Well, Substack, it’s been one year. On August 10th, 2024, I posted my first…wait a second… Oh my, no, I posted for the first time on August 3rd, but because I’m an old man, I DID IT WRONG AND POSTED AN ENTIRE BLOG POST AS A NOTE!
And then did it again on August 7th.
And then I realized something was wrong and copied/pasted the contents of those Notes into actual Posts and published them both on August 10th.
Talk about coming out with a bang, folks!
Today, I’m going to take a walk back through my Substack memory lane, leave some comments along the way, and highlight some of the fairly decent (maybe) posts that many of my newer readers may have missed. I promise I won’t bloviate too much.
Before that, I must take a moment to thank you, dear reader, for coming along for the ride. Whether you just got here or have been here since email number one, it means so much that you take the time to read what I’m putting out there. Thank you!
The Beginning
These first two posts are interesting to read now. So interesting, in fact, that I didn’t re-read them. (I’m being self-deprecating. I’m sure they are fine, but I just plain don’t have the time. Oooh. Poetry.)
The first was about my journey to being a writer:
The second post dealt with what exactly I was doing on Substack, and a quick scan of this one reveals it to be sort of fun. In it, I consider my original statement that I was writing on Substack “just for me,” and look at how the evidence does and doesn’t support this. Was I lying when I made that statement? I won’t tell you where I landed on that—you can read for yourself—but I think the assessment still stands.
From there, I wrote more things about my life.
I detailed weekend trips to the U.P. with my sons, Clyde and Archie.
I opened my aged wallet and reacted to all the schmutz I found in there.
This one was a wild ride and fairly decent, if I remember right. Who knew that rifling through your wallet would lead to publicly coming out as an atheist?
My grandma died, and I wrote about all four of my passed grandparents not long after.
This one was my “top post” for quite a while.
At some point, I need to stop linking to every single thing I wrote, so suffice it to say that I branched out after that. I wrote about the origins of some of my stories, including the now Substack exclusive “The Wheel,” and my novel Rue. I ranted about how fuckced up our politics are and that we should all probably ditch any news source other than AP News if we want to save our country. I annotated some of my stories, and I will link to a few of those because the Substack Fiction crew that adopted me probably hasn’t seen them. The first was called “Watching” and basically recounted a recurring dream I had as a child. The second deserves its own thumbnail, I believe:
The Middle
Things changed after those first few months. I started to worry about subscriber counts and engagement numbers. I obsessed over what I could do to get more traction. I got kinda stressed about things, and I’m not proud of any of that. Luckily, this was a short-lived phase, and I managed to crank out some decent writing anyway. I’ll keep this section short (this is why middle children are loud) and just link to a few of the bangers:
A heartfelt story about, you guessed it, a Kleenex Box
Our beloved mailman died! (He didn’t, but it really, really felt like it)
I finished reading Lord of the Rings to my firstborn son (we cried)
I documented my son’s birthday sleepover party with a heavy dose of sarcasm
Towards the end of this era of my Substackian existence, things got a little squirrelly. I’m tempted to be embarrassed about this, but I can’t be. After all, I was just a dude trying things and hoping to find my place in the writing world. Is that such a problem? No, it’s not, and if I’ve learned anything about being on Substack, it’s that people don’t care about you as much as you think. You are only the main character in your own story, and that’s just fine.
The End
“Wait! Don’t call it that, dude! You aren’t leaving, are you?!”
No, I’m not, but when the first two sections of a three-act structure are “The Beginning” and “The Middle,” it’s what makes sense.
“How about ‘The Future’, ya doof?!”
The Future
Ok, sure, let’s call it that.
Because you know what? That’s what now is. The future! I’ve finally found my crew on this platform and—surprise—it’s not the people who complain about AI and algorithms or pontificate about how to grow your Substack.
It’s the FICTION CREW.
I don’t know why it took me so long to find these guys. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t until I saw a post from Lady Of The Lake saying something like “Want to get into fiction on Substack? Here are people to check out!” (or something like that) and I started subscribing to stuff. I believe Happy Nielsen, Jay Wilcox, and Nikki | Nocturnal Narrator were on that list, but I’m very much going from memory right now. Either way, what a difference it made! Suddenly, I was interacting with a group of people who all read and supported each other, rather than telling me what I should do with my Substack. Suddenly, everything fell into place. Suddenly, the metrics fell out the window of my brain. (Like, literally, I almost never look at them anymore.)
Then I had an idea for a (very) short story, and posted it as my first brand-new piece of fiction on the platform.
Woof, went a little over the top with that one, didn’t I? Oh well. I WAS EXCITED.
Then I started interviewing my wife about her art:
Then, I started a new series called “On Writers.” Yeah, it’s not the most inventive name, and sure, I ripped it off from Stephen King (there he is again!) and multiple others, but whatever. It makes sense. This was my chance to meet the Fiction Crew!
My first guest was Jay Wilcox. I reached out to him because, I don’t know, he seemed funny? His flash fiction based on story prompts is fucking hilarious and more inventive than you can imagine. If you aren’t reading it yet, you really need to. We are talking about a time commitment of 1-2 minutes per post, and I laugh out loud at almost all of them. (When I restack his posts with an “LOL”, you know I mean it.)
Sure as shit, he was game for an interview. I was nervous, to be honest. Not about being on camera, not about going live, but…what if he was weird? Awkward? What if I found myself in front of the whole world (lol, dreamer) with a guy who was falling apart in front of my eyes?!
Boy, was I wrong. Jay was an absolute delight!
“On Writers” has continued to be my favorite activity on Substack, and I’ve gone on to interview the following writers:
Andrew Taylor (Another Andrew T., this time with the voice of a manly angel! Seriously. He does narrations and they are PRO.)
And many more to come.
I’m about to wrap this thing up, but I would be remiss not to mention my novella, The Wheel. I’ve only got five more chapters to post over the next two weeks. It’s been such a thrill to get this out into the world after all the hours I’ve spent working on it.
And that’s all, folks. I’m having more fun on Substack now than ever, and of all things, that takes me back to the beginning. I joined this platform to have fun, and after a year of fumbling, I’ve managed to continue doing that.
It’s no longer just for me, though. It’s so gratifying to interact with new writers and to amplify their voices out into the world! Sure, I get some return on investment there (in the form of sporadic new subscribers), but if I said that’s what it was all about, I’d be well and truly lying.
Thanks for hanging out, and I’ll see you all around. Here’s to year two!
If you’ve enjoyed my writing over the last year and want to further support me, you can sign up for a paid subscription plan, or just leave a quick tip if recurring payments aren’t your jam. There is absolutely no pressure or expectation for you to do so, but please consider subscribing if you haven’t yet. Thank you!
We haven't met, but happy Substackversary! I also found the fiction fam and haven't been happier.
Andrew, thank you for this. I wrote one note today but you and Happy have inspired a redux.