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Kate Ann Joy. Untitled (Self Portrait), 2025
Kate Ann Joy. Prelude to "Breathwork", 2025.
Preludes is a collection of conceptual photography which accompanies Don't Be A Stranger, releasing between April and June 2026 in London, U.K. Visual art and updates on Instagram
Twist & Shout
Don't Be A Stranger | Author's Note 4/40
Principal Subject (Primary Confidant): “Of course I care about you. I cared about you then and I care about you now.” – 19/10/2024, 4:30 AM
The Opportunist: “You shouldn’t wait around for him.” – 23/11/2024
Principal Subject: “So, I heard you used [The Opportunist]’s toilet.” – 13/12/2024
...
Confidentiality is often treated as a matter of tone rather than conduct. A lowered voice, a serious expression, an assurance that this will not be repeated. In practice, what is called secrecy frequently functions as staging. The impression of privacy is created in the room. The reality of circulation begins after it.
In this case, a single explanation was offered once, carefully. The outline was not theatrical. Details were selected, not emptied out. Names, places, and timelines existed, but the telling withheld spectacle. The admission was framed as orientation for future caution, not as material for a crowd. The listener accepted this presentation with apparent gravity. Agreement, concern, solemnity. The usual choreography.
What followed did not match the performance. What had been shared began to move elsewhere, detached from the circumstances that made the original act of sharing possible. It appeared in side conversations, in warnings, in asides that shaped how others watched the subject enter a room. Information that had been earned through exposure became a quiet form of currency.
The information traveled without the subject, altered tempo in social spaces, and adjusted the volume of interest long before a word was spoken directly. The quiet surrounding this exchange did not indicate respect. It indicated conviction that the subject would never be in the audience.
Every networked injury begins with a first listener. In this case, that position belonged to the confidant who received the original version directly. Said account did not arrive as gossip. It arrived in the quiet register usually reserved for significance: low tempo, measured detail, a clear distinction between past and present. The expectation was simple. Information surrendered in risk would be held in confidence, or used to adjust conduct toward greater care. The confidant chose neither.
...
Read the full essay and follow the full arc on Substack
Visual art and updates on Instagram
Don’t Be A Stranger is a forty-part essay series about what people do with intimacy when they don’t know how to carry it. About silence after harm — and the architecture built in its place. Each essay functions as a standalone structure: declarative, critical, poetic. Together, they form a long-form companion to a conceptual art arc releasing from April to June 2026.
New essay every Wednesday.
Thank you to those who have been following this series so far!
The newest installment is available now
Recorded History
Don't Be A Stranger | Author's Note 3/40
Principal Subject: “I’m concerned because this narrative is reflecting poorly on my reputation.” “I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve done.”
Witness 0: “I know.”
– 07/11/2024
...
This is not an argument. It is a conclusion.
Ambiguity, once effective, has lost its function. It was never neutral. It was tactical. Manufactured through blurred gestures and unfinished interactions, it existed to postpone recognition. What once dispersed attention now concentrates it.
The events were not accidental. They were choreographed to unfold in public, where emotion could be contained by etiquette, and truth could be denied without outright lying. The strategy held only while confusion persisted, while those present remained silent.
But confusion has a shelf life. Patterns repeat. Silences stretch. The performance outlives its illusion.
This is not interpretation. It is registration. The gestures were made. The consequences followed. Nothing needs to be proved, only acknowledged.
The curtain never closed, and the audience never left.
The record did not begin with language. It began with recognition.
Long before anything was named, the dynamic had already been registered. A shift in atmosphere. A pause that lingered too long. A conversation that collapsed mid-sentence. They weren’t dramatic, but repeated impressions become memory.
Observation sharpens what private experience can blur. No one needed to understand the full context to know something had changed. What they noticed, in posture, in presence, in silence, was enough. The legitimacy of that noticing does not depend on explanation.
This is the part most often misunderstood: that witnessing itself is a form of confirmation. The moment a change is seen, even silently, the event exits the realm of the personal and enters the record. It becomes part of what is known, not because it was discussed, but because it was absorbed.
The room did not need to be told. It already knew.
...
Read the full essay and follow the full arc on Substack
Visual art and updates on Instagram
Don’t Be A Stranger is a forty-part essay series about what people do with intimacy when they don’t know how to carry it. About silence after harm — and the architecture built in its place. Each essay functions as a standalone structure: declarative, critical, poetic. Together, they form a long-form companion to a conceptual art arc releasing from April to June 2026.
New essay every Wednesday.
