I have no idea what I'm doing

This has never stopped me before

I am very bad at self-promoting.

No, that’s not quite right. I’m very bad at planned self-promotion. A goofy tweet with a link attached? Sure. An Instagram story about a show I’m working on? Oh hell yeah. But actually sitting down and planning out how to build name recognition and establish myself online so that people who want to read my writing have an easy way of finding it? Ha ha ha no. It’s like one or two steps too many. I’ll think “I should get my shit together,” and then I can’t decide what shit exactly I should be focusing on, or what “together” even means, and hell, we’re all going to die in a climate apocalypse soon enough, so why am I even bothering.

Welcome, then, to the first post in my Substack newsletter. I created this Substack a week or two ago because I thought it might one day come in handy; imagine my surprise when I checked into the site this morning and found I already had over a hundred followers. I’m assuming most people (at least, the ones who aren’t spammers) found this through my work at Episodic Medium, or maybe my occasional comments on The Reveal. (Both of those sites are great, by the way, and definitely worth your time.) I don’t even know if any of you are real? But if you legitimately saw my name on here and thought “Yes, that sounds like a good idea,” thank you. And if I’m misinterpreting how this works, well, thank you anyway.

I’m not sure what this is supposed to be, though. I follow several people with Substacks, and they are by and large thoughtful, charming writers who talk about movies and shows that I’ve never heard of before. But, like, in a good way. I already have a Patreon for TV reviews, although Star Trek is the focus; got through all of Voyager, currently writing about the first season of Enterprise, which is nowhere near as bad as I’d been led to believe. Apart from that, I don’t watch a ton of TV, and I go through movies intermittently. To be completely frank, most of my evenings these days are spent stoned playing video games. If I was ten years younger, I’d be a cautionary tale. Now, I’m a role model.

So the question remains: what am I doing here? Assuming there’s any reason at all beyond “why not.” One of the more unfortunate aspects (and most of the aspects are unfortunate) about being a writer today is that there’s no longer any simple, clear way to success. I grew up reading Stephen King, dreaming I could follow in his footsteps; and while King is a once in a generation, maybe once in a century, phenomenon, his rise to fame used to be, if not common, at least possible. Start from nothing, write good enough until they can’t ignore you anymore, something something, profit. This, when I was a teenager, seemed so obvious.

It’s less obvious now. There are still people succeeding in the publishing industry, but the lane has gotten considerably narrower, and I’ve yet to find my way onto it. I’ve had two books published, both non-fiction, and while I take pride in both, neither really feel like “mine.” More importantly, neither led to anything else. If was just doing this all to prove that I could, I’d be satisfied and move on. But I want more.

Whatever I want, whether it’s possible or not remains to be seen. I managed to edit a novel and write a (very long) rough draft for another novel during the Quarantine Years, and while the former is more or less dead, the latter is an on-going concern. I’m writing plays now, too, which is a lot of fun. I’m trying to focus less on outcomes and more on process, because what the hell else am I going to do? It’s not like I’m ever going to stop.

So yeah, this is just another in a long line of attempts to find new outlets. I’ll try not to send too many of these out, and hopefully they’ll be more focused going forward; just as likely, I’ll ramble on about whatever I’m reading (Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel; it’s good, but intentionally unpleasant and I really want to finish it) or playing. Hell, maybe I’ll talk about theater: I’m playing Sweeney Todd again, and that’s always a blast. Whatever it is, even if this is somehow the last post I ever make on here, thanks for signing on, and, as one of my favorite YouTubers always says, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.

-z