Doing Things Different

I started a Substack. Finally.

I've been playing around with it for a year. More. Except it's easy for me to lose track of ideas - in fact, this is what I was originally trying to tell you yesterday, but yet again, ended up derailing myself.

It's not been easy, or more to the point, it's been uncertain. I think quite often I don't got things to say, or strength in my lungs to say them with anymore. Where to tell? And what? Substack's been lurking at the corner of my consciousness for a long time. Again. Been trying for a year, except the first time I tried, I thought I should and I don't do good with 'shoulds'. Also, I think I was in a testy point with the person who'd suggested I give it a try.

I'm the sort of person who says like fuck I will more often than is probably good for me.

Nevertheless, all things have their time, and so I spent an evening a couple days ago poking around, learning the ropes, chatting to a friend who showed me around a bit, which turned out to be an engaging and confidence-building experience.

I have confidence in my writing, but suck at selling myself. And whenever I approach new writing environments, it's the same spiel. Commenting, chatting up people, saying 'notice me' without really saying.

I'm not good at it. I don't enjoy it. Which is partly why I was cautious about joining another writing place.

It's funny, I don't remember ever doing it on Hive. I suppose I hung around like a bit of a pest at the heel of one or two users older and wiser than myself. I like to think I wasn't spammy or asking people to notice me. Then again, I was 18. I didn't think I had much worth noticing probably.

Anyway, I figured if I was gonna do this, then I would try to do it on terms that are fun for me, though maybe not the most profitable. I'm going to be over there, probably cross-posting a bit from my Medium and possibly from here (though I've been mingling the two already lately). I'm gonna put up things I genuinely like. Like the one I put up there? That one, I really liked.

And I will try to only click on and interact with posts I like and that attract me. It probably won't make for too fast growth. But that, as I have often, often written on Medium, is unsustainable anyway.

The reason I grew disenchanted with Medium was that I sensed too much of this quid pro quo vibe that I believed was unhelpful for creativity. But maybe I could've seen also I didn't have to join in. I never could join in, so always ended up leaving the artistic groups where I felt support was mandatory and enjoyment impersonal.

I never felt that about Hive. Maybe it's because I was so young at the time, perhaps clueless. I was just having fun. So I suppose I'll try to have fun here, also. I did have fun the other night. I made people squeaky because one of the ways in which this platform outdoes Medium is that it allows for voice and video files as well. So you get to watch or at least listen to people read their stuff, which turned out to be really neat.

I don't really expect to have the same good fortune I've had on Hive anywhere else, though. I just don't think you get to replicate good things like that, and that you should just be grateful for them in the first place. I keep trying to remind myself that this is the only way it works - when you don't force things.

So I'm trying not to force the things I care about the most in life.

It doesn't always work. But at least, I am trying. :)

If you happen to use Substack and would be kind enough to subscribe, then I'd greatly appreciate it, by the way. It is free. Or at least, can be. But you've probably had enough of my yapping over eight years, haven't you?