Why are we here

How to survive Substacking-ish unsuccessfully for a year

One special day, the day after I had accepted that it was time for me to give up this writing thing, one person appeared, blinking their wee bubble-face onto my notifications page. Real feelings bubble up in a very real way when specific someones show up in my imaginary feed. Sometimes I write something and hope those someones will see it, and when a notification comes I can feel that desire, and that release when it is that someone connecting to something I wrote.

On this day, a particularly important someone was responding to some nothing I thought up after reading one of their amazing stories. I had sent them words of encouragement, I think…? I truly can’t remember what it was. It must have been good, cause they sent me a little heart and a talky bubble. I wasn’t really trying, besides I dunno… being me, and wanting to magician that over to their screen. They replied, "you [referring to me?] always know exactly what to say!" And me being me, was like... wait wut wut wut. I have never KNOWN what to say. I was just about to, like a few minutes ago, give up saying stuff altogether. I don't even THINK what to SAY. I thought-word in the same moment and it ribbets its way through me like a convulsion.

Then another person, that same day commented, "the honesty of this post [thing I wrote desperately and defeated at 1am cause it wouldn't let me sleep] is everything I needed today." I couldn't really deal after that one sank in. I had to spend the evening mopping myself off the floor. EVERYTHING??? What the fuck... I can't even manage my own needs. Now I'm fulfilling them for people I've never met. I wasn't prepared for this.

And that is the story I am about to tell, how I spent a year unprepared for what I was about to do, the emotions that controlled me, the phantom representations of humans I wish I could meet, and the funky little scribbles that were created from that collision.

My life is changing again, and I feel the need to return to my original practice of writing by pen. The output I have maintained during this yearlong experiment has been nearly too much for this puny psyche. I'd like to return to a life of enjoying art forms in a natural way. I don't want to make promises about my newsletter frequency, my involvement on social medias, or make a rigid decision about the coming liminal months as I find new employment. July is Camp Nanowrimo again, and I'll likely challenge myself to more words towards my now multi-book novel. I know that I can only do that if I slide away from the digital world and find myself in the backwoods of nowhere.

Those who love me often worry that I am going on my last adventure, that I’ll finally find home in a nowhere, and never return. This feels like that, it feels like I might not return to Substack. But I never know until I the road brings me back.

Most of you are new to this newsletter, but even—well… actually especially—if you're old to it, you know it's always changing subject, style, and frequency. Maybe none of this is really new at all. I guess all this to say, if you feel a void when the emails don't arrive in the coming months, there's plenty to find on my page that you probably have never seen.

And this, what you may decide to read, is a celebration of post 101, so I thought it would be fun to do a writing 101 class called:

Why are we here? How to survive Substacking-ish unsuccessfully for a year.

This is NOT:

• a formula for success

• a step-by-step bullet point directional document

• a method for acquiring everything you ever wanted

• or a story of a guy who risked it all and won.

• This does not have a happy ending.

This is: observation, as pure as I could dig for. It’s greasy and dirty and unplanned; messy, crazy, intense. Sad. Inspiring. It is my life. Is is beautiful.

The sections I aim to review are as follows, to be released this week before I depart for the woods:

Post 1: you are here

"The" process

Why I chose Substack

Who do I write for?

Post 2:

Wordcounting

Where do I find the time?

What inspires me?

Post 3:

How do I…

decide on style?

choose what to publish?

release content (icky word, uh oh!)?

"The" process

I have a lot of thoughts. I don't know why some feel like they need to be written down. They yell at me A LOT. It's distracting, and detrimental to other aspects of my life. But I'm captive to them right now, so I write a lot of drafts. I don't know which I am supposed to work on or when I should switch or stop. I have a lot of finished stuff. I don't know when I am supposed to share them.

They call this "the process," but I don't know how to process any of it. It doesn't make any sense. I certainly couldn't teach it. I don't like giving advice, but sometimes I make a mistake and a should blurts out. I make all the efforts to simiply say: "this is what I do." I learned that from wise people. It's not my wisdom, but my experience says it works.

