Unholy words
I’d rather be a fool than alone in these woods. Will you join me?
Spring is, culturally, a season of endings in my corner of North America. Graduation cards are on sale. Prom corsages are on display. The school year is nearly over and the children—mine, at least—are pulling on shorts and it’s a good thing since they’ve grown straight out of their pants.
It feels unseasonal to start a new thing when everyone around me is wrapping up. Late spring and summer are for hiking and camping and IPAs until sundown. Then morning yoga and coffee. Though I am not a big camper, I love going to beaches and lakes and leaping. The skin on me wants to kiss the sand and a refusal to go with the flow makes me anxious. Nevertheless, I'm doing a new thing. Launching something. A free newsletter. The Gift.
This is a belated announcement. I started The Gift a year ago to no fanfare. I made no posts. No one subscribed. This lack of engagement was the consequence of inaction. After creating the newsletter, I lost my mind to self-doubt. What if I didn’t convince anyone to read—let alone pay—for my words? What if I wasn't expert enough? What if I wasn't spiritual enough? What if I wasn't feminist enough? Intersectional enough? Beneath ‘enough’ sat ‘worthy’—a state I'd decided was the lynchpin of a successful newsletter. One must be so worthy. Because as anyone who is in, or adjacent to, the internet writing world has gleaned, newsletters are the financial and platform panacea for writers. Who are—if I can generalize about an otherwise diverse population—often precariously employed and insecure about our popularity. The subscription newsletter promises to be the end-all. Get one thousand readers to pay $5/month and do the math. That’s a livable wage—even in Seattle. I could quit my day job.
Except, I wouldn’t. Holy moly, how in the world would I get 1,000 readers to pay $5/month? I have 600 followers on Instagram and 1,600 friends on Facebook. My Twitter feed is a wasteland of retweets. I get an average of 25 “likes” per post, more only if I include a baby. By my calculations, I'd need at least 10,000 lovely readers interested in more than my babies to land 1,000 paying readers. Not to mention, the newsletter market seems saturated. What’s an anxious writer to do?
I have 600 followers on Instagram and 1,600 friends on Facebook. My Twitter feed is a wasteland of retweets. I get an average of 25 “likes” per post, more only if I include a baby.
Reader, this writer decided a year ago I wasn’t unholy enough to evangelize myself. This decision was reinforced by my snobbish belief that art—the kind that I wanted to make—was more sacred when unpolluted by economics, especially the kind that entails tooting one’s own horn.
Unworthy and unholy. With this narrow choice of signification, it's no surprise I walked away from my newsletter. I would write vignettes on social media, share in writing groups, take or teach classes, and punch out paragraphs. That was enough.
Except, it wasn’t. The urge to create and share keeps returning. And lest I pathologize myself as suffering from Imposter Syndrome, I knew I needed a reframe.
“Why,” I asked, “are doing this? Do you plan to ask for money?” She gently pointed out that newsletters don't have to earn money, but also, asking for money isn't inherently wrong.
Thankfully, it came. Two weeks ago, writing friend Ali Crook became the first person to actually *discover* my newsletter and subscribe. I subscribed to hers. “Why,” I asked, “are doing this? Do you plan to ask for money?” She gently pointed out that newsletters don't have to earn money, but also, asking for money isn't inherently wrong. “It’s a way to share all the writing I do in courses and for research, to keep it somewhere. Later when I publish people might find it is an interesting backstory.” It can be that simple.
Last week, I attended a free Author’s Guild workshop by comedian and writer Amber Petty on writing free newsletters (she shared—and challenged—some of the same stats I have here. The cultural narrative is pervasive). And finally, I devoured Jane Friedman’s excellent and exhaustive book The Business of Being a Writer (2018), which describes in careful, broad strokes the landscape of professional writing in the digital age. Friedman encourages writers to embrace the imagination involved in creating a platform. “By using your voice, and using it often, you find it” (31).
While it’s unlikely I’ll go camping this summer, I do plan to dive into new waters. Get out of my comfort zone. Write about media, technology, and my daily life to spark creativity and reflection. The pieces will resemble what you’re reading now. And I have ideas for more!
Embracing unholiness and sidelining judgment feels about as relaxing as being up a creek without a paddle or bucking springtime trends. I consider the newsletter a way to challenge my internalized stories about worthiness and sacredness. To commit to regular writing. To reach new readers outside of social media.
I'm sure this will be an anxious effort, paved with mistakes.
But I’d rather be a fool than alone in these woods.
Will you join me?
Book recommendation
You might like it for
Relatable, imperfect characters living in New York City
Astute observations on academia, intimacy, and mothering
Dogged optimism for the aesthetics of creative/intellectual endeavors
Slow-burn plot
Brevity (I finished in a night)
“I think of all the ways books have failed me, all the ways they're less than what I thought, but it's still the language that I like the best in the show.” — Lynn Steger Strong, pg. 191.
Works cited
Friedman, Jane. 2018. The Business of Being a Writer. Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing. Chicago ; London: The University of Chicago Press.
Simmons, Dana. 2016. “Impostor Syndrome, a Reparative History.” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 2 (August): 106–27.
Strong, Lynn Steger. 2020. Want. First edition. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Brava!!