I’m staring at my blank screen watching my cursor blink repeatedly as if to mock my brainlessness with every pulsing glimmer.
I showed up to write and sort of just hoped things would flow along. I normally think about a topic or subject for awhile before posting, even sort of pitching myself ideas like a one woman publishing hub. But today I am tired because I spent the previous 3 days of this week installing flooring in our attic (which I assure you I am not qualified to do or had any knowledge of before watching 3 YouTube videos), then painting the entire space into the wee hours of the night, causing my children concern because “usually I’m dead to the world by 8:30pm” kind of person. So, now today my almost 40 year old body is feeling well, like an almost 40 year old chubby woman who doesn’t exercise, eats what she wants, doesn’t stretch, and drinks too much coffee, might feel like.
There’s likely not enough ibuprofen in the world to undo the pain down the back of my arms from painting a slanted ceiling for five hours that could’ve been easily been avoided if I just woke up 10 minutes earlier a day and touched my damn toes or something.
But achey and all, here I am.
My Substack timeline, while still better than most social media forms, is starting to take the shape of everything else. Between the honest thoughts of real people, hilariously relatable images, long form musings are countless posts and essays on “how” to do Substack so you can make money, quit your job, go viral, etc. etc. etc.
But what if I’m just here to make stuff? To show up and write and and read other people’s writings, and fill my creative tank. What if I’m stretching my creative muscles like I should probably be my physical muscles in a hope of creativity flexibilty and fluidity.
I love how every platform starts as some creative outlet, only to become a “how to” on capitalizing off it. I have no smoke if you do make money off it-who would I even be to judge as someone who has made money off content creation for years now. But I guess I hate the notion of it becoming an equation to solve instead of people just genuinely connecting to your work and supporting it.
In a buzzing world of noise pollution and overconsumption, is it okay to just want to create a practice for the sake of my sanity? even if only 5 people read it and I make absolutely no money from it? Is it still worth making?
The answer for me is yes.
So my goal is to keep making shitty Substacks with improper grammar, spelling errors, and run on sentences. My hope is to keep sharing in whatever capacity I have because its good for my soul or whatever and helps me keep making sense of the endless semi-psychotic loop that’s in my brain which I find both terrifying and brilliant. I keep you keep stretching your creative self and showing up to the table in whatever capacity you can, I’ll have coffee and ibuprofen for you.
x j
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