I'm not the type of person that writers come to for advice. I'm not popular, but that's not new. I'm a back of the class kind of guy, the hoodie over the head kind of guy, the guy who never learned how to speak up, or speak in front of, or approach really anyone with a statement of what I want. So I spend a lot of time in my thoughts. Now my thoughts live in a catalogue of loosely organized titles, sometimes finding folders, but mostly floating in trust in my consciousness waiting to be compiled and contexualized.

Recently someone online asked, “where do you write your first draft? What is your system around writing?” He mentioned writing in a diary and a notes app, then refining on a laptop. So I thought... system? Where do I write? I responded, "omg all of them. It’s bad. Notes app, obsidian, reedsy, google docs, git books, a little wallet notepad, a bigger notebook with uploadable copy function thing (fancy tech!), sticky notes, little scraps of paper floating in the wind, texts to friends, my hand, my never ceasing mind—of course. I don’t know how any of anything I conjure actually gets written into a format people can read. Honestly it’s magic, I’m a mess." I liked that response, I think he did too. Some of the comments I make online are better responses than I could attempt to make. It's interesting, it's like I'm just waiting for the context to sneak in the best things I will ever write. And my best responses come without effort.

I'm not successful. I don't like failure, but I learn most from it, and I like learning, so transitively I train myself to fail—a lot—and know I will like the result. It's funny though because in the world of externalities people make sure to measure your success before they listen to you. Alongside these interesting times of learning how to write my nonsense I was becoming someone people liked listening to. That was odd. I had something to say? It was news to me. I was pretty sure I was insane, and was really successful at hiding it. Then I started to talk about some of this stuff and people asked if I was writing it down. So I began to learn how to construct a thought in words that you could understand. That's a gargantuan task for someone who can't keep a conversation within 10 unrelated topics. And somehow, I began to find the relation between those things, and my brain organized itself to purpose, and I was able to coherent a sentence to you. That was cool, so here we are, documenting my practice of transferring my thoughts, in hopes you can apply them. That's “the” process: practice, together. Share, help each other. A united effort.

It can’t be “the”, it is subjective and tribal. Our process. We; not the, not only, not one. Us. Always evolving.

There was a time when I didn't write any of the philosophies I've developed and would sporadically debate/unload them on unsuspecting victims. Those times were rough, there was simply too much, and I had to put them somewhere. When I found the onlines world of writing, I started sharing some of that excess.

Why Substack?

I used to not write at all. I didn't like English class. The best skill I learned from school was how to pass the test without reading the book. Essays sucked. Five paragraphs! Just like the books? Wait... no... what? Grammar grammar grammar. Oh yes! Creativity. My teachers tolerated my careless words. They were stupid. Nobody inspired me. I DID NOT, double underline, want to be a writer. I know all that is probably blasphemy to the writing community, especially those who talk about how they were writing stuff since they could hold a scribble device. But I liked cartoons and comic books, superheroes, and goofy fantasies. I liked little gerbils and had pet hamsters and rats, wanted to be just like them and scurry around the world in between all the chaos, in the little crevices and holes honing my soft patter for a slice of cheese, or a gooey grape, and have to dodge the traps of grumpy nobodies who couldn't stand how much I enjoyed scuttling.

That love for scuttling came before I hated things, back when I was a budding creature of ignorant youth. I drew these little caricatures and colored in between the lines—oh so carefully—copying them with my parents’ fancy scanner-printer. I was lucky, back in the olden days. My dad worked for a little liberal arts university as an IT manager, and so we always had some left-over technology from the school. These kinds of printers were a big deal back then. Well... a big deal for me. I remember the first thing I saved up for and bought myself was one of those REALLY BIG screen (like the size of my iPad) TVs that had a timer which would turn itself on so I could wake up to my cartoons on Saturday. I really hated missing those cartoons, but in those days I would stay up extra late reading the Redwall novels, an epic 21 book children's fantasy series about medieval critters who went to war with each other and had thrilling Iliad style adventures. So I imagined based on those books what these heroes would look like, and I'd draw replicas of them. Then we would laminate them and add little sticky backings and me and my friend would put them on a wall we painted scenes on. Their world would come alive with my drawings, and I would imagine how they would live on my bedroom wall, and go to battle, or fall in love (but mostly fight cause I was a tough little guy and still had a tough little Bawston accent). That's another story though.

