The Way In
A Purpose for Writing.
Walker, your footsteps/Are the road, and nothing more. (Antonio Machado)
I started this newsletter to find a way back to writing full-time. I’m making the road by walking.
In 2014, I was writing full-time, had even just self-published a little book, when my career took a Pivot. (I’ll write about that someday). Though now I have a day job running my county’s recycling district, the urge to write things down pulses through me like unspent energy.
My daily journal is my lifeboat, a way of making sense of myself. It seemed like enough for a while. Until it wasn’t. I began to feel a deeper, almost desperate compulsion to put my words into the world. But how? Where?
Yesterday it was unseasonably, some might say unreasonably, warm for March in Indiana. Sitting barefoot under the patio umbrella, scribbling in my notebook, I stewed for a while, trying to discern what it is I’m “supposed” to be doing. I tried to feel my feelings, to see what seemed to lighten this burden of unwritten words.
On impulse, I looked up a publication where I used to submit book reviews and filled out the submission form. It felt like a joyful exercise. That was a great gig—free books in exchange for a short review. Maybe writing reviews would be a way to tighten my composition muscles, which have been feeling a bit slack these days.
On another impulse, I checked my puny Substack and found I have six subscribers. WHAAAAT? I felt a sense of instant obligation to these six anonymous people—they had tossed me a lifeline. The unspent energy expressed itself in a jolt of happiness: I could write for them, whoever they are.
I had found a way back in.
I’ve always felt my writing should have a purpose (unless it’s my journal, where I can indulge my own whims or gallop away on some hobby horse). When writing is a way of serving someone else, though, it has a purpose larger than myself. When I wrote full-time, I was meeting the needs of an editor or a client or an audience. Whether it was my newspaper column, content for a website, or an article for a magazine, it was—is—all about connecting with others by sharing information, an opinion, a word of advice. When I have others to write for, a message to share, the pressure to please my inner perfectionist disappears.
What’s my message, though? When I started freelancing years ago, I worked hard to figure out my platform. This time, I’m going to follow my nose and let my platform reveal itself. To make the road by walking.
You, my subscribers (!!!), can also suggest some topics or comment on anything I’ve written. I would love that.
Let’s see where this goes.