Things I Said in Substack Notes This Week and Have More To Say About

A weekly column for connecting further and deeper on topics I care about because the conversations here are just so rich and wonderful

Sep 09, 2023

Welcome to Create Me Free where I share all of my deep research into and musings about the complex relationship between art and mental health. While I touch on art as therapy and the benefits of creativity, I really dig into the ways that our mental health symptoms can impact our creative process, content, productivity, medium choice, identity and business.

Images this week are either ones I took or, like this one, free on Unsplash using search term “threads”

Some great conversations happen in Notes every week. Here, I round up things I was chatting about with people there and elaborate a bit on them. It’s a way for me to engage more deeply with these conversations, connect people to one another, and share incredible ideas with all of you.

Housekeeping:

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A FRAMEWORK TO BEGIN:

Steve Henneberry

of The Gorilla Who Wants to Be Santa Claus shared:

“Reading Kathryn’s post (highly recommended) led me to open over a dozen new tabs of articles I needed to read. This was a bit concerning because my computer is currently in a disagreement with me over how many tabs I am allowed to keep open at once. However, I read them all, subscribed to some, and took notes as seeds for future posts.”

This is what it’s really all about. All of my roundups are about connecting other people to each other, boosting all of us up, encouraging more reading and writing.

SPECIAL OFFER:

In that vein, I created a special offer that only a few people have taken me up on so far but you’re still invited to do so …

SPECIAL PAY IT FORWARD OFFER!!!

I am so grateful for everyone who participated in the virtual book tour for The Artist’s Mind. They all do terrific work and I want to support that in any way I can. So I came up with this special offer …

Here’s how it works … pick one person below, sign up for their annual PAID subscription, send me an email (Kathryn.vercillo on gmail) letting me know who you signed up with and once I confirm with them, I’ll comp you a free year with me.

THE ONLY RULES ARE:

You must sign up and pay for an annual subscription. Sorry, monthly doesn’t work.
This must be a new subscription, not someone you already have an annual subscription with.
You can’t just cancel it after you get comped. Because that’s not good community building.

A free year gets you all of my content, including my new weekly writer roundups, and possibly some audio content coming in the near future. And since my annual subscription typically costs more than average, you’re getting a better than 2-for-1 deal while supporting other authors here.

Each one offers something completely different. Explore them. Choose the one you really want to support. You can start by seeing what role they played in my virtual book tour here:

The authors to choose from are:

So go check them out, find someone you want to support and make this happen!

I AM CONSIDERING:

Starting a book club reading books by authors who are also writing

On Substack

… thinking about creative ways to make this beneficial and fun for everyone - special posts, interviews with authors, what else?

I currently have this book stack, which includes my newest book and books from:

Jimmy Doom

CynthiaCM

, and

Eleanor Anstruther

all commented about their books to also check out. And big thanks to

Gina Hogan Edwards

for being the first to show support and wanting to help make this happen.

INSPIRATION:

Inspiration check-in …
I am reading: Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians
I am watching: 90 Day Fiancé and about to start Succession
I am listening to: Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians
I am listening to: Dear Alana podcast
I am making: collage art books
I am loving: being back in school
I am excited about: autumn vibes.

Update: I ended up watching Inventing Anna and then Beef and then Minx instead of starting Succession. (Yes, I watched all that this week, every episode of each.) And I’ve been reading school stuff so I didn’t get into Self-Made yet.

What is nourishing you this week?!

I SHARED:

I shared a photo of something I noticed on the street on the way to my dentist and asked others to use it as a story/poem prompt. This was so fun and I’ll be doing more of these!

You can see all responses here. A couple I’ll highlight are:

Betsy Streeter

“He waited, and waited, and waited… leaning outward, craning his neck - had she turned the corner yet? Not quite, just a little farther, and then, finally, she was out of sight. He threw the crutches to the ground, scaled the scaffolding, and climbed in the window.”

Steve Henneberry

“Handicapped parking in a broken society”
I see this as an injured blue collar worker who can’t afford to miss work, so even while on crutches he still arrives, suffers his way up the scaffolding, just to keep bread on the table. (t_t)

perfectlight

made me laugh:

“Red bull give you wings”

Thanks to others who joined in the conversation:

Skyler, the local unbeliever

Love what you’re reading? Pay it forward to all of these terrific writers by sharing:

I LOVED:

Elizabeth Gilbert

is now on Substack with her Love Letters and on the first one I had to comment:

“Thank you so much for being here, for sharing your wisdom about how love letters can be a way that we remind ourselves of our own wisdom (and so much more!) and what a bonus to get video readings, notebook pages and even a poem! Love it. I'm here for all of it.”

She’s a writer that I’ve admired for a long time and it’s so fun to get to see some of these other sides of what she is all about. And these love letter lessons are such great reminders for true self-care and loving ourselves and nourishing ourselves.

And she collaborated with

Suleika Jaouad

who shared her own love letter and wrote about the process and how it was a way to help her with these feelings:

“This self-criticism shows up most fiercely for me when I’m writing, but in the last few years, it has mushroomed. I often feel like I’m beyond capacity in every area of my life, and I worry about disappointing people, both personally and professionally. Illness adds another layer. I’d like to give abundantly, to support friends and loved ones and even strangers in any way I can. But I’m constantly aware of my energy reserves, and sometimes showing up for others in the way that I’d like and caring for myself feel at odds. I find myself frustrated when I can’t do both.”

