Greetings from the Irish countryside. It has been a dark and dreary weekend, and I have become suddenly irate at the annual punishment known as the turning back of the clocks, which metes out an extra hour of darkness every evening, for no good reason. It has the flavour of “beatings will continue until morale improves.” On the bright side, I have made it to three-quarters of a century, and have written some meditations on that happy topic.
Much-Vaunted Reader,
We have made it to seventy five newsletters, and I am very pleased. Below, I have categorised my thoughts about this under a few neat, user-friendly headlines.
The friction of writing is less
It took me a while to get into a groove while writing this newsletter. Initially, I was beset by grandiose thoughts, that after the first couple of issues, the whole of the internet would come flocking to read my intelligent and beautiful musings. This, unsurprisingly, did not eventuate.
The next error was that, by believing myself to be a genius, I of course did require structure for my writing. Surely it would be better to let the words flow freely, rather than confining the style with arbitrary boundaries?
Wrong again. I know employ a format, having eventually landed upon the current format which, although informal, generally follows the structure of a short little introductory paragraph, followed by more generic meanderings.
Friction is less, with this system – having a formatted newsletter-shaped container in my brains seems to lend itself to the creation of newsletter-shaped ideas which can be thrashed out relatively quickly, and expanded upon.
The Others are out there and will begin to appear
EdwardSays has a very modest little readership. After I started, I had a mental back-and-forth about whether I was really writing for myself or writing for others. The conclusion was that humans fundamentally desire engagement and, although I do like writing for its own sake, and would probably do it in some form anyway, attracting more readers has been a very strong net positive. The more readers I get, the more emails I get, and it sort of all seems very friendly and social, as if I am stewarding a little community.
This community, being self-selected, has similar thoughts and interests to me, and leads me to discover other writers and ways of being in the writerly and physical world. Every issue I write is a portal to getting closer to The Others, and it also gets me closer to my real self, and helps me to direct the compass, to realign myself and my life in the most harmonious possible way (I hope to write about this issue of alignment more specifically, soon).
I would also recommend joining various online communities to find these people. Encouragement is truly helpful, as is feedback, critique and so on. You can do this through paid courses or communities or free Discord groups – it’s something I want to do more of and, even if the internet never replaces in-person communication, having these online friends and connections sure is a pleasant feeling fills the heart a little with gladness.
Compound effects do occur
I dislike using the term compounding because it seems to have become a sort of buzzword or the kind of thing finance bros like to write twitter threads about. Yet, tired and played-out as it is, the underlying mathematics remain strong and, even for my very modest little readership, it exerts its effects.
If a newsletter has 10 readers, and 10% of them, i.e., one, talk about the newsletter, then they might recommend it to two friends. But if a newsletter has 1000 readers, then 100 of them will recommend it to two hundred friends, and soon the readership will be on its way to 1,000, and so on.
The unfortunate thing about compounding is that many give up before getting a glimpse of its wonders. Look at the above graph – I shouted aggressively into the void for two years. If I had quit in March ‘23, I might have concluded that the era of online writing is over or I am bad at writing or I am wasting my time, etc.
Visakan, on the website formerly known as twitter, recommends doing 100 things. This number seems directionally correct for me. The only problem is knowing what to do when I reach the big century, but thankfully, by that stage my opinions will have long since been replaced by some kind of AI overlord.
I nearly gave up a few times. Once was just at the start of the inflection point on the graph, in March 2023. I was in Paris at the time, feeling a little down and overwhelmed due to a multitude of reasons, and I wondered if I should pack it in altogether. Looking back, I had not yet hit my stride. That was newsletter #39, and I sort of only got comfortable after about 60-something issues, which is quite recently. Looking back over the newsletters from around this time, I would somewhat arbitrarily say that issue #64 is sort of one of the first examples of one that came out quickly and easily. Many of the earlier ones, which were associated with some degree of strain and huffing and puffing, did not necessarily benefit from the extra effort, or were sometimes even bogged down by it.
After March, you can see a jump in the numbers. That was due to getting shared on a larger newsletter, and then subsequently the slower, more gradual rise, was mostly due to doing Write of Passage, where your work generally gets distributed more, and motivation levels and possibly output are higher. After that, I think the network effects helped a little.
But, to reiterate, the readership is very small, and not worth agonising over. The main point is to acknowledge that progress, like in many facets of life, is not linear, but rather consists of occasional great leaps forward.
Ego dissolution
When I first began writing, I felt anxious about every issue I wrote. Would people like it? In the minutes after sending an email out, I would feverishly check for replies or likes or comments, and so on.
If it was well-received, it made me happy. Here was proof that I am a good writer and therefore also a person of value in society. Of course, the opposite also applied: if it was poorly received, I was a bad writer, and therefore also some kind of stain on the fabric of society.
I am pleased to report that, at least to a certain degree, the ego has dissolved. I care less about input or reception or, perhaps more accurately, my feelings are not as acutely impacted by them. It is true that I earlier wrote that I was glad to have engaged readers – the eagle-eyed amongst you might note that such thoughts or beliefs are not incompatible, and can co-exist. It’s nice to have engagement, yet the writer does not need to live and die by public opinion. Rather, it is better to take it all with a grain of salt, which I have been doing more often, these days. Maybe that medication meditation is starting to kick in, after all.
You will make mistakes
If I were doing this perfectly, I would probably be putting a lot of effort into distribution. I am not doing that, and that’s fine. Maybe I’ll get a burst of energy soon, and go about sharing articles or however one flogs one’s wares, or maybe I won’t. In any case, I have made peace with the fact that, at the end of the day, this newsletter is a pleasant little hobby, rather than a business which fuels the economic engine of my life, and so there is no need for self-flagellation (that can wait for the annual review).
In truth, I could market my writing. In fact, I might do it. But if it ever starts to feel like a job, then I will consider the good to have been taken out of this newsletter, and if I’m not enjoying it, I won’t be doing it.
So, find what works for you, if you are an online creator. Just remember, it takes time, and there are no guarantees, not even taxes, as you might not make any money, but as long as you enjoy the journey, you’re already winning.
Thanks for reading this week. If you would like to read similar post after fifty newsletters, you will find it here. Here is a picture of the sea I swam in on Friday. I hope to write about that little experience next week. In the meantime, if my writing has not been to your distaste, consider subscribing below, for further palatable offerings straight into your inbox.
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Wise words, I liked reading this analysis. Just like you, I had hoped people would automatically flock to read my very intelligent thoughts, but it was a trickle. The idea to give it 100 essays is quite sensible and I'll follow it. I haven't even reached 40 essays yet, so I need to add patience to the list of my virtues this year.
Excellent and inspiring. For a number of reasons, I kind of fell off the metaphorical writing horse. Your writing makes me realize that it is time to get back in the saddle.