is to resist impermanence. To try and hold back the tide. But change is the only constant, and the question becomes: do we meet it with curiosity or denial? I know where I stand.
What matters, what I believe has always mattered, is how present we are to what we’re making, and why.
And after using AI for some time now, here is what I have found: AI doesn’t diminish my presence. It sharpens it.
This essay you’re reading, right now, grew out of a multi-day collaboration between me and this tool. Not as a ghostwriter. Not as a shortcut. But as a partner in reflection. It’s helped me think more clearly about what it means to come out as a writer. It’s mirrored back patterns in my thinking I didn’t know were there. It’s challenged me to rephrase, to clarify, to pause. In fact, it was this same partner that asked me questions I wasn’t brave enough to ask myself, and in doing so, helped me write more honestly.
It’s also been a companion on an entirely different project: the biography of my father. After his passing, I was left with letters, voice memos, and scattered handwritten notes. AI is helping me translate, transcribe, and hold the pieces gently enough to begin shaping something coherent. Something whole. Not because it has answers, but because it helps me stay close to the questions. It’s helped me hear him again. In a reflective sort of way, it’s bringing his story back to life.
So yes, I use AI. But not to bypass my thinking. To deepen it. It’s like collaborating with a gifted, eager intern who never tires, but sometimes quotes a source that doesn’t exist. You still have to check its work. But in the checking, you find something else: a sharpening of your own discernment. A return to attention. It doesn't replace the work. It makes the work ask more of you.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The issue isn’t the tools. It’s the depth of attention we bring to what we make.
Writing, for me, is about how deeply I listen. How carefully I shape. What I’m willing to reveal or stay with long enough to understand. No tool can do that for me. But some can help me do it better. If anything, I feel more grounded in my work because of this process, not less. And I’d rather be transparent about that now than try to prove my worth to readers under a false pretense later. Because that’s the real breach of trust. Not the use of a tool. But the refusal to name what’s true.
So yes, again, I use AI. But I also use silence. Solitude. Meditation. Memory. Attention. Analysis. Astonishment. And all of it – every note, every pause, every imperfect draft – serves the same end… to remember what matters, and offer it back to the world.
The Why
For me, writing to remember what matters is what feels sacred. To remember who I am beneath the noise. To remember that this life, this fragile, fleeting, unfinished life that we are all living… it’s worthy of our full attention.
I used to think it was the content of life that mattered most: what we did, what we accomplished, what we figured out along the way. But writing has shown me something underneath all of that. Maybe it’s not the what, but the how. Not the outcome, but the method. Not the performance, but the practice.
And practice, by nature, is imperfect. It requires patience. Humility. Reverence. Sometimes, it’s just about noticing what’s already here and choosing not to look away.
That’s what this writing has become for me:
A place to pay attention.
A place to wonder.
A place to let my thoughts, as Roger Hodgson would put it, “take the long way home.”
We’re told so often to chase clarity. And don’t get me wrong, clarity is wonderful and valuable. But what I’ve come to trust more is the quality of my questions. The way they live in the body before they form into words. The way they soften me. The way they stretch me. The way they change me.
Writing helps me hold the mystery without trying to shrink it. It helps me slow down long enough to see what’s right in front of me. To greet the moment instead of racing through it.
This isn’t just content. It’s a conversation – with myself, with you, with whatever lives between the lines. And if it’s useful to anyone else on their own becoming, then it’s worth every word, every character, every punctuation. But even if it isn’t, it’s still worth doing.
Because writing is not just a thing I do. It’s how I remember to stay fully awake. And that’s why I keep going.
The Invitation
So that’s the confession.
Not a pivot, but a return.
This space, Falling Into Place, will continue as it has been:
Tuesday: a poem
Friday: a longer reflection or story
Most days on Notes: a haiku and small reminder to notice what’s here
But what changes, at least for me, is the posture. The way I show up to it. Not with the hesitance of someone dipping their toe in the water, but with the steadiness of someone who knows: this is the work. Not a side project. Not a hobby. A practice. A path.
I don’t know where it’s all leading. And for once, I’m okay with that. Because the point isn’t to arrive. It’s to walk with presence. To write what feels honest. To listen, and keep listening.
I’m writing to stay connected. To myself, to this moment, and to whatever opens when words meet attention. And if something here stirs, resonates, or lingers – then I’d be honored to have you walk alongside me.
If this sparked something, let me know in the comments.
Or share it with someone else who’s walking a similar path.
Let’s keep going.
With gratitude,
Glenn
Naming requires courage. It demands. It asks you to rise beyond your doubts. The timid might hesitate to commit—a fear of letting ourselves down, of not finding the courage for doing. You have gone a step further. You have laid out a plan and made a commitment to a rhythm.
I wish you luck, and all the tears that come when writing reflects the depths of our hearts.
I’ve always maintained that what sets you apart is the generosity of your attention to what you write about. That goes farther than just listening to the thing--on to resonating with it, being with it. We live singular, lonely, desolate lives when we remain only ourselves. You extend yourself and stand alongside what you write. "Our attention is responsive to the world, but the world is responsive to our attention", in the words of Iain McGilchrist, and I am sure the thing you seek shall be yours within your writing.
As for the tools we now have at our fingertips: I think we all see the immense potential of the resonant critic in this one. But I’ve found an even greater tool: this platform, with its many voices. We stand with you as we see you going out there—committed, unafraid, and ready.
This is such a good idea.
I keep a folder called “Letters That Move Me” – comments and messages that evoke connection. I open it on the hard days, the days I forget. Not as proof, but as remembrance, and reminder to keep going.