Essay #3 of my series Don't Be A Stranger: Author's Notes is out now
Kate Ann Joy. Don’t Be A Stranger (Self Portrait), 2025.
Kate Ann Joy. Watch Your Step (Self Portrait), 2025
Right To Return
Don't Be A Stranger | Author's Note 2/40
Witness No. 1: “So what exactly is going on between you two?”
Principal Subject: “Infatuation.”
– 08/03/2025
...
Return rarely announces itself. It arrives the way interruption does: quietly, almost accidentally, as if it had not yet been granted permission to exist. The first return is rarely the last, and rarely the truest. It is more a hand on the doorknob than a step inside.
Rhythms reveal this. Attempts at reentry often begin as a reflex rather than a responsibility. A sighting. A shared room. A familiar doorway. What looks like intention may only be proximity. What feels like progress may only be the instinct to remain near what was left unfinished.
Early approaches, when they occur, are clumsy. They carry the weight of what has not been resolved, but not yet the language to name it. They are shaped less by courage than by curiosity. Yet, even in their incompleteness, they confirm something essential: the ending claimed by quiet withdrawal was never complete.
Reentry is sometimes mistaken for repair, but the two are not synonymous. A step back into proximity without acknowledgement merely resets the distance. It does not bridge it. What collapsed remains collapsed until named, and what was abandoned remains uncarried until claimed.
There is a myth that time softens consequence, that distance dilutes impact, and that silence can function as a neutral placeholder until one feels ready to reemerge. But time does not erase what was left undone, it only defines its contours. The longer the pause, the higher the cost to resume. Delay is rarely confusion. More often, it is convenience, protected by the silence of those who know the truth but choose not to disrupt it. Delay does not reduce responsibility, it compounds it.
There is a quiet calculus behind the absence of closure. It was not cruelty that kept the door from shutting, but fear. Fear of finality, of accountability, and of losing access to something once felt but never fully claimed. The distance was not clean because it was never intended to be. It preserved the possibility of return without the discomfort of responsibility. To step away entirely would have required acknowledging what was left behind, and to step forward fully would have required carrying it.
So instead, the door remained ajar, not out of certainty, but out of hesitation disguised as strategy. Closure was never offered because to end something clearly is to admit what it once meant, and what was done to it. But that safety has an expiration. What once functioned as openness now marks a limitation. What once preserved opportunity now reveals the refusal to arrive.
...
Read the full essay and follow the full arc on Substack
Visual art and updates on Instagram
Don’t Be A Stranger is a forty-part essay series about what people do with intimacy when they don’t know how to carry it. About silence after harm — and the architecture built in its place. Each essay functions as a standalone structure: declarative, critical, poetic. Together, they form a long-form companion to a conceptual art arc releasing from April to June 2026.
New essay every Wednesday.
Essay #2 from my series, Don't Be A Stranger, is up now. I appreciate everyone who has gone over to my new blog to check out this series as it unfolds.
Kate Ann Joy. Nancy (Self Portrait), 2025. Visual art and updates on Instagram
Kate Ann Joy. Prelude to "Transfer of Custody", 2025.
Preludes is a collection of conceptual photography which accompanies Don't Be A Stranger, releasing between April and June 2026 in London, U.K. Visual art and updates on Instagram
Kate Ann Joy. Untitled Self Portrait, 2025. Visual art and updates on Instagram
Drinking Alone
Don't Be A Stranger | Author's Note 1/40
“You really do enjoy your own company, don’t you?” – 29/08/2024
...
Silence doesn’t absolve. Silence accumulates. Often, the only witness to silence is the clock moving forward, one tick at a time. Each person builds their own relationship with time and how it passes, with or without permission. For some, this is a comfort. Time, allegedly, heals all wounds. For others, time is endurance, and in endurance: observation.
Prolonged quiet reorganizes behavior. Messages unsent become habits. Responses rehearsed in thought lose their urgency. Days start to structure themselves around what doesn’t happen. That is how neglect turns into routine, and how the absence of communication begins to mimic stability. Many mistake this adjustment for recovery, but it’s only adaptation. The body learns the choreography of waiting. The mind records its repetitions. Over time, silence becomes the achievement and endurance its only metric.
One develops a calendar of small rehearsals for someone else’s return. Not dramatic ones, no sweeping gestures, no grand displays. Only a series of quiet preparations, and each is a decision made not out of hope, but out of muscle memory. These behaviors become so integrated that they no longer register as choices. They’re maintenance. A way of staying upright.