I don't remember when, but some fateful day I considered that I'm not so good at drawing. Perfectionism sent storm clouds to critter town, and I stopped playing with my drawings. I forgot that I was a scuttler, and a scribbler, and a happy little reader. Then I lived an entire life, a life of sports and maths and a fancy degree from a fancy university, and a job and another passion, and a bunch of outdoor explorations, and inside ones too. Then a girl chiseled her way into my soul, and didn't stop chiseling after she left. And at the same time some old guy found me and noticed I was imploding and told me I should be writing. It's funnier than that though, because he didn't know what I'd write, or if I'd take his advice, he just kinda felt like it was a good idea. I don't know if I should curse that man, or thank him, so I do neither. I call him instead and we remember what it was like to be the closest friends you could be with someone and then up and leave on a new adventure.

Fast forward past my departure, another old guy I visit and laugh with sometimes suggested that my life is cool, and someone should tell its story, which sounded weird, cause I don't really like telling stories, and I travel alone, so most of my stories are secrets I keep with one other human or the universe. But ya, he was probably right, so I committed to write some more, in a way someone could read.

and then and then and then...

I heard someone say a name...

Maybe you could post to Substack once a day?

Once a day was a lot. I had tried that on my own privately hosted blog. Part of that story is in another post I wrote here, including my new love affair with Notes. Instead of once a day I just followed a feeling, a sense of when I should send something.

I spent a year and posted 100 times and only 100 people decided to subscribe. But that's not really an only, cause that’s actually a lot for me. I was writing to no one, or sometimes something one person reads but wouldn't really send me anything back, or I'd poke a friend enough for them to have an opinion. And I'm probably downplaying this because I did have enough support to keep going, and I do deeply appreciate those friends who at least avoided telling me to go back into my fucking hole and die. And I have other contradictory thoughts—if I kept up this trend—where I earn one subscriber per post, it would take me like 100 years to make any money writing on Substack. And a lot of the time when I'm not in creative mode I’m a realist and I have to look at that and think: well that’s too long, I’m gonna have to do something else. I have a lot of reasonable reasons why I should quit writing, and I can sense even from the ones that tell me to keep going that they wonder if I should too. So all these thoughts are even more answers to the constant question of—do I want to quit?

The answer is yes, I do want to quit. So why don't I? I started asking people that, in a way that wasn't so direct.

Who do I write for?

I feel connected to disconnected people, the types who see through this shit and feel so weird all the time that everyone is pretending, the types that feel more alone in a room full of someones than in an empty chamber of echoed nothing.

I wrote a post about who I think I feel like I am. It's worth reading.

Sometimes I feel like I should act more like a kid, but if I did, I’d probably ask for gummy worms from a stranger on the bus, or tap on that little goofy helmet of construction workers. There’s a voice that tells me—no!—those people wouldn’t like that. And I especially know they wouldn’t cause I’m a bearded barrel chested man with too many wrinkles to be having fun. It's strange to be a child living in an adult body.

I have a couple crushes on girls on Substack. But they are advanced awareness adult-like crushes. Manipulative type crushes where I'm not so abstracted from the emotions, but still controlled by them. One of them is an exceptional writer who I don’t subscribe to because she’s probably gonna be successful and I don’t want to be a groupie. I don't subscribe to big following writers cause, well... they are boring. The little ones are so much more experimental, so raw and confused. So my other crush is one of those, ultra talented, like I'm obsessed with them talented, but they might not ever publish anything. That's thrilling, that their talent might be lost to the unpredictability of life. And they are young enough to waste all of it on misguided love or a traumatic incident or just... oops.

