The Winter Hypothesis

It seems that I do my best work when it's cold out. A rationale, plus my top 5 essays from 2024

It’s prime listicle season, y’all. The end of the year means all kinds of “best of 2024” and “future 2025 trends” lists from both mainstream media outlets and small blogs alike. If you have similar online reading habits as me, you’ve probably seen them everywhere lately.

As someone who used to work on staff at a few news outlets, I know the reason for the season all too well. End-of-year listicles make for easy-to-read, compulsively clickable content that doesn’t require too much brainpower to write. This is great for a season when a lot of writers are taking holidays vacations or are generally checked out because of the shorter days and colder weather.

Plus, audience engagement tends to get wonky over the holidays because regular news readers are not following their normal routines. Many are offline, or, alternatively, catching up on their reading lists now that they have some downtime. Publishing articles based on old topics in a “best of” list helps news outlets keep content relevant without having to create anything truly new. It also increases the chances that readers might dig into some of the publication’s older articles and boost engagement as well.

Anyway, that’s a lot of industry jargon to start off with. I promise this newsletter today isn’t about media trends. It’s about my own trends, as well as ones you might even notice in yourself if you’re a writer.

This week, I originally set out to write my own “best of 2024” listicle about my favorite essays that I wrote this year. It’d be a fun way for me to look back on the Substacks I put out into the world these past 12 months and reflect on why I liked them so much.

As I started digging, I noticed a stark pattern: All my favorite posts this year were written during fall or winter.

And the essays that you, dear readers, liked the best were mainly published in those same seasons, too. My articles with the highest engagement in 2024 were almost all from January thru March or August thru December. (There were some outliers, like the newsletter anniversary post I wrote in June and the one I published when we adopted our cat, but the trend still stands.)

That got me thinking. Why would all my best essays be the product of the worst months of the year? Sure, I like fall, but winter just sucks the life out of me and I spend most days during this season wishing it were over.

And yet I seem to be a better writer when it’s cold out. That’s likely because it forces me into a state of introspection that I don’t readily fall into when the weather is nice.

Hiking with Ryan at the dunes last winter.

Summer this year was extremely busy for us between traveling to see family and doing a lot of seasonal activities near home. Honestly, there were weeks when I didn’t even feel like writing my weekly essay because it’d be a slog. Once the weather is nice out, there’s little I want to do besides be outside on the boardwalk with an ice cream cone or lounge at the beach.

And, apparently, the quality of my writing suffers as a result. I’m not even mad about it. It’s nice to know that my creativity has seasons too — just not in the way I thought it would.

If you’d asked me a few weeks ago what times of year I feel most productive as a writer, I probably would have said late spring, late summer, or early fall, which is when I feel most alive. Winter and the months leading up to/out of it make me feel cooped up, irritated, and more tired than normal. I mainly blame the excessive darkness. It’s more tolerable now that I take my vitamin D supplements every day and have a decent exercise routine in place, but winter is still my least favorite season.

Yet I’m crafting essays that I feel great about, apparently. That’s a silver lining if I ever saw one.

So I guess this time of year is prime writing season for me. It makes sense given that there’s nothing to do except sit inside and watch the snow fall. I’ve noticed before that I’ll usually jump into longer-form sedentary activities during the winter as well. I play more video games, read more books, and watch long TV dramas (we’re finishing up the Sopranos right now, which is the perfect cold weather show).

That openness to more cerebral forms of entertainment seems to include writing as well. I’ve noticed over the past few weeks that I’ve been more excited about my writing sessions and found myself brainstorming more ideas for my Substack than normal. It’s a lot easier to absorb yourself in creativity when there’s not much to look forward to in the external world.

I’m curious to see if this pattern will change as the years go on — but for now I’ll just roll with it.

I’ve also rounded up a little listicle about my favorite essays of the year. If there’s a post you liked in 2024 that particularly stuck with you, let me know. I’d love to hear about your favs!

🖤Jenn’s Favorite 2024 Posts🖤

5. RIP to the Brands We’ve Lost

Eulogizing my favorite shops that no longer exist

I’m always a big fan of supporting small businesses, and it’s been hard to watch so many of them close over the past few years. Writing this essay was cathartic; it helped me processes a lot of the feelings about this topic that have been building for a while.

Published Oct. 15

4. Juno’s First Vacation

Bringing our kitty up north was was worth it, despite the yowls and bad farts

I love talking about my sweet kitty, but I want to make sure the stories I’m telling about him are actually interesting, you know? This one was quite fun, since it felt like I was recording the results of an experiment. And we took so many cute pictures of Juno that I really enjoyed sharing with y’all.

Published Dec. 3

3. How I (Accidentally) Became a Local Celebrity

Anyone want my autograph?

Ok, honestly I forgot this happened until I was digging into the archives. How fun is it that I ended up on a billboard once??

Published Jan. 23

2. The Day the Custard Shop Burned Down

The last physical remains of my old job are gone for good

This one made me more emotional to write than I thought it would. I felt like I was paying homage to a younger version of myself that started her career at a very weird time for print media. That first job I had — and the memories I made at the custard shop down the street — made me into the writer I am today.

Published Nov. 26

1. Bye Bye Bimmer

The end of an era

I started chronicling my saga of car problems in summer 2023, and things got so much worse when the new year started. Honestly, it made January and February so miserable that I thought all of 2024 was going to be a bust.

It’s nice looking back now and seeing that Ryan and I survived a financially, emotionally, and logistically terrible time without tearing each other’s heads off. And I’m so glad I took the time to write about this chapter of my life in detail, since parting with my dad’s old car had as much to do with the sentimental value as it did the financial elements.

Published Mar. 5

Honorable mention: The Magic of Chili’s

What's so special about a dying restaurant chain? Several things, apparently.

Going to Chili’s with Ryan and our friend Catherine was a surprisingly memorable experience. This essay was as fun to write as it was to eat a triple dipper combo basket and bottomless chips.

Published Nov. 5

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