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As you all know, I’ve been doing my best every single Sunday to highlight another creator and help build the community of writers that exist here on Substack. It’s been a really fun thing to do and it has been a really difficult thing to do.
I try to make sure that I highlight creators that I think my readers would enjoy, and at the same time I also try to be honest and tell my readers why I read the people I highlight. Since I’ve started doing this, I’ve had a handful of other creators reach out to me to ask if I would make them the creator of the week and such.
I feel like doing that is somewhat cheating the system. The concept of this is I am trying to find the creators who go above and beyond and try to make a community out of Substack and not just trying to make a name for themselves.
This week I struggled to think about the right person to put as the creator of the week. Not that I didn’t find people that would fit, but because honestly, I found a lot of people that would fit. I saw a significant number of people that matter for this highlight.
The reason I struggled is actually because I did something I haven’t done in a little over a month. I sat down and started writing another novel. It’s a strange thing when I do this, because I have lived the entire book out about ten thousand times in my mind. I have watched my own mental movie over and over again, and from every angle.
Of course, when I try to write it down, I have to think of the best way to make sure that I don’t just capture the scene right, but I am also working to make sure that I am able to capture the same emotion and feels I have when I have the story play in my mind.
That’s a fancy way to say that writing a single chapter of this book takes me about 4 drafts which is around 12 hours. That doesn’t include the overall edits, the second draft, second round of edits, and so on and so forth.
I know what you’re sitting there thinking. “Nick, who gives a shit.” The reason I am explaining this all to you is simple. This week my choice for the creator of the week is kinda cheating the system.
Sometimes when I meet a creator, we talk about writing or the stuff we craft. Sometimes we talk about what we are trying to create and build. Very rarely do I find a creator that I can talk to about really personal stuff. Stuff like how much the tax rate in NYS sucks. Stuff like the frustration of doing this work while having your kids driving you nuts. Stuff like how the Old Pink was one of the best god damn bars to ever exist and how sad it is to know that it is gone forever.
Yes, that is a reference that only a certain group of people will ever understand. You have had to spend time in Western NY to understand how deep that cut is.
The thing about this week’s creator that makes it kind of cheating, is the fact that I’m almost doing a piece on myself. This week I get to talk about someone that creates and builds on Substack that could be considered an alternate universe version of me.
This week’s creator is a New Yorker. Not from NYC, but from real New York. He is a father of three. Much like myself, he doesn’t write from a position of political left or right. Instead it is a writing from moral right and wrong. We both grew up in a pre-internet world where we learned the meaning of life from Kurt Cobain. The only difference is that he would throw it all away for Josh Allen and those dreamy eyes.
All jokes aside, the creator of the week is someone who I first spoke to a few months ago. As I said, our viewpoints on life are insanely similar and so when I saw his work, I instantly felt like I was talking to a kindred spirit. Then I spoke to the man himself, and I realized that he is exactly the kind of person I would sit around and have a beer with.
Enough with burying the lede though, it is my delight and pleasure to introduce the creator of the week, Erik. Better known as Liberaldad.
Erik doesn’t write to make people angry. He doesn’t write because he wants to radicalize people. Erik does what he does so that when his kids have questions someday, they can read what he wrote and get answers. Sound familiar right?
He is trying to make sure that his kids can refer back to his writing one day and see that their dad was on the right side of history. That is almost beat for beat my same purpose for doing what I do.
He also does things the same way I do. There is no paywall. Where I always say that putting a paywall on my work would be me limiting knowledge to people and keeping people who need to know away from knowing, his purpose is that paywalling the work would be counterproductive because “we are all in this together.”
Normally I have to explain that the creator I am highlighting is able to do something like poetry or something I can’t do well. Erik does what I do, and he does it damn good. Some of his work is absolutely genius. He is able to write satire in a way that would cause Adam McKay to change his underwear.
If you really want to know who Erik is, and what he truly believes, he wrote a piece called Stay In The Fray; You Are Vital. He used this to talk about what made him who he is. He talks about how difficult everything we are dealing with has been.
Much like myself, he talks about how much this administration has aged us with its cruel and ruthless attacks on the American people. Also like me, he explains that there are no super heroes coming to save us. This won’t be made better by someone flying in and fighting the bad guys.
He understands that the real heroes are those out here who stand there with a sign refusing to accept what is happening. He is clear that the heroes our children will grow up and aspire to be aren’t the Captain Americas but the American Captain who served his country and now refuses to accept its downfall.
Both Erik and myself have dealt with losing the women in our lives who were responsible for creating us to be the men we are. He understands the same concepts I do in a world where sensationalized media, corporate puppets for the legacy media, and the spread of hate and disinformation are the most dangerous threats we face. [NICK: this sentence needs your finish. What is it you both understand about those threats? One line completes it.]
Neither of us started doing what we did because we wanted to make a career of writing. In fact, both of us did this while working full-time. This was never about fame, fortune, or making a living. This was simply our attempt to make a difference and leave the world a better place than we found it.
I know some people out there will say that I just highlighted a guy who is exactly like me, but the truth is I highlighted a guy who shares the same vision for a better tomorrow I do. We both attack power. We both believe that the people of this country as a whole have more potential for good than evil.
We both refuse to be quiet in a world that has told us we don’t matter.
https://substack.com/@liberaldad
I know I have a significant number of followers who tell me regularly that they appreciate what I write and how I write. I know that I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t introduce you all to Erik.
Also, because I know that he would appreciate it, allow me to switch up my normal sign-off. As much as it is important to stay loud, stay informed, and stay dangerous, I want to steal a page directly out of Erik’s book.
Love you all,
-Nicholas J. Orcutt
See the other featured Creators:
You just read something power didn’t want written.
No outlet assigned this story. No editor approved a budget for it. It exists because readers fund an independent operation with no paywall, no owner, and no one to answer to but you.
My readers have built this into one of the top politics publications on Substack. Not because of me. Because enough people decided that receipts without a paywall should exist, and put money behind that decision.
Passing through? A one-time tip funds the work with no subscription and no follow-up.
Every essay stays free either way. But understand what free costs. The stories that don’t get funded don’t get told. That silence is the product power is counting on.
Truth dies in silence. Spread the information.
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