All the things in the way

First, I owe everyone a tremendous apology for having not published in the past week. I could list off the long litany of impediments that got in the way but the point is, I have been largely silent here and owe you an apology for that. I’m sorry.

To summarize though, I have been stymied by three vexatious issues:

1. General life mayhem - being sick, busy, tired, etc.. This one, at least, will improve a bit. The last few weeks have been an anomaly.

2. Having no fucking idea what I’m doing as a writer - it is one thing to feel like you know how to string words together. It is a whole ‘nother thing to actually have a grasp of how to actually wake up each day and Be a Writer.

   
   I assume experienced writers have processes and discipline and a bagful of jumpstarts and tricks to remedy the days when the topic isn’t clear and the words just aren’t there. I have none of them.
   
   I literally have no clue how to go about Being a Writer as a daily vocation nor do I have a clue how experienced writers do it. That’s something I should and can remedy. I know enough writers to be able to get a window into how they go about being a writer. I am going to do that… and I’ll bring you along in case it is of any interest to anyone.
   
   In the meantime, though, it’s worth disclosing that I broke a longstanding rule of mine when I created this Substack and abruptly came out as a Writer. As someone who worked with a slew of startup companies over my career, one thing I always hated was the “Company X Announces Plans to…” press release. Plans ain’t shit. Experienced entrepreneurs know better than to announce plans. They mean nothing until they’ve been made real by execution. Amateurs announce plans; pros announce developments.
   
   So, declaring myself a writer before having figured out what that actually meant or required — and before having done any writing for publication here — was a somewhat “courageous” leap before looking.
   
   In my defense though, given my combo of ADHD, perfectionism, tendency to overthink things, if I hadn’t just done it, I would have never done it at all. An imperfect start beats never starting. I knew that and accepted that the start would be bumpy and it has been.
   
   I truly have no idea what I’m doing here but I’m now actively at work trying to figure it out, so you have a window seat on what will be a glorious takeoff or abrupt plummet into the Pacific. A floatation device is under your seat. Should the cabin lose air pressure, place your mask on your own face before assisting other passengers.
   
   With that out of the way, you will see some messy feeling my way through having and using this vehicle for publishing. I plan on publishing more but it will likely include at least some things that aren’t storified or polished… like this entry. Sometimes you have to write just to write. To spare you endless email volume, I’ll likely just post those without the announcement emails. They’ll just hit my feed here.
   
   Anyway, let’s move on to the third of my vexatious issues…
   

3. Social media is killing me softly - the slow-motion meltdown of Twitter has toppled a whole bunch of dominoes which are collectively exhausting.
   
   Without any plan or intention, I came to have a ludicrously large audience on Twitter. While that readership grew over six years, it has never not felt overnight to me. It has always felt sudden and unearned and surreal.
   
   It has felt like waking up one day and realizing you own a popular restaurant when you had never intended to go into the restaurant business at all. You suddenly have an asset that has value and takes work to maintain, yet you acquired it by not thinking at all about its value or maintenance.
   
   Now, enter Elon Mush (sp.).
   
   With his purchase and immediate mismanagement of Twitter, I was suddenly faced with the pretty real likelihood that the restaurant I somehow came to own would decay or even close up shop altogether. An asset I hadn’t really felt I earned or deserved but very much valued — and now, as a writer, probably needed — might just… fall apart.
   
   So, I hurriedly created accounts on other platforms that seem like potential successors to Twitter. I rushed to set up profiles and steer people toward both those accounts and my Instagram so I could hopefully maintain at least some ability to stay in touch with my Twitter community should it suddenly fall apart.
   
   The problem is that if I was overwhelmed before, I am now four times as overwhelmed before. In the past, I’ve averaged about 3,000 replies a day on Twitter. Beyond that, there are direct messages on Twitter and Instagram; email at three addresses, and text messages... It has been utterly unmanageable for years. I have long since given up on the illusion it ever could be.
   
   Now, add to that new feeds on Mastodon, Hive, and Post.news. Three new places requiring content and interaction and attention. Three new audiences to attend to. Three new systems to learn and understand.
   
   It isn’t doable… and only a few weeks in, it has left me feeling spread too thin; unhappy with my presence on any of them; and yet compelled to keep working on reducing reliance on Twitter by growing my presence elsewhere. TBH, it sucks and I hate it.
   
   Even Instagram, a place I have only used for personal, light things like photography feels like a job now. I feel like I’m supposed to be squeezing in time to go out with my camera to efficiently build up an inventory of pictures I can post over time. Why in God’s name am I self-imposing actual pressure to go take bird pictures — something I originally did for the joy of it — as if I was operating a magazine with a press deadline? What nonsense!
   
   Truth be told, the only social media I like at the moment is Substack. The only engagement I like at the moment is the engagement we have here.
   
   With all of that said, I don’t have a better answer on how to manage the next few months in the evolving social media landscape as Twitter lists to port. I don’t have a great solution to recreating even a reasonable portion of the community I have there. And I don’t have the capacity to just say “Oh, well. After six years, 180,000 tweets, and endless time and energy, I’ll just let my restaurant fade and fail.” So, I don’t have an easy fix to the ‘killing me softly’.
   
   I do know this though: the last few weeks haven’t worked for me. They have left me spinning from one place to the next while not liking any of it.
   
   So, while this long ramble may have been of utterly no use to you, it has gotten me all the way around to this little decision:
   
   I’m going to dramatically curtail my time on social media overall and am going to give myself permission to back-burner all but a couple (for now at least).
   
   That should help. God, I hope.
   
   Anyway, if you have read this far, thank you… though I have no idea why you would. This feels like it turned into more journal entry than essay.
   
   Hey, sometimes you have to write to write.
   
   This morning, if nothing else, I wrote.
   
   I’m glad.
   
   (and now, since I am late to a doctor’s appointment, I’m hitting post without proofing. I apologize for typos, etc.)