I’m probably more attracted to the second one, in a dark way, like I want to feed on the potential for wasted talent. I really would like her to succeed, and spend maybe too much attention on wishing things for her, sometimes interacting in a way I'm hoping is appropriate, but at its root is motivated by untamable lust. I alchemize inexpressible lust for people by responsibly supporting them. It's a coping mechanism. I don't know if it's healthy, but I do know it's manageable, and it does some good, I think. There are a couple more internet entities that I can’t think about responsibly, and that turns into some unspeakable weird carnal stuff that I really should be ashamed of. So I just don’t interact with them, making sure they stay as imaginary things. There’s a couple guys that I’m attracted to as well. I've never been with a man romantically—coincidentally they are gay—and it makes me wonder…

I really consciously try to get these particular entities to pay attention to my writing. It doesn't so much bother me if I get two or five or fifteen likes on a post. If those specific profiles hit the button, I find a release. That's creepy, I don't understand it, but they end up being the "people" I write for.

There’s a lot of pseudo-connection I feel with writers on Substack. I crave being able to feel more personally connected to them, and that’s probably unhealthy, but I don't have control of those urges. Like when I see a picture of one of these said pseudo-obsessions, it’s too exciting, cause usually I just get the words. I’d probably go stalker status if I had the time. I’m just too busy to be a proper creep. I have a few time-leach survival responsibilities and now an overabundance of my own writing projects to be pining after imaginary entities. I don't think it's shame or morality that keeps me socialized. Shame doesn't much stop me nowadays. My morality is fluid, but respectable. I don't care if those people knew I was a weirdo. I think a couple of those entities I describe are subscribed to this, so the potential they are reading this is high. It would probably hurt if they unsubscribed because I was being honest, but I also like when those people run away because... fuck it, grow up everyone, we are strange creatures. I'm gonna talk [write] about it.

It's more of a benefit analysis, like... well is it worth being this way? Sometimes yeah, it totally is. I'm connecting with other writings, I'm promoting others' work, I'm improving my skills by being inspired by them. Sure, I have to manage strange feelings while I do all that, but whatever, I can manage feelings. I'm an adult, kinda.

I’m sure there’s one or two people who feel the same way about my profile. I know a couple people really believe I’m a great writer, and probably connect to my words more than they can communicate, and far more than I’ll ever know. I like those people, even if sometimes I get a strange message that I don't know how to respond to. I try not to ignore people, I almost never discard them entirely, cause... whatever, I'm weird too, lets all be chill about it.

I assume this happens to people on other social media platforms but it never really happened to me until now. The visual manipulation of the other ones was just gross, but I guess it’s not that much different to be manipulated into liking someone through words. It makes sense that people have their different obsessive preferences and I just have a kink for art. I tend to fall for young attractive artists, maybe the unconvential type of attractive, like they have a thing for darkness too, and something is off about how they look at things, but they notice all the things that nobody else does, and they have those wide seeing eyes that only I can see. And don't get me wrong, I'll still fall for aesthetic preferences too, like if those eyes are big and green, that feel like a never ending forest I can explore, or deep blue oceans that are always changing and might kill me, but I fall into comfortably. Those types of women could strangle me to the edge of the end and I would still sacrifice my whole life to stumble to their bedside. I'm a chump, and the right people like me anyways, and we hold hands while death side-steps our mistakes.

It’s kinda weird watching all this internally cause I would post stuff hoping these profiles would notice, or change my profile picture right before I commented on their post to send a subtle message that I’m new but familiar. It was odd witnessing myself taking these actions, knowing it is creepy for me to be making digital suggestions to representations of a person that I didn’t even know that I liked. I like their art, which is in some part them, but really it’s more like an extension of creation, and they just channeled it. So I’m more being attracted to a universal consciousness or a god of some sort than the actual human who physically manifested the thing. But also their little circle pic is cute and I like how intimate it feels that their eyes are focused on the camera lens. I get so immersed in my vertical rectangle sometimes that it seems like that is my world, and with a person splayed across the whole thing it makes it feel like I might know them a little more by looking at a fraction of a moment they took once when they were alone too.

I’m hyper aware of all of this and do the idiotic thing anyways because I’m human and my biology screams beautiful and I fall into a vortex of infatuation with something that I can’t even touch. I can imagine touching though, and as a creative person that imagination is vivid, so I can recreate a whole person with a thrilling personality in a matter of nothing seconds and have an entire fantasy life with them while I do the dishes.

