The Grasshopper on Writing, Sunday Edition: Politics
Lately I am consumed by writing about current events
The Grasshopper is my relief or vacation from my main subject these days, US politics, climate, and current events. These topics are the ones that built my audience and that help me make a few bucks every month from writing.
Because I am not a journalist (I have too much respect for the amount of work that requires to call myself one); my stuff is opinion and observation, a gathering up of unfolding events and trying to find connections that illuminate them.
These days those events are coming fast and furiously and they represent a sea change in American history, so the task is consuming. Not much fiction this year except a scribbling of notes for a novel.
While this post is titled Politics, it is really about choosing your topics as a writer.
Topics either choose you, or you choose them
I’m opting for the former
When I started writing steadily on Medium three or four years ago, it was a kind of writing I had never done, writing entirely driven by my own interests and experiences. My topics were all over the map because those interests are wide-ranging, the product of a voracious reader on a variety of topics.
The existence of a platform that basically requires you to make editorial choices yourself for your work was liberating. You can write about anything you want. And it is merit-based. Readers choose what kind of things they want to read. If those two things coincide, you theoretically get rewarded.
So, I wrote about anything and everything. But in the last year my focus has tightened considerably to the topics above. Except here of course. This is principally about writing both as a profession and an avocation.
By the way, I went and looked up avocation to see if my usage was correct:
1 : a subordinate occupation pursued in addition to one's vocation especially for enjoyment : hobby He's a professional musician, but his avocation is photography.
So, yeah, that’s what I meant. I’m a professional writer, but my avocation is politics. Though, as a writer I get to combine the two topics, which is true of a lot of writing. Many writers start out by writing about some side passion, like cooking. And one day they find they are considered an expert by others.
I think expertise is a good way to choose a topic. I’m a news junkie, and have opinions, and as they became more informed, I wanted to write about them. Am I an expert? What, exactly, is an expert?
One definition says if news breaks about a topic, experts already were aware of it or saw it coming based on their knowledge and experience. It’s a form of ‘insider baseball’.
So, why politics? Well, first of all it’s bonkers crazy these days with insurrections, criminal investigations and a true madman at the center of it all, and I am not talking about Joe Biden. It’s just the most interesting story out there and it directly affects all of us here in the US, and by extension, the rest of the world.
So, there is an audience, which is a pretty good reason to consider when choosing a topic to focus on. My first commercial (paid) book deal was for a book on marketing for woodworkers. That is the definition of a limited audience!
I have no idea how I sold that idea but I do know that it never even came close to earning out its advance, which I now know was quite generous.
There are lots of woodworkers but very few are interested in business stuff. But when my brother and I wrote a book about kitchen design we sold a lot of books. Everyone has a kitchen and most would like a better one.
I could have made a career out of writing about kitchens. But that brings up another qualification for choosing topics. They have to be meaningful to the writer and potentially enlightening to readers. Or, in the case of politics or climate, infuriating, which sells these days.
There is a lot of frustration out there. I’m frustrated. So I gravitate towards writing about that frustration and trying to find sense in it.
After nearly six months I’m finally starting to get a grip on what Substack, the platform that hosts this newsletter, is about. For those who don’t know, Substack is a free place to host a newsletter and manage an email list to serve subscribers. Writers can monetize by offering a paid subscription option and Substack takes a percentage.
It’s really seamless to set up and use. I have a fairly limited list of subscribers so far and all are free but I’m going to change that at the end of the summer by adding content each week for those who choose to support me. Of course there will always be free content, but writers should get paid (someone tell that to businesspeople who think otherwise- without us no one would even know who you are or what you do, much less buy things from you).
When you jump into Substack, you are joining a community of other writers, writing about anything you can imagine. I don’t get a lot of comments but the comment threads on some sites are really interesting and informal, like conversations between unlikely peers.
It’s a far cry from the awfulness of Facebook and IG.
I would love to hear what you think and what your experience as a writer or reader has been. Writing The Grasshopper is weirdly rewarding but someone reads this stuff and that’s what all writers live for. Comments are open! Trolls will be hunted down and bags of burning dog shit left on their doorsteps…