This newsletter started almost eight years ago on TinyLetter. Back then, I was promoting my first novel and sharing various writing-related thoughts, including my recovery from a broken leg. Since then, there has been another book (maybe my best one?) and another on the way (eventually, really!) and my writing-related thoughts have expanded into other topics, too, though I’m always happy to share updates on my leg (TLDR: it hurts all the time).
TinyLetter was streamlined, a simple newsletter without lots of bells and whistles. I miss it. If you write your own Substack or other newsletter, you probably use this or Ghost or MailChimp, and so you know that on the backend there is a lot of stuff. I do a pretty poor job of formatting this sucker, but that level of incompetence is actually a step up for me and it really does take me a while to lay out this message. With TinyLetter, I just sorta sat down and banged it out.
Anyway, when MailChimp, who acquired TinyLetter, decided to shutter the service, my friend Samantha urged me to archive my work. This was good advice! And because I did that, today, I’m going to hit you up with a repost from way back in 2017, one of the worst replies I have ever received that also, in many ways, became one of my favorite replies I have ever received.
Here it is, from the archives (I feel like Casey Kasum!), “I Despair for Your Chutzpah”:
Recently, I sent my first TinyLetter, announcing that my debut novel was available for pre-order. Not only did many of you pre-order my book (for which I am very, very grateful), many of you wrote me back. That means a lot. One of the reasons I've long been thinking about starting a newsletter is because of how rarely I get to see, hear, and spend time with my friends in person, and I've always found that social media tends to make me feel not closer, but more distant. I'm by no means an Army brat, but since 2000, I've moved around quite a bit, going to Boston, then St. Louis, then to Columbia, and then D.C.
So, for many of you, hey, it's been a while since you've heard from me, right? Nothing personal. Everyone gets busy. Which is why it really fantastic when, after reading my email, to get your email and hear about where you are with your life and just a few of the good things that you're up to. Your words were positive, genuine, and enthusiastic, which I can't thank you enough for.
But, because we can't have nice things in 2017, I did get back a few nasty emails. One person cursed me out because he was angry about ... I dunno, everything? Another one of those "take a long walk off a short pier and hug an octopus" responses was particularly ... strange. It upset me for about five minutes, and then I found it increasingly funny. So! With the name redacted, I'm sharing his email with you. Hooray, Internet!
Let's break down this response I received.
I admire your chutzpa,
Thanks, buddy! I really appreciate that. As a fellow writer, you know that no author actually enjoys marketing and advertising her/his own work. To write our books, we spend a lot of time alone. Whether this takes months, years, decades, the isolation becomes fairly intimate and familiar. Doing a complete 180 and trying to get the world to pay attention when 3500 books are published every month is fairly daunting, a skillset that many people, let alone writers, do not possess. So your words of encouragement are terrific to hear.
Got admit, though, I'm dreading your comma usage. Please, continue.
but also despair,
"Despair"? Because of my email announcing I'm publishing a novel I've been working on for four years? That doesn't seem like the best emotionally response to my announcement. You need a hug, or a dog, or ice cream, or maybe a hug from a dog while together you both eat ice cream. I dunno.
just a bit.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm getting a sneaky suspicion the rest of your email is about to take a turn I will not like.
This is your first book, right?
No, actually, it isn't.
Obviously, it's self-published.
No, actually, it isn't. You didn't surf The Google before writing me back, did you? Why are you writing, btw?
The thing is, if it's any good,
I think my book is good. But I'm biased. I know the author. Though I do sense from the way this sentence is starting out that you don't think it's good and you're letting me know that in the most condescending fashion your little fingers can type.
it would eventually be published by a legitimate press,
Is this where I point out that 1. You don't know how to use the Internet or 2. You haven't published a book in ten years? Or should I wait a little longer?
a non-vanity process.
"I do not think that it means what you think it means" - Inigo Montoya
I fear you've made a huge error in judgment.
Actually, I feel great! My physician says I'm of sound mind and judgment! Also, I can't say I'm digging your ... well, what, exactly, are you offering here? Help? Advice? Counsel? Constructive criticism?
But I wish you good luck.
You have a peculiar way of doing that.
I, for one, do not have time to read vanity projects.
I, for one, could argue that to some extent all work we do is a vanity project unless you're actively attempting to end nuclear proliferation. I would also say that your email has this amazing feature called "Delete" which allows you to eliminate unwanted emails without hitting "Reply" (a function you apparently do understand how to use) and sending your condescending fucking bullshit response to me.
*
Welcome back to 2024, where president pukeface goes full hate and senility and blamed an airline crash on democrats and DEI.
This month, I have read seven books, which would put me on pace for 84 books this year, which I assure you, is not going to happen. There is a little bit of calendar trickery here, where I finished books I was reading in December, so January gets the credit. I also read three very slim books—A Termination by Honor Moore, Consent by Jill Ciment, and Here After by Amy Lin—in about a week.
I cannot recommend Ciment’s book highly enough. It’s slim, it’s brilliant, it’s painful, it’s insightful.
In addition, I’ve been rereading the novel I’m working on. I’ve noted the passages where I’m a bit bored, or the transitions are bumpy, or where there is a “Then a miracle happens” kind of paragraph, and other early draft stumblings. I actually feel pretty good about where to go next, but of course, that’s the hard part.
Also, I haven’t broken any bones this year! Hooray!
1. As the firehose of the new administration has turned on and corporate media has vomited on itself during yet another existential crisis, I have been thinking about this a lot: how much do I really need to know?
2. “In many ways, TinyLetter embodied the idea that creativity comes from constraint.”
3. I admit, I’m not an audiobook guy, but this is still pretty cool.
Until the next time,
Michael
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