Either because of my mania and bipolar, or anxiety of being restless, I feel like I have to do something productive or write something useful every day. I’m honestly not sure why that is. I see some folks on Substack putting out a piece once a month. I can’t even imagine my brain or hands being that idle. Not that they dont’ have other things they do. They probably do pottery or work three other jobs or businesses or something. No telling.
I just know when it comes to art or writing I have to do a lot of one or the other or my brain gets crazy. This past week I’ve been fighting off a cold. It’s not too bad, but enough to make me groggy and foggy. I’ve written some pretty good blogs this week, and my essay about Carla Harvey from the Violent Hour got almost 200 visits, so all of that is positive, for no longer than I’ve been on substack.
The problem is then I wonder “how can I match this” and the thing Is, I don’t really need to. I guess I’m a blogger or essayist (I think essayist makes me sound really smart and fancy). So writing things regularly just makes sense. But I need to remind myself that everything I come up with isn’t going to be award winning prose. I mean its all better than slop, even on my worst days, my hand written scribble in my journel documenting my bowel movements are better than the best slop.
But the urge is always there with our society being what it is to push for more, better, more numbers, more clicks more subscriptions. Which also leads to more anxiety and burnout. I told myself when I first started this on Ghost, unlike past writing ventures, I was not going to chase trends or markets. I’m going to write about whatever dumb thing is on my mind, even if that dumb thing is about writing itself. Or the process. My process isn’t nearly as refined as most others professional writers I’ve learned in my week on Substack.
I don’t jot down notes by hand or in a phone. I don’t spend weeks on a piece and I don’t really think it through. I come up with a topic, if even that. Then I barf out a bunch of words in a stream of conciousness moment in my essay, spell check it then post. Oh, I do include my own art as headers. I see a lot of people use stock photos or AI headers and I was tempted to do that early on, but being The Artsy Brain I felt using real art done by hand is the way to go, and doesn’t contribute to the slop fest we currently see all over the internet.
So, today I’m at the library waiting on my mother in law’s chemotherapy treatment just across the street and writing an essay about writing essays. I’ve had people suggest to me in the past I should do workshops or classes or books on how to write and be successful. I think that would be stupid for a couple reasons.
I’m not successful myself yet
I mean I have three paid subscribers who I love and appreciate, but these are hardly earth shattering numbers. Not near my goal of where I want to be, but even if it was, I wouldn’t do classes.
Things change too fast
Even if someone is a highly successful writer and substacker, the odds are what worked for you six months or a year ago wouldn’t work for someone else. Tech and the internet and markets and algorithms move lighting fast. There is no way for one person to keep up and think they have all the answers. Not to mention a tiny bit of someone else’s success is dumb luck.
Ultimately it just takes time. That maybe weeks, or years. What we’re doing now is laying the ground work for success so when a lucky opportunity happens we’ll be prepared. I don’t think patience and work ethic is something you can rightfully charge someone to teach if it can be taught at all.
It’s a grift
When I first tried Substack a year ago I left after a week because 90% of what I saw on here was celebrity writers and marketing gurus posting how to make 100K a month on substack. There was no in between. What was so funny is some of these gurus had like 300 subscribers. Unless they were charging an assload per subscription, I doubt they were making that crap themselves. Usually in these marketing and financial courses the only one making money in the end is the guru putting on the course.
In my own view, if I am in a creative field, and can’t make money IN that field, I have no business trying to sell courses to others on making it. Even if I am making money in that field it still feels not right because of the reasons I mentioned above. The best thing you can do now is sit down and write and write some more. Yeah some of it will be crap. God knows I’ve written my share of drivel in my lifetime. But you have to get the drivel out of your head in order to get to the good stuff.
In this digital age of AI, influencers, even AI influencers, everyone wanting to be a brand, Facebook monetization and fuck knows what else. People are CRAVING authenticity and connection. I see the word authenticity thrown out a lot recently and I don’t mean to over use it. But opening yourself up and laying out your real personality. Not some curated, filtured and pefect look but putting down your initial thoughts, reactions and real experiences to things without censoring yourself is what people will want to see.
At least, thats how things have worked for me. In the end, you have to do what works best for your. I know some people doing really well with generic content and maybe that serves them well and they feel shielded from the general public behind their online persona. I’m not a persona, I’m a walking trainwreck.
I didn’t start this post out wanting to give advice, and I’m not sure how we ended up here. You can think about what I said, or ignore it. Do what you want, I’m not your mom. But I know when I look for essays to read, I’m looking for something I’ll genuinely connect with, not some sanitized “My life is perfect and this is how you can be perfect to!”
Like I said, I’m a trainwreck and want to hear from other trainwrecks. We need to stick together. Anyway, I’ve probably rambled enough. I hope you got something useful out of this essay if not a bit entertained. In the meantime, keep writing, keep creating and keep being yourself because you are awesome!
Leave a Reply