8 Questions

Spotlight

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

Hello!

I have been longing to discuss with other writers the impact that publishing here on Substack has had on me, my work and my relationship to it, so I’ve come up with the 8 questions that I wanted to be asked, and am kicking off this new section by answering them.

If you would like to share your experience based on the same 8 questions, please get in touch by email.

1.     Why Substack

I’d become upset by the traditional publishing industry, its commercial drive, its competitive edge, its glacial pace. I understand what a mug’s game book publishing is, and I’m keenly aware that within its halls pace true lovers of the good stuff, but in rooms, on ceilings, on a sign at the front door the love of the bestseller was ruining everything. I know publishing houses have to make money, but why pitch us against one another? And why make out to the book buying public that a particular novel has arrived on the front table at Waterstones purely on its merit? It hasn’t, it’s a lie to suggest it, and does nothing for the industry’s reputation when Ms Public buys that book and discovers it’s not quite the masterpiece they were led to believe.  I’ve heard of editors declining work on the basis that it lacked break-out potential, or that they only publish best sellers.  What does that even mean?  Having had a best seller, I know what makes it so, and what lies between the front and back cover is only half of that story. The other half is how much money you throw at it, how much noise you make, who your friends are and how much of a fuss you can kick up in the few short months between galley and press.

Likewise, the lead in times for fiction, especially literary fiction, can be over two years. Two years! It takes at least that to write the damn book, another forever to submit it, so by the time it comes out five years could have drifted by in which time a million variables have changed both inside and outside the writer. The novel I write inspired by today may not have so much punch when it hits the shelves in 2029. Yet if I were a famous Something with a reveal all memoir you can bet your sweet twelve pound ninety-nine it would be pitched in May and out by Christmas. So why the wait for fiction? Writing is lonely enough, without having eons to travel between one book and another, and the connection with readers that publication brings. Writers need readers, not just to buy our books but to talk to, to read them, to finish the work. We are nothing without them. Our work is nothing without them. It was while bemoaning all this to the novelist Fiona Melrose, that she said I wish I could just press publish, and I said, f**k can you imagine and Hanif Kureishi fell off his chair in Rome. It was his posts on this thing called Substack that called me. I dived in. I set up a publication. I pressed publish.

2.     How long did it take you to find your groove

It took about a month to find my groove, and about a year to settle in to it. I began with a project inspired by Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way in which I committed to write a piece every morning that took no more than one minute to read. I wouldn’t plan, no subject was fixed, they were in effect my morning pages, but published. Whatever came out, that would be it. Good enough was my mantra (and still is). What emerged, buried beneath the kind of rubble familiar to writers, was the memoir that had been knocking about my system for years. All it had taken to reveal itself was a free-flowing insistence that I had to produce something. That project, A Memoir In 65 Postcards was followed by The Recovery Diaries, a broader reaching series of essay posts which followed the same rules but told a wider story. They are now in the Substack Library, on my publication, and will be coming out in book form in June, published by Troubadour. But more than producing a book which in effect I serialised live, I built connections with other writers, was invited to collaborate on other publications, and found my people. It’s this that’s fundamentally changed my experience of being a writer, and my experience of this writing life.

3.     How has it changed you

The first great shake up to my system was the act of pressing publish. For the whole of my writing life up until that point, someone else had pressed that button, someone else had said we think it’s ready and if it failed, I had someone else to lean on. But in this the power was all mine, and the blame, this was me saying I think it’s ready and taking full responsibility for what happened next. What happened next of course was nothing; despite my system screaming that the sky was definitely going to fall in and everyone was going to hate me, the reality was an imperceptible ripple on the surface of the pond, and then silence, peace resumed. So I did it again, and again and again and each time I did it, I got a bigger splash and instead of people hating me, they loved it. I made friends. I got bolder. Since then I’ve been invited to collaborate on other publications, taken part in a group collaborative project, and submitted articles to other stacks, all of which has built community and increased the fun. But more than this, or perhaps because of this, Substack has changed my relationship to this writing life. I’m happy again. I’m in love with it. I want more.

4.     What mistakes have you made

I think the only mistake I made was thinking that anyone cared, which they don’t, not in the way I thought they would. I believed in some way to do with my own internal monologue, that I’d be punished for such audacity, this taking control into my own hands, and instead I found support. The traditional publishing system, very like that of the movies, is set up to pitch us against one another and it can feel, if that’s the only version you know, that actual writers are up against each other, too. The truth is that art is not a competitive act. There is a necessary business side to it which is, but art, the act of creation, that pool in which we all swim, coming up for air, grabbing a fish, is not. There is room for us all whether you’re skimming the surface or taking a deep dive, whether you’re a seasoned pro or this is your first toe-dip in the water, no depth or height is better than any other, it is an endless beautiful sea and there is no limit to the amount of artists who can swim in it, there is no limit to the oxygen and hydrogen, there is room for all. On Substack I’ve met artists who celebrate each other, who support each other, who lift as they climb out and onto the dry land of selling. On Substack, selling is not the central tenant of creative existence. Most people are nice. Mostly everyone wants everyone to succeed along with them. There does exist in the Substack modal the usual designs of ticks and Substack Reads and Substack Recommends, of course there are and that’s fine because there’s so much else going on besides. There is room for the business and the art to coexist, one is not more important than the other, there is balance and there is choice.

