Dear Writer, Please Stop

How not to write online, Emily Dickinson and a share thread.

This morning I read a post called Nothing To Say by Sophia Efthimiatou, who is head of writer relations at Substack. She said having nothing to say, in this case, isn’t about being insecure it’s about realizing we don’t have to add to every discussion.

I found the post because it was restacked by someone else and when I went to *that* Substack the description said “a bestselling substack.” I’ve been seeing that phrase a lot lately. Best selling Substack. You know what that means, right?

It means of the three million paid subscriptions on Substack, at least a hundred pay you and this must be announced to the world because social proof and status and maybe it will increase signups and—lord the world is tiring some days, isn’t it?

Yes, I’m going somewhere with this.

Down a rabbit hole, I fear.

Then I went back to Notes and saw a post saying Stephen King can f**k himself and they said that — angry enough to write a whole post about it — and why? Because someone else shared the quote in which King says “amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

Because hot damn, maybe Stephen King can get up and “go to work” but “some of us” have full time jobs and families to take care of. Nevermind that when he started he was a full time teacher scribbling stories in the laundry room at night.

Nevermind that Mary Higgins Clark was a single mom with kids when she wrote every day and I only use her name because if I say J.K. Rowling was a single mom that’s bad, bad, bad because she’s not politically correct and her views cancel the work she did before she became a bazillionaire flapping her big mouth on social media.

Makes me wonder how well most of us would stand up to public scrutiny but that’s an aside. Or at least I thought it was. Then I opened email and got another Substack that said it’s January 65th today because doesn’t the month feel twice as long as it’s been?

Yes. Yes, it does.

You know what it all makes me wonder?

Makes me wonder what Emily Dickinson would have done with Substack.

I think probably she’d have written some poems and then skipped off to the kitchen to help Margaret peel potatoes or wash up the dishes and then headed out to the garden to pull some weeds and smell the flowers. And maybe, I don’t know, but maybe she wouldn’t have died without ever knowing people liked her work.

Hope is the thing with feathers.

Before the internet, hope was a different kind of animal, especially for writers because they needed gatekeepers to open the door. No other way to get any kind of big scale audience unless someone with deep pockets liked your work.

Now there ain’t no doors and instead of using that to intentionally choose how to show up in the world we’re mostly acting like we got one nerve left and the world done got on it.

Last thing I saw on Notes before I closed it was some guy saying we’re all just acting on Substack anyway. I laughed. No, puppy, that’s Instagram and it’s so yesterday. Substack isn’t where we act. It’s where we react.

Please stop. If you do one thing with your words, please choose them intentionally. Not because someone pushed your buttons.

---

I read a book once, called Writing To Change The World. Lord, what a dream. Bought that book with shining eyes. That was some years ago. I know now. I can’t change the world. Wish I could. But maybe I can move one person. Or ten. Or a hundred.

I can’t stop people from using the wonderful opportunities we have today to scream into the void, lose their ever loving minds every time some one is wrong.

So here’s what I’m going to do instead.

I’m going to share some stuff that lifts me up. Inspires me. Then I’m going to ask you to do the same. Fair? If you’re tired of the shouting and the politics and the rage bait, here’s what you should do right now, right this minute. As a writer.

Go read My Mother Was A Girl and How Hard Should You Kiss A Woman? They’re both by Roman Newell who is my friend and co-editor at Medium. Reading his work inspires me to be a stronger writer and I think you’ll find the same.

Go read Can I Make Cancer Funny? and say hi to Kyrie. She’s my co-editor at History Of Woman on Medium. Her Substack is called Guffaw and of course it is, because she’s the friend who makes you laugh no matter how awful things are.

Go read Born An Oak by Julia Perrodin and As The World Turns by Maria Nazos. They don’t post as often as I wish they did, but wow. Just beautiful writing.

And last of all, enjoy Nothing To Say, the post that inspired me today.

Your turn. Share a link to a person that inspires you, a post you loved, or the post you’re most proud of. If you move me, I’ll restack. Maybe we can create a wave of writers sharing real writing instead of getting sucked into knee jerk reactions.

---

If you like my writing, I also write about life, writing and technology on Medium

---