A New Challenge and Promises to Keep
I’ve been thinking about creating a Substack for a couple of years now. But I’d written blogs before - mostly political - and I was concerned it might end up being much the same. A rush of ideas and halfway decent posts over a couple of months that would eventually fall by the wayside, cast into the nether regions of the world wide web, and ultimately forgotten. The time, the energy, the idea that anything I had to say would make any difference, it was all lacking. And I decided, unconsciously I suppose, that I’d be better off doing anything else. Even if that “anything” was heavily laced with a whole lot of nothing.
It wasn’t until recently, a decade plus later, that I realized I’d missed the entire point of that exercise. The goal wasn’t to become pundit or politician. I didn’t want to become famous, though I freely admit that making a little money along the way would have been welcome. I liked the idea of educating folks and I thought that, in some small way, what I had to say might make some sort of difference. But as Jules said in Pulp Fiction, “That shit ain’t the truth”. What I really wanted was just to be a writer. Unfortunately, being a guy who fancied telling stories about heroes, demons, and space-time folding starships, I forgot that non-fiction and opinion writing was still writing.
Over the years I’ve written a couple of thousand pages of unfinished books, short stories, and opinion pieces. But aside from my foray into the blogosphere, very little of it has been published. So, not coincidentally (I don’t believe much in coincidences), a old friend of mine whose opinion I hold dearer than almost any other recently presented this challenge. If you really want to be a writer, then do it. Stop talking about it. Start a Substack. You don’t have to write about politics. You can write whatever you want. But at least you’ll be able hold yourself accountable. Those weren’t his words, verbatim. But I got the gist. My development as a writer was obviously arrested, and I needed a kick in the ass. So, to my dear friend, I say thank you and challenge accepted.
What will you find here if you decide to stick around? I’m not entirely certain. Hopefully, a lot of solid fiction mixed with a controversial dose of politics and philosophy. That’s the plan as of now. But who knows where we might end up. One thing I do know; something is better than nothing. And like all of you, I’ve got promises to keep, if only to myself.