If you find it fulfilling, stimulating, useful, keep on writing! It serves to keep you in the game, so to speak.
Maybe you won't be the Wimbledon Champ of Substackers, but who cares? I can tell you have something to say, so keep on serving it up. You may even surprise yourself and hit a few aces.
Thanks, Bill. I enjoy your tell-it-like-it-is style, which you apply to the "vexing and perplexing" issues of our time, especially militarism. You manage to crank out no-nonsense posts every few days.
My paltry numbers pale beside your 1.7K subscribers, though I'm also aware that's still a pittance compared with the Substack "champions." Hopefully your paid subscribers help pay a few bills and provide a measure of motivation to keep at it!
What Drives Me? seems a universal question, one that I believe one can only answer for one's self. And so, to write regularly or only when something has inspired you; to make your pieces free or with a pay option; to write for yourself or for others...seems a deep dive into your own motivation. Reading What Drives m=Me? sent me into my own deep dive...what motivates me to write. And my answers are not likely to be the same as yours, but my heart feels for you, because anyone who writes must struggle with this question.
What Drives Me? draws me in. I enjoy your pieces because I'm interested your deep dive explorations; and I find your topics, as varied as they are, of interest because they often wrestle with social/political challenges of the day. Plus, I appreciate your underlying research and fact checking. I often learn a thing or two, so thank you. I hope you keep writing.
You put your finger on it when you said it's a way of questioning your assumptions. But there's more to it than just the fact-checking and research (necessary as that substructure is). But more fundamental is the process of crafting the argument, for a (possibly hypothetical) interlocutor. The writing itself, the logic baked into it, forces you to think more clearly, and frees you of cant - both others' and your own.
And you won't get that if you're just churning out the daily 600 words from a position of expertise, or riffing to show your wordsmithery. Both knowledge and chops are necessary conditions, but it's the thinking that counts. For what it's worth, keep it up for your own sake. But the rest of us want it too!
Yes, the writing process itself is the crucible. Research may be the scaffolding, but "the thinking," as you say, especially the self-interrogating kind, is key. What am I really trying to convey? And why am I doing it?
Btw you're a good example of those whom I was referring to, who somewhat puzzle me. You honed your chops back in the day, you're very well read and, I might add, you don't just buy into whatever borrowed language and inherited positions trendy fellow travelers are pushing. And yet, vocation choices and detours aside, the wordsmithing bug is something else entirely. I suppose it depends on how virulent the strain.
I both blame and thank genetics myself... I think. Anyway, thanks for the encouragement!
If you find it fulfilling, stimulating, useful, keep on writing! It serves to keep you in the game, so to speak.
Maybe you won't be the Wimbledon Champ of Substackers, but who cares? I can tell you have something to say, so keep on serving it up. You may even surprise yourself and hit a few aces.
Good luck!
Thanks, Bill. I enjoy your tell-it-like-it-is style, which you apply to the "vexing and perplexing" issues of our time, especially militarism. You manage to crank out no-nonsense posts every few days.
My paltry numbers pale beside your 1.7K subscribers, though I'm also aware that's still a pittance compared with the Substack "champions." Hopefully your paid subscribers help pay a few bills and provide a measure of motivation to keep at it!
What Drives Me? seems a universal question, one that I believe one can only answer for one's self. And so, to write regularly or only when something has inspired you; to make your pieces free or with a pay option; to write for yourself or for others...seems a deep dive into your own motivation. Reading What Drives m=Me? sent me into my own deep dive...what motivates me to write. And my answers are not likely to be the same as yours, but my heart feels for you, because anyone who writes must struggle with this question.
What Drives Me? draws me in. I enjoy your pieces because I'm interested your deep dive explorations; and I find your topics, as varied as they are, of interest because they often wrestle with social/political challenges of the day. Plus, I appreciate your underlying research and fact checking. I often learn a thing or two, so thank you. I hope you keep writing.
You put your finger on it when you said it's a way of questioning your assumptions. But there's more to it than just the fact-checking and research (necessary as that substructure is). But more fundamental is the process of crafting the argument, for a (possibly hypothetical) interlocutor. The writing itself, the logic baked into it, forces you to think more clearly, and frees you of cant - both others' and your own.
And you won't get that if you're just churning out the daily 600 words from a position of expertise, or riffing to show your wordsmithery. Both knowledge and chops are necessary conditions, but it's the thinking that counts. For what it's worth, keep it up for your own sake. But the rest of us want it too!
Yes, the writing process itself is the crucible. Research may be the scaffolding, but "the thinking," as you say, especially the self-interrogating kind, is key. What am I really trying to convey? And why am I doing it?
Btw you're a good example of those whom I was referring to, who somewhat puzzle me. You honed your chops back in the day, you're very well read and, I might add, you don't just buy into whatever borrowed language and inherited positions trendy fellow travelers are pushing. And yet, vocation choices and detours aside, the wordsmithing bug is something else entirely. I suppose it depends on how virulent the strain.
I both blame and thank genetics myself... I think. Anyway, thanks for the encouragement!