Greta here.

I’ve decided I’m taking over the August featured piece because Christina is burnt out. Just like I warned her she’d be.

She didn’t have a short story or essay for you this month. So I figured I’d write something instead.

This is the second year in a row where August rolls around and things start to unravel. Her vision isn’t so clear anymore. She’s been trying to do it all and, no matter how many times it blows up in her face, she never learns.

The truth is, she’ll never be a great writer.

We spent some time reading other people’s work here on Substack the other day. Then she finished Hazelthorn and started The Dead of Summer. Honestly, I didn’t even have to work that hard after that. I just had to remind her that she’s simply not on their level. If she actually wants to be good, she needs to work much harder. She can’t keep taking breaks to watch birds or wander around the garden pretending she’s “filling the creative well.”

It took me a week, but I finally broke her. I convinced her to numb out. Watch dumb videos. Scroll social media. Stop trying so hard.

I honestly don’t understand why she’s so desperate to shake things up. She has a good life. I constantly have to remind her how hard things were growing up. She should be grateful for the life she has now. Why risk it? Just go to your mediocre accounting job. Stick to the routine. Stop putting pressure on yourself to be someone special.

Nothing you do is ever going to be enough anyway. You’re better off quitting now before you get your heart broken again.

She really wanted to finish her short story about anxiety for this month’s feature, but she mismanaged her time. Instead, she wasted every writing session on her novel convincing herself it’s actually going somewhere. Then there were those newsletters and precious little garden diaries. She actually thought she could finish a quality story in a few days.

I told her not to bother.

“Go watch a movie,” I whispered. “Scroll for a while. There’s always tomorrow.”

And she listened. She always does.

If I can keep her looking at her phone instead of at the page, my job here is done.

By September, I might just convince her to stop writing altogether.

P.S.

Christina here.

Writing this felt terrifying, but honestly, keeping these thoughts locked in my head felt even worse. Plus, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing from Greta’s (my inner gremlin’s) perspective for a while now. So when I was trying to figure out what to write for August’s featured piece, nothing felt right. I started beating myself up for not having anything finished, and somehow I landed on this.

Instead of forcing a story, I decided to share what was actually happening inside my head. Something I have a feeling many of us go through in our own way.

I could sit here and tell you I’ve figured out how to silence Greta, but clearly that would be a lie. Writing is incredibly vulnerable for me, and every time I step a little farther outside my comfort zone, Greta works overtime trying to pull me back in.

But I refuse to let her win.

Maybe that’s what courage looks like.

Writing anyway.

The Dark Petal

A Message From Greta