The slower side of Substack

What I'm doing with my one wild and precious newsletter

Substack is really having a moment, and I’m happy for us all. But there’s sure a lot of talk on here lately about how fast everyone else is growing and how much money everyone else is making.

Please don’t get me wrong.

I love hearing writers say they’ve found income stability here after a lifetime of uncertainty in the freelance wilds.

I thrill when authors and thinkers I’ve admired for years announce newsletters.

It’s deeply satisfying to pay creators directly, driving more money to the people actually making content art.

This is all unequivocally awesome. It is a triumph so many artists are thriving here, and I am cheering them on and hitting that subscribe button!

Photo by Alexas_Fotos on Unsplash

When I compare myself to bigger creators, I feel a little mortified for being proud of something so small.

At the same time, my own slow-growing newsletter brings me gooey heaps of joy and affirmation. Having a weekly pub deadline and complete editorial control stimulates my creativity. My small but loyal audience tells me they love what I’m doing.

Writing Damptown Almanac is even more fun than I hoped it would be, and I’m just getting started.

But sometimes after I read an article about someone else growing their stack by hundreds of readers a day (usually through some combination of collaboration, consistency, and connections), I feel bad about my cozy little newsletter.

When I compare myself to other creators, I feel a little mortified for being so proud of something so small.

Then the insecurity wheel really gets spinning. I’m not making journalistically significant contributions. I’m not hustling.

This compare-and-despair is all too familiar. It’s starting to feel a lot like my brain on Twitter — and I hated my brain on Twitter, convinced that all of the other writers were way cooler, more talented, and wearing better pants.

I wanted out of Twitter way before Elon’s circle jerk made me finally pull the rip cord.

When I joined Substack, I thought I left my social media brain behind, but of course my insecurities came here with me. Social media magnifies them for sure, but they are all mine and I own them.

Photo by Stephanie Harvey on Unsplash

Insecurity is such a joy-stealer. Like when I publish a newsletter and I get a slew of texts and email replies from subscribers telling me how much they loved it, and my heart soars but my insecurity obsesses over comment numbers.

Instead of celebrating my high open rate, insecurity frets over a button shaped like a heart, because that’s the likes metric that others can see. How shallow is that?

Insecurity disregards real-life successes as sweet as Pop Rocks spiraling hot pink joy through my actual living body, because they can’t be perceived by some imagined digitalized other comparing me to some other imagined digitalized other.

The thing is, insecurity will never be happy, no matter how I grow on here, so I might as well keep doing what I love.

I’ve been working to build something beautiful and real here, for myself and my readers — and I want to continue to share authentically, even when I’m feeling a little small.

People share their happy stories to help others. But we can also reach each other when we share our vulnerability. There’s a little voice inside each of us that wonders how much we are loved, that questions if we are worthy, no matter how great our pants are.

I was worried this post was a little too inside-baseball, too navel-gazey. I know most of you don’t have Substacks or care about writing industry news. But unfortunately, insecurity is universal. I hope you can’t relate, but I bet you can.

My insecurity wants me to obsess over some imagined digitalized other, but it’s so much more fun to focus on my very real readers, some of whom I’ve known since childhood (or earlier— hi mom and dad!) and some I’ve never met.

I am grateful for all of the thoughtful texts you’ve sent me, for the walks we’ve spent discussing my reading recommendations, for the many pledges you’ve made, for forwarding posts to your book club and parenting group. For reading.

Thank you for loving my cozy little newsletter just as it is, and for all of the ways you support me.