Hello and Happy New Year!
I thought I’d try writing right here in this app as I’m finding the concept of this newsletter is having a stultifying effect on my writing.
My blogging life started long ago and I set out to write each post as an essay that existed in its own little world. There was never any performance anxiety. Sometimes I’d struggle for a topic or too much time would go by between posts and events would loom too large. It was always about communication but not DIRECT communication, which apparently I find challenging. Hey, that’s why I’m a songwriter! Lyrics, melodies and chords create necessary distance and enable me (other songwriters, do you agree?) to talk about things I can’t get to in regular conversation. And I suppose the same goes for my blog writing over the last fifteen years.
A fan I ran into at a show said “get on Substack, we would love to support your writing!” and that made feel so glad. But I just had someone generously pledge money on here without me asking and I couldn’t accept that vote of confidence without setting up the paid option, but I honestly don’t know how to NOT do this for free. It’s not that I don’t think writers should be paid for their work, but I’ve never approached my online writing as work. An obligation yes. For my own reasons (writing is good writing practice) I have not let a month go by without posting since perhaps 2008. That’s a lot of words and feelings and I have loved it. It’s felt like a privilege to have actual readers for stuff I would write with or without an audience. I believe it’s made me a better writer. And then I started doing the podcast version which I also love. But I kind of suck at being organized with it all and promoting it consistently. That kind of thing just makes my eyes glaze over. And I don’t know how to ask for help very well either.
So this is just a message to all you friends and readers and yes, subscribers, to say bear with me. Don’t feel obliged to pony up! If you do want to chip in, I do truly appreciate it. I can’t get my head around figuring out what I’d give away for free and what I’d charge people for. No! I totally respect anyone who can get that distinction together. For the moment I just can’t and I’d really rather focus on working on my book, album in the works, some more screenprinting, a couple gigs (maybe booking more?) and trying to make sense of things through writing. If there are any mavens out there who are good at wrestling this stuff into manageability, get in touch.
As always, I thank you so much for coming along with me in whatever way suits you. And now I better find an image to stick on here! I hope your first week of 2023 is peaceful but energizing and full of hope.
xAmy
Hi Amy. I’m starting out here after unfortunate events on social media. Would love to connect with you and learn your experiences on this platform.
Your writing is too good to not earn a bit of geld!