12 weeks of Substack posting
Writing and ruminations
Today marks my 12th consecutive post on Substack. I really wanted to reach consistency in writing and posting this year so it’s going well so far. This continues to be a meandering journey through varied and sometimes connected topics as I try to figure out the world and life and improve my writing skills along the way. It’s been a struggle to drop the university voice and find my own, to try to keep the tone light, aim for optimism and wherever possible, have some insight or experience that others might be able to use.
Over the last year I’ve re-read William Zinsser’s On Writing Well – an old book but chock full of easily digested useful tips – and watched a fair few hours of writing folks like Nicolas Cole and Dan Koe (does that guy ever crack a smile?) and while I’ve taken tons of notes and have many sources for potential topics, I haven’t used any suggested template ideas. It’s not that I haven’t tried, more that what I write about doesn’t often lend itself to the problem/solution framework. Maybe a bit but not in a way that can be chunked down so tidily. Works for short snappy pieces, not so much for 2-3000 words.
Technicalities
What technical things?! I tend to just run with the subject until I have a bunch of sections on the page then proof read and edit to put it all in a sensible order and remove what’s not strictly needed or relevant. Maximum word count is 3000 if possible. Stuff like SEO doesn’t get a look in though I ought to learn the basics if I want to be writing for other people. Do I want to do that? Working that one out as I produce more material but I need to be quicker at finishing pieces. Mebbe I should just write less.
Do I use AI? No. Something about using tech tools to do the grunt work of your own mind and creativity doesn’t sit well with me. I’ve looked at Grammarly and it seems useful and yes, it’s AI but if you want AI to write for you, why are you writing at all? I don’t even believe it’s trustworthy for much information. We’ve seen it lie, spout woke nonsense and concoct academic references that don’t exist – why believe it’s to be trusted on other topics? As the X Files tag said “trust no one” and that includes those who’re programming AI to do what they want and to say what they want.
Writing is thinking in motion
Writing is about taking a topic or an idea, thinking about how to expand on it, dig into it, play with it and see where it takes you. I never really know what I’m writing until the words are on the screen. Now that’s a fascinating aspect of mind/brain. Thinking is weird (if you think about it). Words come out of the ether without prompt, sentences form, images flicker by the internal eye, some to stay and look more closely, others to pop in and out of existence faster than you can catch what they are. Sometimes the words and thoughts fail just before uttering only to pop up when you’ve moved on to another activity. Or the next morning on waking. All that time of no consciousness and the mind was working out answers and finding that damn word you couldn’t get onto the tip of your tongue or the answer to that crossword you wrestled with for ages. And the whole world we have now has been created from all this. Incredible.
My ‘process’ 😄
Each post starts by sifting through written or typed partial pieces, seeing what catches my attention and what remains relevant and current since some of them were drafted a couple of years ago (or more). This Substack is titled “Here to There” but reality is more like Here, There and Everywhere, which might seem like it could be a magical mystery tour (perhaps I should think of it that way) but really feels more like running in and out of caves trying to dig out something that looks like it could be polished into a tiny treasure. Yeah, I don’t see my posts as treasure but metaphorically, they’re the interesting stone you’d put in your bag rather than toss back on the ground.
One useful aspect of picking such varied topics, is finding once they’re written, they often no longer hold any interest. Sometimes they’re just a collection of thoughts/opinions I’ve had for years and occasionally they’ve sprung from social media posts generating a lot of debate. While these ones can capture attention for a while, they do distract and divert attention and brain power from action in real life since they aren’t directly applicable to most people. But it’s fine. I get them out my head onto screen and if it speeds the scrolling on Twitterx, that’s always a good thing.
At times, I’ve scrawled notes on a subject that seemed ripe for a deep dive but having tried to turn them into a full post, interest evaporates and the ideas run dry. This is also good. As someone who never knew what they wanted to do with life, discarding areas that don’t hold enough attention hopefully points me towards where I’m better off going. Ultimately, I’m searching for a few core ideas to further dig into.
