Practical, If Infrequent, Magic

On Substack and me and you and how often I am or am not writing things here

I wanted to put up a brief note as I looked through my exit surveys while cleaning up the dashboard after posting the most recent essay here.

And what I saw made me a little sad. Most of the people who subscribed and then dropped said that I don’t post enough to make it worthwhile—WHICH I COMPLETELY GET. Your money and your attention is worth so much, and it’s up to you where to put both.

But…there’s a reason. And I feel like I should explain it.

I started Substack when I was establish accounts everywhere that seemed like a likely place to land once Musk took over Twitter. I’m not sure I really even had any intention of doing anything here, but it seemed like a good idea to set up shop in a lot of places so that wherever the diaspora came together, I’d be ready to go.

And then I wrote an essay right after Christmas that went really, really viral, and it was suddenly like the old blogging days, the conversation and the warmth and a small community slowly building. And I liked it. I wanted to keep it going. I didn’t even intend to have a paid tier at first. But then again, I also didn’t intend to write big ol’ chonkers here, either. And people wanted a paid tier, so I made one, and it was really nice to feel acknowledged for my nonfiction work that way.

But the thing is, this is not my job. I don’t mean Substack, I mean non-fiction-related writing entirely. Depending on how you slice it, I have three or four jobs.

Given the strongly political thrust of Substack and how many people mention they hadn’t heard of me before this or that essay, you may not actually know that I’m a whole-ass science fiction and fantasy novelist. I also have been working on a Super Secret Big Deal Project for about two years now, for which I am an hourly W2 employee. And I have a lively and well-established Patreon for which I generate a pretty enormous amount of content every month. And my Patreon has been going for six years, so they get priority. They just do.

If you count the fact that as a fiction writer I have to run my own publicity and maintain multiple social media accounts to get people to read my work, and you should, that makes four full-time jobs I work every day simultaneously.

I also have a four year old.

And ADHD.

I love writing these essays. I really do. I love talking with all of you about them and I love seeing them matter to somebody here and there. They make me feel better about the garbage world. They make me feel like I’m trying. That feeling is probably an illusion no better than thinking Tweeting is activism, but we all take hope where we can find it.

The thing is, I don’t make very much money from Substack. Some, and that some is so profoundly appreciated, you’ve no idea, but I have a child and responsibilities and deadlines and bosses and editors and I have to be practical about where I put my time and attention and energy. And most of that some came from the Christmas essay—I’ve written pieces here for which I earned not a penny. These aren’t tweet threads. And it’s neither 2008 nor am I 29 with all the energy in the world and few responsibilities other than to my work anymore. Each of the pieces I’ve written here are 3-6000 words. And I do two of them each time, one public, and one for the paid tier that’s too spicy a take for prime time. Each of them is researched and sourced and edited. IT TAKES A MINUTE.

And that’s pretty much the average length of a novelette. Every one of them is a significant short story I didn’t write, that would have paid me, maybe been nominated for something, maybe turned into a novel or sold film rights, maybe been anthologized. And I am glad to write these instead! It can’t all be robots and dragons! But I just can’t really afford to write 6000 words a week here when I have novels that aren’t done or aren’t edited, Patreon, which I rely on, and where I produce about 7-10,000 words of content a month, short stories I’ve committed to, and the Big Project that needs watering every single day.

Substack is a thing I do for love, because it doesn’t make much money, and therefore a pair of essays about every six weeks is pretty much where I can afford to land unless I get REALLY upset, because my brand of upset isn’t welcome on Twitter anymore. (I am on Mastodon, though.)

So while I’m not going to say this very often, as it is annoying and cringey and all the rest, the best way to get more essays out of me is to become a paid subscriber so that posting here is something it’s reasonable to bump up the list of priorities. I wish it weren’t that way, but we live in the world we live in, and food is expensive, and so is summer childcare, and so is everything else.

Now, I understand that a lot of people have issues with Substack, and they are many and varied and complicated. Yes, some trash raccoon-goblins use this site, and some were even invited to do so. I know. It’s complicated. Because some amazing people were also invited and paid to be here. Some voices that do not usually get paid. And ultimately, where I land on it is that if I could not use a site that also had goblins on it, making money and using it to reach people, I could not use the internet at all.

But I get it. So also, you could become a patron on Patreon (that also has issues and some goblins-at-work, I am aware) and tell me in a PM that you came from Substack.

So I am very sorry to the folks who took the time to type out that I don’t even manage to average one post a month. They’re right, I don’t. That could change, but as much as I am your mad dreaming forest witch, I am also a pragmatic parent and adult-shaped entity. I can’t do all nighters to write everything under the sun and then some anymore. I have to pick and choose. And work that doesn’t feed us (or for which I did not sign a legally binding contract) has to get done in the margins of the day and the night. Which are slim at the best of times, and non-existent in the summer when there’s no school for my child.

So yeah. Sorry about that. I do WANT to do more. I’d even like to do some shorter pieces here. There’s literally six half-started essays in my drafts folder. If you want more than every six weeks-ish, think about becoming a paid subscriber so that I can justify it to a brain that in its youth did not have enough to eat or a place to live, and is very hard to convince that everything will always be okay for writers in the future.

What can I say, capitalism sucks, this is a fifth job, and I’m doing my best to pay back the attention, time, care, conversation, community, and those of you who do pay for this content (because you are saints) with the Good Shit.

I’m not going anywhere. But life’s math isn’t always as much fun as we’d like it to be.

I’m going to go work on my Secret and then finish up the Zuckerberg/Musk follow-up piece for you all before my kid gets out of art camp. Thanks for putting up with this, I know it’s obnoxious and boring.

I mean, I didn’t even say fuck once.