Dignity in solitude becomes ritual. But ritual is not a memorial and it isn’t built for closure. It’s a system of containment. It gives shape to waiting so it doesn’t spill everywhere. People assume stillness is passive, but stillness is physical. It lives in the chest, the stomach, the fidgeting hands, the position of one’s eyeline toward the door or a mirror through which they can monitor it. Stillness can become the pace of one’s evenings. What appears as composure is often just choreography: a body moving through silence in a way that won’t draw attention. Stillness is a body’s defense against silence.
“You really enjoy your own company, don’t you?”
It isn’t a compliment. It’s a release clause. It’s very easy to reward someone’s independence when it clears your path to departure. A woman alone is easier to admire than to interrupt, and the more self-sufficient she appears, the less others feel she requires. Her solitude becomes a form of composure and therefore a form of strength that one can rely upon, and potentially weaponize. If she doesn’t need you, she won’t be broken if you disappear. If you disappear and she endures, then to what extent did you really interrupt?
...
Read the full essay and follow the full arc on Substack
Visual art and updates on Instagram
Don’t Be A Stranger is a forty-part essay series about what people do with intimacy when they don’t know how to carry it. About silence after harm — and the architecture built in its place. Each essay functions as a standalone structure: declarative, critical, poetic. Together, they form a long-form companion to a conceptual art arc releasing from April to June 2026.
New essay every Wednesday.
Hello! It's been a while.
This ( @kateannjoy ) is a blog that I've created to feature my writing and visual art.
This essay is the first of forty to be released over the coming months, and I really hope that those who are still around from my time here will be interested. This is the first time I've promoted my original writing on this blog, so I would really appreciate your feedback and support on this new endeavor.
In case you were wondering where I've been for the past... several years, I'm now a working photographer and visual artist in London and am very excited to make a real return to writing.
I'm very glad this blog has continued to be of service to you, and I hope you will come along with me into this new chapter.
Instagram Substack Website (currently being updated)
Hello! I just had the realization my original plot just isn't going to work but I'm almost done with my first draft and I'm too married to a lot of my scenes I've already written to feel like i can fully start over. Do you have any advice? Just thinking about starting over is making me want to put the pen down for a while...
Starting over near the finish line
By first draft, I'm assuming you mean that this is the first attempt at putting the your story to paper. What I'm about to say is not to devalue the incredible amount of work that you must have invested up to this point. It is an accomplishment on its own to sit down and put words on that page, let alone reach a point anywhere near a finish line.
The first time you do something (anything) is rarely the time you do it well, let alone perfectly.
If I sat a beginner down with some printouts of blogposts about knitting and a spool of yarn, I doubt they'd make me a sweater without having to undo at least 50% of the moves they make. That wouldn't be because they're stupid or genetically predisposed to suck at knitting. Regardless of how seasoned you are as a writer, each work you approach is like starting a brand new hobby from scratch. You have to mentally allow for space to make errors and to let go of good ideas. This doesn't mean you throw the good and essential core of your story out.
Take significant time to review what you have, identify the bits and characteristics that you find most emotionally and mentally compelling. Write them down, examine the commonalities and congruencies between them, and work out exactly you like about your story as it stands. There is always good amongst the bad. You seem to already have identified certain parts that you cannot bring yourself to let go, so once you figure why that is, you'll be able to trim away what doesn't serve you and move forward.
You aren't starting over. This is not the beginning, and you will never be back at the beginning again. This is process, and process is imperative to making anything. If you continue to visualize writing as an act that starts at point A and ends at point B you will never be done. Nor will you do justice to your ideas. If you don't allow them to waddle around and fall on their face like the newborn babies that they are, they won't develop as they're meant to.
This is not failure. This is writing. It's a necessary part of what you're doing. It's normal. It's good for you. It's good for your story. In fact, it speaks well to your character development and world building and even your plot development that you can recognize there is so much worth salvaging in this first attempt to bring to the next. You're already emotionally connected to so much of what you've made, and plot is only part of that. If you're able and willing to acknowledge what doesn't work, you will be able to trust yourself when you determine what does. A story is a sum of its parts, and this is just one part that you're going to put down, regroup, and reconfigure.
There are several resources that I've created over the many years to assist in plot development and all the problems encountered within, and those are available on my masterlist for your perusal.
I wish you the best of luck and look forward to your triumphant follow up once you finish that second draft.
x Kate
One question I have is where I want to make up a fake city that's located in the real world, but has it sorta has a magic system. Should I still look into world building for the city or take a different approach?
World building in reality...