Sometimes a topic starts with enthusiasm only for it to suddenly vanish three days before publishing date in a fit of doubt over whether my thoughts are saying anything useful or interesting. It’s fair to say that apprehension over putting work out there has kept most of my writing on the laptop rather than on Substack. Confidence is a killer for sure.
Organising
Another boon about getting the writing moving along is it’s forcing me to clear up all the random scrawls in multiple notebooks and endless scraps of paper that pile up on surfaces. I still have too many snippets to go through but my main notebook and first sheaf of scrap papers at least are now numbered, with another sheet acting as a reference list of topics that can be found on those pages.
YouTube recently presented me with a bunch of videos on commonplace notebooks. There were some gloriously neat organised ones and I thought, yeah, that’s how to do it. It’s been a plan for my notes for a long time but execution has been abysmal hence the field of disarray around me. I recently deciphered a note in the middle of an A4 page that had approximately eight random subject ideas written in 3 different directions. It said “stop scrawling unreadable notes” 😄. Cataloguing hundreds of scribbles into books allocated for specific subjects is going to be the cure for that. Hopefully.
If confidence in writing ability is an action killer, doubt is the idea killer. It’s nice (or was - in the olden days) to think you know how the world works or at least, to not need to question it all the time. I’ve had a lifetime of doubting my sanity, my sense of belonging, my own judgement, my intelligence and ability to thrive in the world.
The last few years have been a constant stream of new learning, adding more questions to the ones I already had and now, doubting almost everything and everyone. Interests I’ve had since very young are being questioned or rubbished (like Miles Mathis messing up all those lovely quantum physics oddities – thanks dude) and have me wondering if all of the metaphysical or otherwise alternative perspectives are a giant bamboozle. Never mind the world government thing, pre-programming and all that. The puzzle there is realising others had worked out the answers years ago and not knowing how they knew where to go looking, especially pre internet.
Do I carry on writing about the weird stuff? Hmm, I think yes, I do. I’ve learned some interesting facts about a few things (and people) but I’m not convinced that wall to wall cynicism is warranted about all of it. Not yet since it’s likely there’s truth and misconception mushed up with psy-ops and fool’s gold.
Moving forward
So how do we navigate the world when our anchor of reality has come adrift? Where do we go when it seems like nowhere is safe? How do we plan when it looks like the future’s been planned for us and that future has no place for our individual desires and goals? What to think when your fascinations or interests could be a mere show?
These questions have been a ‘gift’ for us procrastinators and I’ve had to have a stern talk with myself about that. I can hardly say I take a positive view of what’s coming while also holding back on action in case the world has gone tits up by next Tuesday. (Someone’s always predicting the end of the banking system after the coming weekend.)
Yet, despite the uncertainty, I see other people simply getting on with what they want to do regardless of the madness and really, that’s the best, the only way to go. Getting out the house and talking with others is how to have new ideas and opportunities drop into view. If you think the future is a place of restriction and suppression then you’d never get out of bed in the morning. Why bother?
Why indeed. Perhaps because we never want to believe bad things will happen so we crack on regardless of what might be coming. When I was a teen it was the threat of nuclear war with films and documentaries to scare the pants off everyone. Hasn’t happened and don’t believe the rubbish the media print about “Putin threatens xyz”. The ice age that was predicted hasn’t happened either. It will eventually since the planet runs on cycles of thousands of years and the sun has it’s own little tantrums to throw on a regular basis. As ever, we just don’t know what’s on the horizon. May as well keep going.
And as we move forward and notice all the manoeuvring of various groups around the world, we gather information, compare notes, ponder our options, come to conclusions and maybe, decide to spin off in a totally new direction from what we planned, because the current times are like no other. So much change and yes, so much opportunity as the old breaks down and the new gathers together with the like minded. In old times we’d have sat back and expected governments to get on and deal with the chaos. Now, we laugh at the very idea. Change will come from the grass roots as people realise the only way to a better future is by making it happen themselves, however daunting a task it may seem at times.
I don’t yet have a clear idea about how that will work. But week by week, I write a bit more and along the way, with the discussions our park group have every week, maybe I’ll figure it out and meanwhile, I’m finishing off this piece and hoping I won’t hate it in the morning when it’s time to hit “publish”!