On obscurity and paying attention
Hello again!
I’m doing a scary thing. I opened this private tier of Substack at the beginning of the year with grand plans for it being a community where subscribers would get to know me and each other on a deeper level. Then a few things happened.
I realized I’m not a community person. Don’t hear me saying “I’m a lone wolf who doesn’t need anyone.” Everyone needs community. Some people are great at building community—these are the folks that think of hilarious ice breakers and plan elaborate parties and game nights. They know how to curate the environment so that when people come in they naturally want to connect with each other. I love these people. I love these environments. Do I enjoy (or even understand) creating them? I do not. Now, would you like to sit on the sidelines and discuss life’s hope and heartbreak while everyone else does the ice breaker? Well then, I’m your girl.
I realized that you’re not online community people. You are people who need community (that’s every human ever) but you’re not looking for that sense of group connection in this space. If those long ago survey results can be believed, you’re here for my words. You want to support my ability to write them, and then you want to read them and get on with your day. I love this.
Once I got my head around these revelations, I made some more grand plans for what I would share here and how often I would share it. I don’t need to tell you that those fizzled right out. They fizzled because the public work felt more urgent.
I fell into a really smooth groove with my Instagram content this year. After four years of internet writing I finally had a routine that was sustainable and productive. I settled into my online voice and got to know my readers so much better, and that resulted in some long-hoped-for growth. I hope to write something that you can hold in your hands someday, and the lowest bar to even be considered for that is 10k followers on social media. I’m unwilling to sacrifice integrity or quality for numbers, but seeing numbers grow is still exciting.
I’m grateful for these nine productive months on Instagram. I don’t feel like any of it was wasted or wrong, but I have felt an increasing desire for the quiet work of writing. As that desire has grown inside of me, life outside has also begun to change.