I think the closest genre whose resources might provide some direction would be 'urban fantasy'. Although this genre regularly uses real, well-known cities as the backdrop for their stories, it is not unheard of to create a city following the same principles of world building. One thing you have to keep in mind when you're creating a fake city in a real region is the context of that region. The general features of the geography, the weather, the demographics, the surrounding regions and their influence, etc. It may not be a real place, but it's theoretically situated between real places. That research and consideration will add authenticity and a sense of belonging to your fictional location.
The magic system may or may not be affected by the location of this city and its geography, but the way characters develop in this environment will certainly affect the way they interpret and utilize the magic system. Culture and environment are huge parts of one's upbringing, and it's important to consider how this city shaped them or if it is at odds with their upbringing somewhere else.
World building is one of the primary parts of crafting a story, regardless of genre. Even stories that have no fantastical elements rely upon world building. It's the establishment of context, environment, atmosphere, culture, and for some characters, backstory. Regardless of invented magic systems or speculative technology, world building is about the establishment of place. Where your character is, where the reader will be existing with them. It's about making it feel as immersive and compelling as possible. Adding magic or science fiction should be an embellishment to an already well-considered and immersive environment for characters to move around in.
Best of luck,
x Kate
-
Masterlist . Ko-Fi . Patreon
Hello! How are you? I have a question:
Should I focus on what I'm good or what I'm bad at in writing? I like to think that I can write poetic stuff rather well, but I can't write dialouges to save my life. So should I just focus on writing the stuff I'm good at and ignore the rest or should I focus on getting better at dialouges and such?
Leaning into strengths vs focusing on improvement...
I'm very well! Thank you for asking.
I think that this is an important conversation to have with yourself as any sort of artist, and I don't believe that it needs to end with a choice between practicing a skill you could improve at or the sticking to what you're good at.
A writer's brain is a muscle, and as you gain experience honing technical proficiency, you become more informed as to what strengths and weaknesses are apparent in your work. The first step is to examine how you approach different parts of the development of a story. Take the time to observe how you personally think through the process of writing dialogue and how that differs from your process writing poetic prose. Harmony between different parts of your writing process will make writing easier and lead to a more consistent style and quality. Your aim is to bring one skill to the level of another, so until you understand why prose comes more naturally to you, it will be challenging to identify why dialogue doesn't.
Perhaps dialogue requires you to exercise imagination in a way that isn't as consistent with the way you process the world around you. For me, dialogue can be challenging because my inner monologue centers observation and my thoughts occur to me in a more abstract way, leading me to be more adept at skills like articulating metaphors. However, this way of thinking makes it challenging to frame my ideas literally, as you must do to imagine a scenario and then predict a chain of events or interactions between elements. Identifying how your imagination functions organically will help you understand where your ideas come from and why certain ways of expressing them come more easily.
I think it's important to incorporate experimentation and practice into the routine of any art medium that you aim to improve at. Designating specific time to stretch the muscles, experiment with a new exercise, and broaden your skillset will always have a positive effect on your work overall, and when you identify a weaker area it's even easier to focus your time and energy to practice that. Alongside any large project, there should be a separate area for practice and play, because regardless of how skilled or passionate one is, there is always room to learn something new and expand one's ability.
I highly recommend installing time in your writing routine for specifically practicing the skill you are least confident in without pressure to contribute that practice to your primary project. Utilize whatever exercises motivate you. Personally, I like the idea of selecting a simple writing prompt and challenging yourself to write a scene entirely composed of dialogue, but you might prefer to set a short timer and try to imagine and record an organic, simple, and believable conversation between two people about something like choosing a paint color for a kitchen.
Always make time to better your craft. It will always deliver results.
Best of luck,
x Kate
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Masterlist . Ko-Fi . Patreon
Hey, so i'm working on my first WIP, and i wanted to ask about drafting. When can one consider their first draft done? Does it have to have the goal word count (ie; 100K), or would being about halfway there be considered a good enough first draft, that i can move on to the second and start editing?
Concluding each stage of the writing process
It's difficult to know when a phase of a writing project has concluded and you're ready to focus on a new objective as it's developing. I tend to approach my writing projects with a clear and uniform trajectory, regardless of how diverse my projects can be. This approach allows me to remain focused, thorough, and reassured that I am covering all my bases in an organized fashion. However, it also maintains space for me to be explorative and intuitive when necessary. In regards to word count, I don't think it's entirely relevant unless you're determined to adhere to strict genre conventions. Give your story the space it needs and not an extra inch.
