It's an individual thing, I suppose, but books (let's say "long-form") - fiction or non - take a long, protracted period of focus. Writing for Substack is fun, and often meaningful, but for me it's a Wednesday note and then a full post on Friday; those take time and focus away from the long-form projects. It's the same with plays, scripts, articles - I've had moments in my career when other writing leeched away focus and thought and emotion from my long-form writing, and it hurt me. So now I'm very protective; if I see anything dipping into my long-form space, or my long-form writing taking a back seat to others things, I bail out of the other things. It's not a matter or respecting one over the other, by the way - it's just I need, on a soul level, the long-form stuff, so I give it priority.
Good God, number eight is fantastic. Dead on!
Hilarious, yet somehow also serious. #8 is great, but presumably books are nowhere in that shrinking habitat, which is depressing all in itself.
I‘m a fellow reader in fetal position who loves this newsletter. I should probably buy the book 🤨.
Would love to hear more on 7- What does it mean for writing on Substack to take away from book writing?
It's an individual thing, I suppose, but books (let's say "long-form") - fiction or non - take a long, protracted period of focus. Writing for Substack is fun, and often meaningful, but for me it's a Wednesday note and then a full post on Friday; those take time and focus away from the long-form projects. It's the same with plays, scripts, articles - I've had moments in my career when other writing leeched away focus and thought and emotion from my long-form writing, and it hurt me. So now I'm very protective; if I see anything dipping into my long-form space, or my long-form writing taking a back seat to others things, I bail out of the other things. It's not a matter or respecting one over the other, by the way - it's just I need, on a soul level, the long-form stuff, so I give it priority.
"I was going to try Twitter, but I’m not a big enough asshole. I’m an asshole, sure, but not Twitter level. Those folks are just out of my league."
I think that line describes how an entire generation feels.