The one thing we know, especially at this age for some of us, is that life is always changing. It is so true of tech and what we know about it … or don’t! I am thankful that I had so many years to hone my crafts of cooking and writing without all of the world of tech that seems to overtake us some days. But tech is a tool and like fire it can be used to help our causes. No doubt I am a novice when it comes to the tech in the title above. But the way I learned how to cook was by ‘jumping in the pool’!. I have approached life in general in that way. I knew next to nothing about writing a cookbook when I was offered the chance. But when life comes knocking with an opportunity my feeling is to either be ready or ‘fake it until you make it’. The great writer Annie Dillard has a quote that goes,”You open your safe and find ashes. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.” I don’t want to crawl in the backseat and let the car called life be driven by others. If I’m mentally and spiritually feeling like there is something to learn or something to share I’m almost alway ready to say, “Let’s Go!”
My new arena, like a growing community out there, is on what is known at the “Substack Platform”. ‘Substack’ for short. I find myself still struggling for words when asked to define it. One answer I gave to an inquiring friend was something like this. “You know how Instagram is mostly an image and then some limited text? Substack is mostly about writing with an image, (or a few) added. Some of you know I have yet to mention the morphing going on with Substack. It was only recently that you could insert a video. I only learned today that folks are now able to insert their podcast links. I have been a published author a long time. To me this is reminiscent of a publishing house but with so much more capacity and it is just about instant. To write a piece for a magazine and see it finally in print can take a year as many who have tried and done it know. And that is IF an editor is willing to bet on you and on your writing. But with Substack there is no one stopping you from sharing your words. The question will be if anyone cares enough about them to subscribe. It is very open to the market’s curiosity about what you create. You will know if you are reaching folks by how many wish to … I’ll use the word once more, subscribe. If you are brand new to this subject let me add in this. Most of us on the platform offer up most of the work, if not all .. for free. You that join will be given the elective to determine what you are happy to give freely and what you will require some compensation for. Some ‘substackers’. (if that is an actual term I don’t know…. language morphs even more than tech!) might be content to do it all gratis. The market is the determining factor.
The link here is for a single ‘post’ I did today. It is an update from a short essay I wrote for my book, “Norman’s New World Kitchen”. I have so much content ‘in the vault’ because I’ve written seven books and done over 400 scripts averaging 600 words for my radio shows, and that is far from the total of what I can ‘mine’. We writers rarely do it ‘for the money’. Many do it for the joy and, yes the need of communicating to the world around us.
My Substack ‘handle’ is NormanVanAken1.
I’d love to see you check it out.