What is Quiet Calling?
Some thoughts on the lure to share, right here and right now
Dear Reader, I appreciate you.
Your support is giving a sip of water to the seed of intention I’m planting today by hitting publish on my very first Substack post. My hope is that you’ll come back, you’ll share with your friends, and someday you’ll see that many sips of water have helped grow this publication into something wonderful to behold.
My name is Michele Laudig. I’m not new to the writing world, but I’m new to newsletters. And yes, Substack has become such a behemoth that it’s probably already way too popular. It’s almost overwhelming to consider how anyone finds anything on such a vast platform, but I’m trusting that I will connect with the people who are meant to find my work.
It starts with putting myself out there.
That’s easier said than done when social media has made it extremely easy to share passing glimpses of life without holding any of us to sustained attention. I enjoy Instagram a lot, but there’s a kind of satisfaction that’s missing from the quick story or reel.
My career was built on writing and editing, starting with over a decade on the editorial staff at an alt-newsweekly. I had all the cool journalism gigs you could wish for as a 20- and 30-something, covering culture and nightlife, art and entrepreneurship, events and urban revitalization. I was a music editor during the Aughts’ indie renaissance, going out to see live bands most nights of the week. It was as exhausting as you’d imagine, but the perfect job for a music-obsessed poet.
From there, I shifted to food writing, reviewing restaurants and blogging about chef gossip right alongside the rise of celebrity food culture. I considered myself one of the last holdouts of anonymous food critics, keeping my identity under wraps for years. I adored doing this work and put a lot of care into it to gain the trust of my readers. After all, they were spending their hard-earned money on dining out, and I didn’t want to steer them wrong.
Meanwhile, the newspaper kept upping my writing quota, so I churned out more and more content until my wrists constantly hurt and I had a headache most days. When I quit the job, someone mentioned that I was a “writing machine” and that whoever filled my post would probably struggle to keep up.
Friends, as creative beings, we are not meant to be machines.
It’s great to be prolific (if you want), and it’s ideal to share your work with other people (if you want), but may we never, ever be compared to machines. Just because we might be capable of it doesn’t mean it’s good for us.
Alas, I did continue with writing and editing, eventually ditching a regular byline in favor of a corporate job where my work was done anonymously under the banner of a tech giant for over a decade. My writing is all over the world on products, websites, articles, and marketing content. I was employed as a resident expert on the “voice” of a certain brand. And all the while, I didn’t push myself to put out my personal writing.
But my writing wanted to exist. I want to write about my journey and the magical things that bring me a sense of awe in life. I care about creativity, healing, and the relationship between the two. And since I’m living my dream in Tokyo — where I moved about 20 years after I expected to — I have a lot to say about life in Japan and the charms of its culture.
I’ve had a persistent feeling that I must not only create but share, just for sharing’s sake. At some point, the notion of creating a Substack prompted the need for a name.
And there it was. Quiet Calling. My answer to that inner urge. My tribute to intuition. And a gesture to celebrate the different kinds of beauty I encounter, just because I want to put more of that out into the world.
Thank you for being here.