8 Questions for... Elle Griffin
The Elysian
is the author of The Elysian. She writes essays about how we can create a better future and is currently researching a utopian novel.
1. Why Substack?
I’m romantic for the age when writers were thinkers. When they wrote letters to one another, debated one another's work, and thought through some of the most important ideas of their time through extensive correspondence. They even wrote novels to one another as a way of sharing philosophical ideas!
For example, Desiderius Erasmus, a Dutch humanist, and Thomas More, the English author of Utopia, exchanged letters about theology, philosophy, and their vision for a better society. Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Locke shared ideas on reason, science, and politics. The American founding fathers wrote extensive letters and even books countering each other's ideas on the forming of a new nation.
It is through their letters to one another that they came up with some of their most genius ideas. Their correspondence formed an international literary think tank that elevated all their ideas in tandem and pushed forward advancements for humanity.
That is what Substack is today.
It is the modern letter writing platform where writers respond to other writers who respond to other writers. We are collectively thinking about ideas in concert with other writers who are thinking about the same. It is a sort of collective form of brainstorming and this is a very important and needed contrast to a long generation in which writers have only become journalists—reporting on all of the problems of the world without thinking through how they could be better.
The writing that happens on Substack is a return to a more generative form.
As an example, here's me responding to the various writers who responded to Marc Andreessen's Techno Optimist Manifesto:
Here's another of me responding to various thinkers in the growth/degrowth camps on Substack:
2. How long did it take you to find your groove?
I still haven't found it. I'm just writing about what I want to write about, engaging in discussions I want to engage in, and endlessly experimenting with how I do those two things in the best possible way.
3. How has it changed you?
Before Substack, I wrote quietly by myself in the hours before work. It was a solitary endeavour. Now I write in community with the other writers I follow and the various commenters who get involved. It's not just me reading a bunch of books in the peace and quiet of my home. It's me reading a bunch of other writers and directly engaging in their work by asking them questions through comments and challenging their ideas through my own writing. It's much more collaborative, and my thinking is constantly influenced by other thinkers who challenge mine in return.
There are benefits and detriments to this. The benefit is that my mind is expanded. The detriment is that my life is less peaceful. Substack is my only social media but it is still social media, and I can get distracted by the little notification symbol that wants to disrupt me from my deep reading and writing. Before I was here, I lived a rather monkish existence with nearly no digital life whatsoever and there’s still a big part of me that just wants to hermit away and read and write without worrying about everything else that is happening on the internet.
I got on Substack because I didn’t want to be another unknown artist languishing in obscurity, and I'm glad I broke out of that. But I’m still trying to figure out how to retain my monkish ways and peaceful personal life in the process.
4. What mistakes have you made?
I serialized my first novel on Substack but locked the whole thing to paid subscribers so only about 200 people read it. Also, I should have serialized it over a summer rather than over a year! That was a long time to have to keep people interested! Also I shouldn't have tried to serialise my novel live because that was impossible for me to do (I'm now writing it secretly and will serialise it only when it’s complete).
More recently: I paid $1500 to a graphic designer to design a collection of books that didn't sell. Actually, I spend a lot of money designing and printing the annual print edition of my work for my Collector Tier subscribers even though there are only 25 of them. I do it because I love printing my work and I'm hoping that one day it will be worth it when this category of subscribers is much larger and a small group of them have the original Edition I and II and III. But it's a big expense, made much more expensive by the fact that my graphic designers keep flaking on me and I keep having to find new ones to finish the work.
5. To pay or not to pay?
Right now, most of my writing is free but the community is paid. Paid subscribers can comment, participate in literary salon discussions in our private chat community, and study texts with me via Zoom, etc. That's how it worked in my first year of business, then I tried to make everything free in my second year of business which resulted in a drastic decrease in my income, so now I'm back to keeping the community for paid subscribers and my income is back up. I also offer periodic discounts to frequent commenters and community members who are based in countries where the exchange rate doesn't make sense.
Personally, I would love a middle ground. If Substack allowed us to lock comments to subscribers and sort them by paid subscribers (as in, you have to be a subscriber to comment but paid subscribers show up on the top), I would change tack. I like giving everyone the ability to comment, but I don't like fly-by or hot-take commenters who aren't invested in the community, and it would be nice to be able to prioritize the discussions I have there. Other badges would be cool as well (maybe people that I engage with most frequently, etc.).
6. What artistic and technical choices have you made?
I used to think of myself as someone who wanted to write books. Again, I love the idea of sitting quietly and writing something in solitude for years on end and then only coming out with it when it's done, having a few months of promotion, and then going back to the quiet art of writing.
Then I realized that very few people buy books and even fewer people read books. This was verified for me after I researched these three articles:
I opted to put my work where it would be read instead, on Substack. Though I would love it if Substack took it a step further and allowed me to organize my posts into collections (like books!).
7. What’s been the effect on your writing?
Three years later and I'm now a full-time Substack writer. I still have much to learn and fine-tune, but I love having a place for my writing and a community of peers to write alongside (even if that can be noisy and bustling sometimes!).
8. In it for the long haul?
Yes! I have been writing on the side of my job since I entered the workforce at 22. I'll keep going with it forever even as it continually evolves to follow my interests and even as my career takes various turns alongside it. Writing is my favorite thing to do and I make sure that I do it every morning before I do anything else!
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I love the concept that Substack is a letter writing platform where we write back and forth to each other, collectively thinking about and sharing our ideas and thoughts. Enjoyed reading this Eleanor and Elle
Enjoyed finding out more about Elle's Substack story,