Reporting live from under a blanket of unfinished projects, Reader.

Autumn is my favorite season. The air gets sharp, the coffee gets hotter, and the leaves finally give up and yeet themselves off the trees like, “Well, I tried.” Honestly? Same.

Which brings me to this week’s dispatch: what to do when your best-laid plans face-plant into the nearest pumpkin patch.

In Iceland, there is a legend about Snæfellsjökull, a mountain that wears three hats at once: volcano, glacier, and mythic portal. Jules Verne used it in Journey to the Center of the Earth because locals whispered it was more than ice and lava. They believed it was a doorway. Not to the literal center, but to something beyond our world — a new reality, a hidden realm, or maybe just a more interesting tax system.

Can you imagine standing at the base of that mountain in the darkening autumn light, trying to convince yourself that the creaking ice was a sign from another world? It’s the kind of story that makes you pack snacks you can’t pronounce, put on your thickest sweater, and march straight into the snow hoping the rumor is real.

And if it is not? Well, at least you got a dramatic selfie with a volcano.

A few years ago, I planned a road trip that was going to be my grand photography debut. Picture it: me behind the wheel with endless playlists, a camera bag stuffed with ambition, and the unshakable belief that this was the project that would kick open every door. I even had the perfect “coming soon” line ready: “Oh, this will all be in my book someday.”

Right at the start of the road trip, I fractured my foot. Hiking? Gone. Collaborations with other photographers? Cancelled. My daily schedule quickly shifted from “catch sunrise on the cliffs” to “master the art of balancing snacks on one crutch.” And then depression crept in. Not the loud, dramatic kind — the slow, quiet seep. The kind that makes every unfinished memory card feel like it’s mocking you.

The book idea withered. Not because I stopped caring, but because the story no longer felt like mine. What I had planned was one thing. What actually happened was another. And trying to force it would have been dishonest — like taking mushy apples and insisting on calling them “crisp.”

That book is now a ghost in my Draft Graveyard. I keep it there not as a failure, but as compost. It didn’t grow into the career-launching masterpiece I imagined, but it nourished everything else I’ve done since.

Letting it go was survival. If I had kept dragging it behind me, I would have ended up resenting my own work — or worse, publishing something that felt like a lie. Sometimes the most generous thing you can do for yourself is admit, “This project belongs to another season.”

The Lesson From The Leaves

Autumn is refreshingly unapologetic. Trees don’t argue with their leaves. They don’t scream, “But I spent all summer photosynthesizing, I can’t let this go!” They just drop the dead weight, let it rot into the ground, and trust that spring will show up eventually.

Creative work is no different. Some projects are ripe and ready for harvest. Others rot no matter how carefully you plan. Deadlines are hungry beasts that will chew your joy into pulp if you let them. Seasons remind us that it is okay — necessary, even — to let things fall away.

So here’s your permission slip, signed by me and every tree on your block: let the half-dead project drop. Let it crunch underfoot. Let it feed the soil for something else. You are not a failure for letting it go. You are just moving into another season.

And if you need proof, look around. The trees aren’t panicking. They’re making space.

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Stay Curious,
Tabitha