The Grasshopper #52: Freedom of Speech

Never take it for granted

Hi guys! Photo by Boris Smokrovic on Unsplash

I rarely introduce politics into my Grasshopper writing but threats to freedom of speech get my hackles up, especially when it is combined with racism and hate. Writers here in the US should never forget the gift of our First Amendment rights, something that is getting rarer across the planet.

This is the fifty-second consecutive Wednesday issue of The Grasshopper. With the Sunday Editions and the occasional inbetween issue, I estimate I’ve written about 125,000 words here, which is pretty crazy when you consider that’s on top of writing over 300 articles and opinions elsewhere during the same year. But none of it feels like work.

I’ve found something approximating freedom as a writer at age 68 after forty years of trying. I am a big believer in having a body of work rather than a handful of things you share. I’m also a big believer in finding your voice and not being afraid to use it. 

That’s why I always encourage writers to publish your work here, on Medium, or another platform (or all of them). Something good will happen if you stick with it.

A final note about freedom. This week Twitter apparently disabled links to any content published on Substack. I don’t get Twitter so that’s not a hardship to me but many writers use it to get their work out there to a broader audience. I have no idea what makes Elon Musk tick but his ‘management’ of Twitter is just bonkers. The guy should stick to spaceships instead of silencing writers.

Update on this: Apparently this is Twitter’s response to Substack announcing a new feature called Notes that looks like a Twitter competitor. Notes will be released this week. I have some thoughts about it (behind Medium paywall) but will wait to see exactly how it works. 

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Back to the future

This is where I should be talking about the future of The Grasshopper. I’m not going to because I don’t know what it will be. This is a discovery process and an exercise in going with the flow. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

I started to learn something about writing stories when the characters in my first novel started doing things on their own. I know that sounds odd but it is exactly what happened and it made the writing very interesting. You’re fishing in deep waters when that happens.

There is an idea out there called the universal mind, a kind of feed we tap into when we create. There is a certain logic to this because it neatly explains how the imagination sources its ideas. I have no idea whether such a thing exists, and if it does, it’s probably something we should not think about too much.

It’s a part of the mystery of the world and I’m grateful to be able to occasionally experience it through writing. You might call it a primary theme of The Grasshopper.

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Frequency and Mechanics

As I noted earlier, I publish nearly daily on Medium, including weekends. Sometimes I may even do more than one daily. Frequency is necessary because my pieces there are closely aligned with the daily news and often have a shelf life of two to five days before dropping out of feeds.

Occasionally an article shows legs and keeps paying but those earnings are long tail and more of a gift than anything significant. I’m ok with that. I’m not writing classics there.

It’s common for writers, especially when starting off, to see our work as more important than it is because we put a part of ourselves into it. But when you are writing online your work is ephemeral because it is subject to popularity algorithms that only serve it up to readers based on a set of factors, which are trade secrets of the platforms.

Frankly, it is pretty much impossible to know what is going to resonate and what is going to flop. That’s why the numbers are so important, but the only way you can increase Follows and Subscribers is to write good stuff, as high a quality as you have in you. There is no secret sauce beyond that, despite all the side hustle articles claiming to have a secret, usually with a price tag.

I don’t publish fiction on Medium because I don’t read fiction on Medium. You might write a short story, post it, and watch it disappear. If I was going to serialize a novel, a newsletter makes more sense because the subscriber list ensures that every installment at least shows up in inboxes in the right order.

If this seems too analytical to you, ignore it. I happen to be interested in the mechanics of how these things work. But it is an integral part of succeeding at this game. Success being defined as getting read by an increasing number of people.

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Reminiscence

Based on the Latin reminisci, the word means to remember. Reminiscence is at the core of writing memoirs, a genre that is very popular but also very challenging to get right. Certainly not my forte as a writer or a reader. The only memoir I can think of that I’ve read in recent years is Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, about the year of living after her husband unexpectedly died at the dinner table.

The book is difficult and an amazing stylistic balancing act and she pulled it off with beauty and dignity. A memoir like this is rare because it so honestly shows her on the edge of a breakdown from grief, without getting preachy.

If you’re considering writing a memoir, this is a must read, if only to see a master writer at work when the inner life is as hard as it gets. But be forewarned, it sets a standard that could be daunting.

So, a year has passed since I started writing these letters twice a week. I had some health challenges that coincided with that year and this writing has helped me get through a difficult time. I actually had Covid a year ago, which caused some weird balance problems that led to a freak fall that cracked a vertebrae. I’m happy to report that the back has healed.

Finally, the phrase Magical Thinking in Didion’s title keeps coming up as I watch subjects like US politics and climate change, particularly so with the latter. It says something about why being a recorder of our time seems important to me.

Thanks again for reading. Did you write today?

Martin

1096 words

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