This is the newsletter counterpart to Apple Nocom's blog missmansanas.com. I wish I could tell you what it's for and what it's about long-term, but I myself do not yet know. For now, it means receiving a random pensive email from me once in the blue moon, and nothing more.

Let me start by saying: I occasionally still get frustrated by the way things went down with Substack. They made writing letters so easy and community-centric, it's hard not to miss.

I know Substack creators are still alive and thriving - I remain subscribed to over 70 channels. My exit from writing on the platform was a personal choice I'm trying to stand by. At the penalty of my own writing output.

I must start from somewhere, though. So today, I'm writing to all seven subscribers of this sleeping newsletter to talk about my sleeping dreams.

Interesting reads:

• Why I Won't Write on Substack | Joan Westenberg
• Substack’s moderation battle: all the latest news | The Verge

I've long made a medium-sized deal about my career pivot into tech. It started in 2022 when I took an online course for full-stack web development, and it actualized in 2024 when I landed an IT service management role.

It still comes up in conversations because, from 2010 to 2020, I was a marketing & communications girl. And from fifth grade to heaven-knows-when, I very loudly and openly branded myself a writer and artist.

So easily the most common question I get (after "What??") is "Do you miss it? Being a creative?"

I had a long, emotional talk with my best friends about this at the turn of the year. There was more to it than missing the act of creating. I can always keeping making art outside of work, and certainly I enjoy being able to create to live and not just create for a living.

But my new industry demands so many hours and so much mental energy that art now gets so few. Take away rest, fitness, and maintaining relationships, and there's almost nothing left. TLDR - creativity got majorly deprioritized when it ceased to be my day job.

It was a heavy strike to my self-image that I was a maker all my life and now I was a walking talking organizer app for most of the day. (Well, there's more to it than that. And I actually like my job. But that's another story for another time.)

When my best friends and I had our 2024 Wrapped call, the theme of my story was "grieving the old selves." Were I to put down my pen and paper, ink and brush indefinitely, is that something I could be okay with?

Since you're reading this letter, you can safely guess what my conclusions were. Maybe, if you know me at all, you knew even before I did how this was going to go.

The death of Creator Apple was never an option. I just needed to be a li'l dramatic first.

Here are my sleeping dreams, in no particular order: start a YouTube channel and vlog. Get back into sketching, gouache and oil (eventually). Finish a story. Take up contemporary dance. Learn to sing (properly).

Learn to be seen.

I regularly miss the old Internet when things were quieter and more authentic, where maybe I wouldn't struggle so much with being visible. But deep down I long to be a part of this new Internet where the world is both big and small, and there are good conversations to be found between all the noise.

The goal, perhaps, is to find my place in all of that. How do I keep creating in the way I do, and the pace at which I can, but still be a successful "online creator"?

Because the most secret of sleeping dreams, dare I say it, is to do this right here. To create for a living without losing the life in it. To write love letters to you in a space that is mine, no one else's. It's a big, dumb dream. I must start from somewhere, though.

And since this letter found its way into your Inbox, well, I guess that means I've started.

With all the grace I can muster,

Apple