Some people say they write for themselves. I've learned that's a dangerous mindset. It's limited, compartmentalized, unaware, or intentionally ignorant. It's like a subconscious deception to avoid confronting the reality of complexity in this art form. These days, for better or worse, I confront the terrifying complexities of my existence.

This level of awareness has me thinking about giving up writing. I like the outside world, and finally have found a way to be weird in an attractive way, a way that doesn't make people look at me strange and want to run away. There are ways to turn self consciousness into attractive awareness. That's pretty cool, I never thought I'd be an attractive guy. But writing has me transitioning into strange thought patterns, some depressive and devolved, dissociated. I’ve only been doing digital style writing for a couple years, and only committed to it so I could sell my hand written book. Then I got caught up in the writers delusion that it is my whole identity and all of life is writing and I should sequester myself into this new object of obsession.

I’ve done that before with a different occupation and it didn’t turn out so well. I don't mind identity collapse, but it fatigues the emotional-body, enflames the pain-body, and confuses the mind-body. This body has been through a lot. I'd like to respect its signals.

Intellectually, I understand that I probably need to dedicate 20 years to this craft before I’m good at it. That knowledge is kinda daunting. And to commit to something like that requires immense stupidity, delusion, or direction. It's not so easy to determine which one of those is driving you, until something disrupts the cycle.

Emotionally, I'm disappointed that I haven't received enough support from the world to keep this dream afloat. I tend to have romantic visions of my efforts, like I am going to be someone important in every universe I touch. I am grandiose by nature, and feel like everyone should shine praise upon everything "good" I do, as if everything I do is good. I didn't receive that. I don't let it decay my gratitude that a few good people found my ramblings, and I found more amazing humans that I now believe in more than I believe in myself. That's the beauty of a grandiose self delusion: you can point it at another person, and gift them with belief that they don't have.

Spiritually, I am still on my path. I still have a sense of here-ness when I walk around. That, above all else, keeps me wandering. I don't know where that comes from besides an aura-matic trust in my position in the world. It's not evidenced, something I can prove. It's a non-sense. It's a looking around awareness that makes colors vivid and unbelievable, ordinary skylines picturesque and virile, clouds full like my lungs, connected, and others' eyes come alive, pulsing with my heartbeat. It's something near psychosis, but not so dark, a peaceful understanding that there is more to this world than I can see, feel, or understand.

I considered all of this as I boarded a flight to Texas to help that same friend who used to slide around my drawings on our painted world when we were kids. He pursued a life of art through video game design, and attributes much of that life success to the years we spent goofing around with games. He's a successful guy, now signing a contract for his second property in Europe. I'm at his first property helping prepare it for new tenants. I took a different path. A path of aimless utility and unplanned skill acquisition. I don't remember why I was influenced to become a capable man of eclectic ability, but I now know at least part of my purpose here is to help others, so I don't shy from these opportunities. In many ways I was built for this.

I returned to my trust for this place as I found my seat destined for the lone star state. As long as I can remember, boarding an airplane has had a density of belonging that I don't know anywhere else. As other passengers are wrought with fear of the unknowns of departing earth, I fall into a peaceful slumber. The easiest way for me to find tranquility is to hear the rumble of engines lifting me from gravity. I change when I step into aerodynamic tubes. It follows me that whole day, even after I return to Earth. I spent years fighting through the errors of other deficiencies to create a life that included flying devices. It is the story of my life. One day that story was taken from me. But... it was all my fault. I had taken it from myself. I clawed for its return, losing other parts of me in the process, and eventually releasing the idea for this, for a chance to be more than a pair of wings, a meek voice in a flood of dysfunction, with hope that I could be the change in someone's life. I don't know if I've accomplished that, and now I set sights on returning to the sky, slowing my push for propagating this voice. I find effortless flow in that decision, that it is time, and I must release to the message of a larger voice, one that I've learned to listen to, even when it appears as incomprehensible language.

So... who do I write for? Everyone, including me. Anyone who stumbles on this and feels something, who can connect with the idea of humanity and believe that, if just for these spent moments, that we are not alone.