(Optional) Zero Draft
In this phase, you're telling yourself the story. You're doing it quickly, messily, intuitively, and forgivingly. Explore every idea that glows in the dark for you, don't throw anything away or discount any possibility. Exhaust your imagination in this phase so that when you reach the first draft, you know you're making informed decisions.
First Draft
You're crafting the structure and core elements of the story. This is often the phase of discovery. You're becoming acquainted with your characters and how they interact, you're beginning to feel at home in the world and settings you've built, and you're seeing all sides of the conflict as it evolves. The goal here is settle on a beginning, middle, and end point, and by the end of this process you want to know your characters' motivations and relationships inside and out.
Second Draft
Go back quickly through the first draft and address any points where you got stuck, where you compromised for the sake of carrying on to the end, and fill in any apparent blanks. The first time you really iron something out, there will always be a few pesky creases. This is the time to find and flatten them.
Third Draft
This is where you question everything. Identify and scrutinize your decisions, dive into the "curtains are blue" discussions with yourself, and begin to tidy up things like grammar, clumsy dialogue, over-poured descriptions, and dubious vocabulary. Comb through each paragraph and be brutal, prioritizing clarity and intentionality of how you've told the story.
The Read Through
This is the point where I recommend doing three things:
Letting it rest away from you for 1-3 months so that you can return to it with a bit of unfamiliarity and new perspective.
Hand it off to a couple of trusted readers and give them ample time to read, digest, and craft some feedback
Reread the project once all the way through making no changes (although annotations are acceptable)
Fourth Draft
Finishing touches. Vigorously and meticulously scrub and scrape between the lines and imagine giving it to your worst enemy. If you can imagine any mean (but valid) things they could conceive of to say about it, this is the time to grapple with or fix those details.
Additional Resources
Guide to Drafting
Word Count/Productivity Tracker Spreadsheet
Balancing Detail & Development
Writing The First Chapter
Writing The Middle of Your Story
Powering Through The Zero-Draft Phase
Writing The Last Chapter
Chapter Length
Happy drafting,
x Kate
28 Days Of Memories: Wordsnstuff February Writing Challenge
– Last month, you guys really enjoyed participating in the writing challenge for #wordsnstuffjanuary. I recommend sifting through the tag and reading some of the responses. They’re truly amazing. Another month-long writing challenge was highly requested so I decided to make it a monthly thing. If you have a theme idea for the next few months, let me know here. I’m very open to suggestions! Gentle reminder that you can post the responses on Instagram as well. All I ask is that you use the #wordsnstufffebruary and/or tag @ writingandsuch so I can find your fabulous writing!
Side note – some of these are obviously more time consuming than others so it’s not required that you respond to them in order. As long as you specify which prompt you’re responding to, there won’t be a problem. The goal of this challenge is to inspire you to write every day and give you some sort of incentive and format for sticking to a writing schedule. The idea is to respond to one each day, so it doesn’t really matter in what order you do that.
☼ Prompt List ☼
Write about the happiest memory you have
Write about your first relationship
What was it like at your lowest point
Write about a time where someone really came through for you
Something that took a long time to accept
Write about dream you left behind and why you gave up on it
Write about what you used to do for fun as a kid
Write about your first love
Write about what it is like to grow up. If you haven’t yet, what will it be like?
Write about what it was like leaving home. If you haven’t yet, what will it be like?
Write about a memory that used to make you smile, but now makes you cry
Write about a person that left your life too soon
What scent(s) remind you of times in your life and why?
What have you done on Valentine’s Day through the years?
Write about your first passion. Are you still passionate about it?
Write about something you wish you had done
Write about a time you were obsessed with something
Write about a seemingly insignificant memory that means the world to you
Write about a risk you took. Was it worth it?
Write about your first kiss
Write about a place you used to frequent but never visit anymore
Write about a lesson you learned the hard way
Write about a memory that makes you cringe
Write about a person who left your life too late
Write about an opportunity that changed your life
Write about an event that, at the time, felt like the end of the world
Write about a person who once meant the world to you but is now a stranger
Write about your first heartbreak
I read all of your guys’s responses and they were all so lovely and amazing, so I decided to give all the writer’s out there who gave it a shot a ‘lil shout out because you guys wrote wonderful stuff that was really nice to read at the end of the day.
@perfectlyimperfectmess @psuedonom @viridis-blooming @oreodragonborn @willwantwrites @humblefun @writingonallthedrugs @hygeeandengentado @i-will-try-to-write @storyunrelated @risrielthron @chiizuburger @imperiallefty @boothewriter @largelevi @becs-bunker
Thanks for participating guys, your writing is awesome:)
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