State of the Substack
2 years later, my how time flies
It has been 2 years since I published my first substack. The first year crawled by but it seems like 2 days since I posted about my one year substack anniversary. Such is the nature of this past year. Last year on this day I was in recovery from surgery and my life was a bit of a blur. I only accidentally realized the one year anniversary had passed and didn’t get out a summary post until a couple weeks later in August. This year I am on the spot with my observations and you are receiving this the same day I sent out my first post.
What did I write about?
As I observe my second year of posts, a little snapshot into a small part of my life, I would say the themes have been recovery/health, imagination, asking the question “who is Melanie” and what is she doing next? My daughter moved out last August, we are moving her to another house in a couple weeks and somehow I suspect she will never live with us again. Admittedly we have taken up all the space in our small house since she moved out so I am sure she feels like there is nowhere to move home to. I hope she knows we would always accommodate her, but also, I think we all enjoy our independent lives so maybe stay the course with roommates…Navigating and enjoying empty nest is definitely a theme of my life.
Last fall I had an idea I wanted to have somewhat of a summary theme post at the end of every month. They are my favorites from other writers. I decided I would riff off my post about perspective. Considering perspective each month by looking back, looking ahead and looking at my feet. I did a couple of those posts and they were fine. But then I was inspired to spend this year Fostering my Imagination and reviewing each month’s theme has become what I end each month on instead. Many other posts have been related to that topic this year beyond those end of month posts and I am really enjoying both the end of month theme and sharing it here. Will I stay with it in 2027 or go back to perspective. That is a decision to far off to consider.
I also started this year with an idea to share several thoughts on our infertility journey. Not the in the trenches stories but the things that have stuck with me more than 20 years after we left that part of our story. I think these stories were ones I have told or thought about many times over the years and needed to finally write out. Have I shared all the stories or are there others? For now those stories feel complete.
And I have shared some plain old random stories and thoughts for no reason but they were on my mind. Stories of my childhood in the woods, and making a record, Stories about the books in my house, Minnesota winter, and more. And did I mention we went to Europe? Dublin and Paris?
The Business of Publishing a Substack
As I enter the 3rd year of writing here I wonder if it is time to take myself a little more seriously and jump some hoops to find more readers and make this a real thing or if I am enjoying the organic nature of my growth and this small little community of readers, most of whom apparently do not like to leave comments. (Hi, I don’t bite, feel free to join the conversation.) I currently have 83 subscribers, 2 of whom leave comments. (Thank you Sierra and Jen).
Click that box and you too could get a call out in my 3 year summary post comments. :)
A few people have paid subscriptions and have earned my eternal gratitude and appreciation. It covers a couple lattes a month. Thank you.
I have wondered if I should do a push to bump myself over 100 subscribers. You know just to say, “hey, I have 100 subscribers.” Pretty sure if I was a little more consistent and posted in the Notes section of substack with regularity I could get there. I do get around 100+ views of my posts, sometimes less but most of the time just over 100 people read my posts. So clearly I get a few random people. You can follow without subscribing but I don’t see anywhere I can look at that number so maybe I have more than 100 people with followers and they run across my posts in their notes feed? For no real reason I have not been posting my substack newsletters on Facebook or Instagram. When I have I tend to get a bit more traffic but for reasons I cannot explain I have decided to keep this separate. Should I suck it up and post there or, again, just let this be a sweet little place that will come together as it does and not go chase down people to join me here? TBD what I do this year but I am in no rush to make a change.
(But in case you aren’t a subscriber and want to become one, here is the button to do so. I only need 17 people to reach 100.)
Next pressing question: Is it time to give this substack a real name rather than continuing with the default, “Melanie’s Substack”? I think so. Any ideas? I joke I can easily say something in 100 words (maybe 250) but please don’t ask me to say it in 2. I would never be able to write ad copy. In the early 2000’s when I was a mommy blogger (with an equally large readership of less than 100 people) my blog was called, “The Folly of My Youth and the Midlife Crisis”. I thought it was hilarious since my children are so far apart and a twist since both of them were so very much on purpose and not the result of folly or crisis. I thought referring to my kids as folly and crisis was funny. Maybe I should call this the folly of my youth has led to a midlife crisis. Or Folly and Crisis have left me in an empty nest. ha ha But actually, I would like to call it something maybe slightly more positive. I have wondered about imagination but am I committed to that as a long term theme? On the other hand, I have 86 subscribers, I could change the name every year and who would even notice or care? Honestly, I have been thinking lately that Imagination might stay as my theme, it is broad enough to cover basically everything. So there is a chance I might just call this substack, “Fostering Imagination.” Stay tuned to see what I commit to.
I think I am going to try reading my posts so you can listen to them if you prefer that over reading. I can be a voice in your head during your morning walk or while emptying the dishwasher. When I posted about curiosity a couple months ago I mentioned a podcast I had done a few years ago and as I listened back to a few episodes I remembered how much I enjoyed that process. Not sure I have podcast energy in me right now but I’m pretty sure I have read the post I just wrote energy. What do you think?
The other question I am asking as I go into year 3 is about consistency. When I started I really tried to publish something every week. I would force myself to come up with something to say each week, sometimes good, sometimes just filling the space, in order to keep my self imposed deadline. I wasn’t sure why I was here or what I was writing about and some weeks I just plucked a random thought out of thin air. I think in starting something new the discipline of that weekly deadline was important. However, I let that practice go at some point and you now can catch me weekly or every 2 or 3 weeks depending on how inspiration strikes. I am wondering if I need to re-institute that weekly deadline? I currently try to post at least 2 times a month including my month end summary. Honestly some months Fostering Imagination might be the only reason you are getting any posts this year at all.
What the Heck is the Theme of this Newsletter anyway?
Which leads me back to, what am I writing about? I had been thinking at the end of last year that Both/And was my main theme but while that still undergirds a lot of what I say, Imagination has come forward to be a stronger contender for the theme of this newsletter. I am toying with writing more about churches and the church selling I am doing in my professional life. Still thinking about how to format those thoughts. I go back and forth about how much I want to write about my faith. Writing about selling church buildings and how that work is becoming my ministry feels like a potential gateway without feeling like I need to get a theology degree, have strong opinions about anything or get to preaching. And finally, I will continue writing about the never ending question of what my life looks like in Empty nest. I have a piece I am noodling coming soon that might refine that question a bit for this next year, not sure yet. You will have to stay tuned to find out what happens next. And finally, finally I will always throw in random things that have no connection to any theme but I just feel like sharing. Any idea what the 2 word name for that combination of topics is? Mish Mash From Melanie?
Thank You!
Overall I am thankful for another year of writing, exploring questions, making observations, telling stories and discovering my voice. Thank you to everyone coming along with me on this journey, the 2 people who comment here and the many real life friends who comment in person. It does make a difference to know people are reading and enjoying the words I write. Looking forward to what we discover this next year.
Love,
Melanie
PS: If you subscribe and get my newsletter in your email inbox you can always hit reply and send me a private comment rather than leaving a public comment. I do that with friends sometimes when I want too say a lot and don’t want strangers judging me.
Melanie, congrats on 2 years! Stick with it, girl! You won't regret it. I'm grateful to rub shoulders with you here.
Congratulations on two years.
I've passed 18 months and am asking myself the same questions - do I want to grow the substack? I'm too scared to go look but I've almost no growth in that time (I brought over 300+ subscribers from my email list) and sense that now is the time to either do this properly or just resign myself to having it as a hobby.