NOTES ON NOTES:

I often see great conversations in Notes about Notes itself and this week it was kicked off by a post from

Andrei Atanasov

who said:

“Writers of Notes, we are here for the reader. But where are the readers?
Most of the content I see on Notes is geared toward writers. It’s great content, don’t get me wrong: writing advice, motivation, and sharing each other’s work. As a writer, I’m getting my money’s worth. But as a reader, there isn’t all that much to see.
radicaledward
and
M. E. Rothwell
’s recent exchange made me think. Most subscribers coming from Notes are fellow writers, and while that’s great—all writers are avid readers, don’t we also want subscribers who are just readers? People who come to our stuff not to learn, not to compare, not to provide feedback or advice, but to experience. To get lost in the stories we tell.
Why don’t we change gears, and start making Notes feel welcome to readers? Why don’t we let it become a place where they can find cocktails of great writing, without the need to subscribe to 1000s of newsletters? Why don’t we start posting Notes with the reader, not our fellow writers, in mind?
If we want Notes to keep working as intended, that is, to keep bringing new readers to our work, I think it’s time we rethink the way we use it.
It’s going to take time, yes, I’m talking about a pretty dramatic shift, but with the way things stand right now, it won’t be long before Notes becomes an echo chamber, with writers pepping each other up and nothing more. We don’t want to get there.
The @Substack team gave us the tools. It’s up to us to use them right. It’s up to us to keep Notes from becoming the new Lit-Tweet.

My response:

This is a “yes, and” for me.

The yes part is that the writers here can only support a limited number of other writers each with subscriptions so if we are seeking more readers for our newsletters then we need to be providing value for those readers in notes.

The “and” part for me is that I do think that writing to the writers here does that to some degree if we do it well. I work hard to promote other writers in my notes, which means that my readers that ARE here can then find and support those writers.

Your experience has been that as a reader you’re not getting much out of it but mine hasn't been that at all. I find so many great things to read here as a result of what people are posting in Notes. That’s worth celebrating for me.

But again I think you’re right that in taking it to the next level, offering more to “just readers” is going to be key.

What I perhaps want to add is that I’m not sure how I personally would want to balance Notes for readers with what I offer in my newsletter. If they’re getting great stuff from me in Notes, do they also want to pay for a subscription? Maybe, maybe not.

Simon Haisell

addresses this a bit:

“I would love to be stumbling across micro fiction in Notes. Slithers of stories. If there are people already doing this, I'd love to find them.”

I don’t write micro-fiction but I think the point is that I could offer “small bites” content in Notes that would perhaps entice some readers to then subscribe to my longer pieces.

And

SJStone

said:

“I feel like that's exactly what I'm doing, especially in notes. I think Notes is my place to talk to readers - here's what I'm writing, here's what I'm thinking, here's a picture I made or one that inspired me. The hard part is knowing who my readers are. I assume they're my subscribers, and even though there are maybe 6 or 10 total, I'm talking to them.”

Monica Nastase

elaborated well on all of this:

“Thanks for writing this in a nice and collaborative way. I’ve noticed it and disliked it for a while. I’ve also started a chat on this on Substack’s Office Hours (see image below) without much success. I believe it was
Kerala Taylor
who said we don’t find more readers through Notes because there is so much writing out here for readers to be able to discover it all.
But I agree with your view: we need to turn this into a place for readers rather than for writers pepping one another out.
What would Notes for Readers look like? Maybe like the narrow aisles of a library where people come to browse, read a bit and get inspired? 📚

And from

Bethanie Sherwood

“It’s hard to market the need for an app if the content is already being delivered to your inbox. But I do think the app is worth it when you consider the social aspect.
This thread addresses the notes feature and I think it’s a solid theory. If we used the space to write 6 word stories or post weekly comics or something, we could generate traction to the app that way. Newsletters could suggest it to their readers by stating they have exclusive or early access content on Notes, which is available on the app.
Or something to that effect.
Passive readers (who like content delivered straight to them, read, and then go elsewhere) don’t travel well, but you never know who might venture over.
Personally, I’d love to see a shift like this. The majority of newsletters I follow are recommendations from Notes. It would be a change, but not an unreasonable one.”

Add your thoughts:

I RESONATED:

With

Marlee Grace

of Monday, Monday in Not So Book Smart who said:

“I come here today curious and worried, but also holding it all lightly. Is it my meds? Do they make me more forgetful? Has a decade of phone addiction made me actually stupid? Is it that I don’t have a practice of note taking and I need to be more active about comprehending while I read? Is it that I am just not cut out for this type of learning? Do I sort of not care about dates and details and am a somatic learner of feeling and change but not of facts?”

Oh yeah, @Marlee Grace … feeling all of this as I return at age 43 for an MA in Visual and Critical Studies. Perimenopause, medication side effects, depression symptoms, years of phone scrolling diminishing my attention span … many reasons that I have brain fog, don’t remember things or can’t verbally articulate what I do … all the things. It’s a strange feeling because I was always so “good” at school and the academics came easily to me and yet here I find myself nervous about my (in)ability to discourse in this particular way. On the plus side, IDGAF nearly as much at this age, I’m there to get what I can get out of it and let go of the rest, and I appreciate the little joys of it way more than I used to.

Congrats to Marlee for returning to school.

Nat Persoglio

and

Neil Milton

are also returning adult students. Anyone else?

I RESTACKED:

I CELEBRATED:

Congrats to