The Grasshopper #90: Has Writing Changed You?
My story, then yours (comments are always open)
5:30 am, unable to sleep, a heavy snow fell yesterday afternoon and evening and it’s very quiet except for the scraping sound of snowplows, somehow comforting. That time in the night when I try to decide whether to just have a coffee and be awake.
My best time for writing is morning, not usually this early but after dipping into the news and a first cappuccino. I didn’t used to have a best time but apparently in recent years I have installed a habit and I’m ok with that.
I don’t have much use for inspiration. It’s nice when you get it but the work is still there and sometimes I bang out a piece I think is lacking in inspiration and later it turns out to get read a lot or I find when editing I’m happy with it. I don’t have the patience or interest to wait for the words to come, I just make them.
With the new year I’m experimenting with different scheduling of my political stuff, the bulk of what I write these days. The craziness is flowing fast this election year and sitting on a piece for a few days sometimes means its time has passed. So I’m putting them out there as they come.
It’s easy to get caught up in all the advice out there about readership, getting more paid subs, etc., but I think it ultimately comes down to just doing relevant work, at least I hope so. Frequency is the thing I’m curious about because I’m prolific and once something is done my inclination is to publish immediately.
But then you may be in people’s mailboxes too often. It doesn’t seem to hurt Heather Cox Richardson, who publishes daily. I always look forward to her writing with its mix of American history and commentary on the politics of today in that context.
Her work is quite an achievement and she deserves the success it brings. But I also enjoy it when her Sunday night post is a brief paragraph and a photo by her partner of some idyllic scene in Maine.
She is performing a great service, but I hope it is not documentation of the fall of Democracy in America, something we are going to hear a lot about in this new year.
Another plow just rolled by, somehow a comforting sound in the dark. I guess I’ll go for that coffee and take a nap later.
As the year gets started, I want to thank all my readers, including the generous souls who have upgraded to a paid subscription or bought me coffees. Btw, if you wonder what that Buy Me A Coffee thing is, it’s a site where you can make small donations to creators, one time donations. It is a safe way to say thanks and as my end pitch says, it always makes my day.
To be clear about paid subscriptions, I decided early last year that all my content is available to all my readers, paid and unpaid. I have a paid tier because I believe writers should be paid. But it seemed a little petty to withhold content to my subscribers.
I’m not sure why but I’m finding it harder to get motivated to sit down and read a book, which is weird after a life where I have literally read tens of thousands. It has something to do with attention and where to apply it.
It’s not a matter of distractions. I do spend a lot of time online but the vast majority of it is parsing various news sources for my opinion/observation work. I don’t play games and seldom find myself buried in social media. Frankly it is mostly awful and impersonal, which seems a fatal business mistake to me.
But to be honest, it’s difficult to find books that I want to read without buying a lot of books. I love libraries but any well reviewed novel, for example, means getting in line for months to get a title. Since Covid, libraries have suffered and changed, often serving more as community centers and warm places for those who need them. Those are important functions and critical these days, but I miss the libraries of the past. Maybe it’s just another change that was inevitable.
The life of a writer has changed like everything else. We have open platforms where we can freely publish and get read, if we provide value, without going through a complex system like traditional media publishing. We can find places to put our work out there but, like that traditional media, you still have to find readers.
And that is an incremental process for the vast majority of writers, despite the stories of overnight viral success that are everywhere and nearly always not backed up by real numbers. I have to be blunt, building an audience is a slow path but does gradually get better as you build a bigger footprint.
I mentioned Heather Cox Richardson earlier, often cited as the example of what can be accomplished with Substack. Yes, she has millions of readers and is estimated to make millions. But she spent years developing expertise, including a doctorate and a professorship in history, before her name became a household word for political and history junkies.
I’m quite sure she would laugh out loud if told she had overnight success. She and her team work as hard as anyone out there, every day.
One of my pet issues this year is censorship and it directly affects writers of all kinds. Right now the Substack community is wrestling with Substack’s decision to allow hate groups like neo-Nazis to publish here and sell subscriptions, in direct conflict with their own terms and conditions.
As a private business they have the right to limit speech on their platform that violates those Ts and Cs when it promotes hate and advocates violence based on that hate. I believe the founders of Substack, who I admire for their creation of this vital writer resource, are being naive here in trying to have it both ways.
It is political correctness but giving these people a voice is despicable even if legal. The founders have built something huge but they need to deal with this issue now.
When I started The Grasshopper I saw it as a place for me to hand out advice to writers, especially beginners. I still see that but have moved away from how-to pieces because frankly I started my professional career with those kinds of things forty years ago and it’s not that interesting to me these days.
When you are an artist or an entrepreneur the ability to shift gears and learn constantly is critical to personal and career growth. You’ve read me harping on these writers, mostly younger, who seek a formula and write the same pieces over and over again. It may make them money initially but it’s not sustainable.
When a writer grows in their writing, their readers grow with them and become loyal for more than a few months. It’s a long game.
I’m happy to say that the coffee I debated earlier was the right choice because shortly after drinking it I conked out and napped, a side effect I’ve experienced when over-tired. So I won’t go through this Sunday as a partial zombie.
We’re just one week into the new year and mine is starting off well with good reader engagement and support. Last year I got more personal with my newsletter on recovery issues, The Remarkable, and though the readership is tiny, it grows gradually and steadily. My intent there was to use my writing as personal therapy in a public place, in the hope that my story would resonate with others in a beneficial way.
That was not a journey I planned but sometimes the universe just kicks you in the ass when you’re doing stupid or self-destructive things. And it did but little did I know I’d find a new outlet for a kind of writing I never suspected would interest me.
It does and I really appreciate the little community that is growing around it. More gratefulness.
Martin
Did you write today?
1372 words
~ I write The Grasshopper, a letter for creatives, The Witness Chronicles, a place for my articles on politics and climate, and The Remarkable, a recovery letter, about my addiction and reentry experience. All are weekly and free with a paid option to share your support. Please check them out.
If you want to show support but don’t want to commit to a subscription, you can always buy me a coffee!
Believe me, it makes my day. M
Is "neo-Nazi" just an epithet you use to describe persons whose political opinions you happen to find distasteful?