A Reflection On This Thanksgiving

Pondering Substack

I spent decades writing as a part of my job. I’ve been blessed to have really interesting jobs, but the writing wasn’t very interesting. Bureaucratese by its nature is really dull.

But, I also wrote very widely spaced editions of a private little newsletter that I emailed around to close friends at work. Usually funny exaggerations of my travel adventures.

And in the heyday of blogging, I had a blog. A fiction blog, that I wrote for many years, I can’t imagine how many flash length stories I must have published there.

Once I wrote a novel. That was a great deal of fun. I never sent it off to be published, but the printed manuscript remains in my safe. I remember the novel contains a heck of a lot of sex, maybe it’ll shock our children if they read it after I die.

I’ve always written.

I find it a way of thinking.

A way of creating.

A way of sharing my ideas with others across space and time.

If I’m honest, a form of revenge against my eighth grade English teacher who didn’t think I could write worth a damn.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

Yep, I’ve always written.

But all of that writing, who knows how many millions of words, never really got anywhere.

Sure it helped me think and create. My friends at work always told me that they loved my adventure missives. I had a solid circle of fellow bloggers who would read and consistently comment on my stories. I was able to share.

In spite of all that, there was never anything solid. No tangible proof that my writing was actually good for anything.

Then in 2021, I found Substack.

Well, golly, here it was. Tangible proofs.

Unlike a blog that people can trip into from a search engine, Substack is a subscription based platform. People have to give me their email to sign up. And according to Substack, over 2,600 people have signed up to do just that. 2,600 or so people have signed up to get everything I write, most every day. How amazingly cool is that?

And, Substack offers paid subscriptions. For a long time now I’ve had a little ‘Bestseller’ badge next to my name. Some people like my writing enough that they are willing to pay for it. And that of course allows me to write more than I could do otherwise. Now, to be honest, I don’t make enough profit to even scratch out an existence in a third world country, but I do make enough to justify spending my time writing. And that is truly of vital importance to me, and to my projects here, for they could not exist without the generous support of all those who hold a paid subscription to my work.

Everytime someone gives me their email, everytime someone purchased a paid subscription, it is further proof that my eighth grade teacher, so long ago, didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Sweet, sweet, revenge!

I have lived a truly wonderful life, and have innumerable things to be thankful for.

But today, on this Thanksgiving, in this forum, I am thankful for Substack, and the people who had the vision to bring it into our world. For they have given me the ability to find a real audience after all these years.

And I am thankful to everyone who holds a subscription here. Your doing so means more to me than I could ever hope to express.

Happy Thanksgiving!