Through my decades in journalism, I’ve written in a variety of cadences.
-I spent most of my time in college at the student daily newspaper, often there until the presses rolled at 2am.
-I’ve written for dailies, for weeklies, for monthlies (mostly The Atlantic), for quarterlies, for short-notice campaign speeches and long-planned White House addresses, for other outlets on other schedules.
-In the earliest days of blogging in the 1990s, and through the years when Deb and I lived in China and then again when we were traveling around small-town America, I’d often do online posts day by day. I’ve also done that repeatedly in my “Trump Time Capsule” installments about the past decade’s elections, as with this entry on “press normalization” back in 2016.
-For nearly five years now, my online home has been Substack, which came along at just the right time for me and has been a flexible, supportive, and encouraging partner. I’m glad that Substack’s overall reach has grown more than tenfold in that same period.
Through all these changes in pace and platform, the one constant has been my stepping aside every few years to finish a book, or to concentrate on a big magazine project. (Like the Atlantic pieces on The Fifty-First State in 2002, or Chickenhawk Nation in 2015, or the ‘Bureaucratic Horror Story’ of the M-16 back in 1981.) These limited periods of “going dark” have paid off in two ways.
-First, they’re the only way I would ever have gotten the writing done. The easiest and most attractive thing to do when on a big project is not to write, and instead to fritter time and attention on something else. I’ve published 12 books so far—some short, some long, one with the benefits of being a co-author with Deb. All of them required the discipline of a defined time off the grid.
-The second benefit of temporarily stepping aside is that I’ve always felt newly energized once the ordeal of “long-form” writing is behind me, and I can dive back into other subjects and dramas I care about. Each time I’ve felt as if I am seeing things with a refreshed eye.
I’m about to step temporarily off the grid again, to finish a big magazine project I’m excited about. To get it done, I’ll again need to “go dark,” this time for about two months. That will let me come back bushy-tailed just as the fateful 2026 midterm campaigning is revving up, and as the issues I normally cover—from aviation, to rhetoric, to China, to the wayward press, to tech, to the eternal question of “is this country going to make it?”, plus more—will still be with us. Based on past experience, a deep-focus period will help me get out of potential mental ruts and look at events with a keener and different perspective.
During this time, effective late tonight, the Substack system allows me to “pause” all subscription payments. No renewal fees or other costs will be processed during this period, and I’ll receive no revenue. All paid subscriptions will be automatically extended by the length of this hiatus. That is: Monthly or annual renewal notices will come two months (or so) later than they otherwise would. For free subscribers there should be no detectable change. For either paid or free subscribers, no action is needed on your side. All existing archives and links will remain available here. More technical and billing details are below.
I’ll probably pop in from time to time with updates or news reactions, or reports from the project I’m working on. They’ll go out in the usual email way to all current readers, free or paid, with no paywall.
Once I get this magazine project wrapped up, I’ll tell you more about it. And then I will be eager to jump back into the election-countdown fray, and to re-engage with the members of this online community, which has come to mean so much to me.
For now: Head down, fingers on the keyboard, mental focus on that timeless literary mantra, “Clear Eyes. Full Hearts. Can’t Lose.” OK, that’s from Friday Night Lights, whose original TV version Deb and I loved watching in our apartment when we lived in Beijing. But it’s how I’m feeling about this community right now.
Sincere thanks for your interest and support. See you later this summer.
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(a) During this “pause” period starting tonight, the Substack system will accept only new free subscriptions. The paid-or-free subscription system will return to normal when the pause is over.
(b) If you signed up recently for a 7-day free trial, or any other time-limited trial, that clock is also frozen. For instance, if you have three days left on your trial, those three days will start again when I return, and you will not be billed in the meantime.
(c) I’ve learned that the Substack system does not automatically notify all subscribers when the pause is over and billing is turned back on. When I near that point, I’ll send a series of “Now hear this!” emails giving everyone advance warning that the billing system will reset.
We will miss you, but we are already eager to see what you’re working on!
I will miss you!
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