5.     To pay or not to pay

Which brings us to this question. To pay or not to pay. I have wrangled over this, not least because of my relationship to valuing my work. I don’t live off writing, I make my income through a property business that buys me time to write, and so, not needing the money in the sense that writing pays the bills, what right have I to put a price on it? On the other hand, I’ve no problem with selling books, which is in effect the same thing, except I am part of a recognised industry, there is no once I’ve earned out my advance, please give away my books for free button, and I can float along receiving royalty cheques without feeling bad about it, feeling in fact pleased that something I’ve worked hard on is generating income. So why the difficulty with Substack? I think because the distance between my work and the upgrade to paid button is so short, because it’s just me deciding my work has value, or if all posts are free but readers can still upgrade, deciding that I have value. After a year on the site, with everything free, I’ve recently launched a collaboration with fellow artist Willow of Good Giraffe Studio, and we’ve decided to set Soundscape Stories up as a profit-share for paid subscribers only. It’s an experiment, a toe-dip in that particular current, we’ll see how it goes.

6.     What artistic and technical choices have you made

How to approach the money side is just one of the choices that artists on Substack are faced with. The other, bigger choice is content, what sort of publication am I. Mine began with the experiment to write and publish every day. This was a choice I made to get me started, get the engine running. Since then I’ve built multiple sections, and note to newcomers, create the section before you begin to post, that way you won’t have to move posts over if you decide on creating multiple sections. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ve divided my publication into pages for different projects, everything appears on my Home Page and in my archive, but this division of sections allows passers-by to see all the things I do and browse their way through. I’ve also put links between posts that share a section so that readers can easily move on to the next. These are technical choices, and I wish I’d made them from the outset, but you live and learn, and now I know to do this as I go along. On a wider, community scale, I’ve also made the choice to actively promote others.  There’s a wealth of talent in the stacks, almost too much to read, and it’s a pleasure to cheer others on and share the joy of a great piece of writing. Substack is a meritocracy, at least it is in my bay, and we splash and celebrate together.

7.     What’s been the effect on your writing  

Not just my writing, but on my whole relationship to this writing life, the effect of Substack has been seismic. To focus on the writing first, to commit to writing and publishing every day had the effect of getting me out of my own way. It cleared the rubble, it made me brave, it brought fresh perspectives, it gave voice to words inside me that had been shut up for fear of reprisals, of failure, of ridicule. It made me sharper, less considerate of nonsense, if it works it works, and if it doesn’t, cut it out. Simple. It made me better. And then came the great serialisation experiment which I’m still in, a novel written four years ago, turned down by everyone that had sat in a drawer, gone but not forgotten by me, who loved it. It dawned on me one day that the stacks was the perfect place to give it voice, its day in the sun. I announced it was coming before I’d really looked at the sorry state it was in, I picked a date to launch the first chapter well before the tracks were laid, I set that train running and have found the only thing to do is run in front of it laying sleepers and railroad as it hurtles over the pages toward me, hoping to goodness it doesn’t catch me up. Fear has got me editing like a demon, murdering darlings, restructuring what hadn’t worked before. Adrenaline has taught me how to end on enough of a cliff hanger that the reader will almost tip over the edge in their eagerness to keep reading what is as yet not there, the ticking clock has trained me that each chapter must be the same length and move the story forward and increase its depth, this essential mix of speed and density in every two thousand words. It, like the practice of pressing publish every day, has made me a better writer.

And to the wider experience of Substack, such is the community, the instant connection with readers, the agency of pressing publish that my faith has been returned, I am in love with the process again, not just the art. Through all the years of living only within the rules of traditional publishing, I never stopped loving what I did, but my heart was broken a thousand times by rejection, decline, the glacial pace, the design of competition. I still love the industry, I still salute all those wonderful people who work tirelessly to bring great books to the masses, and let’s hear it for literary festivals too, those playgrounds where we meet. I still celebrate being a part of all of it, but can enjoy it more, now that I have this treasure of a support system propping me up. Every artist knows what a tough world it is out there. Substack is my balm.  

8.     In it for the long haul

Yes! I’m staying. This has become my everyday playground, a place of fun where I can try out ideas, be a little out of my depth and grow as an artist. All of this I need.