Pablo Picasso, La Dormeuse, 1947
I always have a plan for next Substack post I’m going to write, but sometimes when I sit down the words just don’t come out right. So then I move onto writing something else, until my internal alarm goes off. It’s been four days…
My work life is now mostly dictated by that internal alarm. I’m grateful for that—Substack has given me the freedom to be creative on my own schedule. It’s given me both autonomy and accountability. I don’t procrastinate anymore (well, I still do it, but it’s not debilitating the way it could be in college). I find writing Bookbear Express extremely fulfilling.
I do ruminate constantly about what’s going right and wrong with the Substack. Do people like it? Am I plateauing? Am I writing enough? Am I writing too much? I think of myself as running a small business, but I find it hard to talk about it openly with other people because it’s such a personal business. It’s my feelings!
I love being part of the extended Substack universe. I subscribe to probably around 50 Substacks, and pay for somewhere between 20 and 30. Sometimes I get jealous of people who run style Substacks or beauty Substacks because there are so many cool clothes in the world and there are just endless things within that sphere to write about. But then I think, it’s probably really stressful. I personally subscribe to at least 15 fashion Substacks—there’s a lot of competition, and I’m sure there’s lots of pressure to keep it interesting. My point is that I mostly try to write about what feels most effortless for me, which happens to be feelings and intimacy and more broadly the challenge of being a human being in the world. And I’m allowed to write about other things too, if I feel like it.
I really like how many Substacks have been started in the past couple of years. I've written before on here about how I spent my teens reading various Wordpress and Blogspot blogs. I always liked personal blogs, women talking about various aspects of their lives, and Substack has brought that back with a vengeance.
I was talking to friends today about safe cozy places on the Internet and Substack feels like that for me. The comment section of basically every Substack I read is so positive, and so is my own. It’s like everyone has their own cute little house and people act like guests who are invited in. Everyone is so nice! I really like all the people I’ve met through Substack.
My own plan for Substack
Freedom without structure can feel limiting. But the good thing about Substack is that you set your own structure.
Here’s what’s worked for me: I try to do one post each week that’s just an essay on whatever thoughts or feelings I’m having. And then I do a post that’s either advice or reading recommendations that’s for paid subscribers only. My goal this year was to be really experimental with my Substack—I’m always going to keep the meandering personal essays people seem to like, but I really want to experiment with doing longer pieces, interviews, more of the advice column, in-person workshops, etc.
By the way: please consider converting to a paid subscription! Paid subscriptions really help support my writing and continued experiments. I am planning on tweaking pricing this year, but if you want to commit now I’m doing a sale on annual subscriptions for the next four days:
My advice, if you want to write a Substack:
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