I am so grateful for the connection you drew between the commons and this virtual commons. One of my dearest wishes is to have more community in my life, and this newish (to me, anyway) platform feels a little bit like coming out of my cabin, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, and finding a field of new friends to play with. I haven't made the leap to paid subscriptions (and don't have any kind of plan beyond just writing the next damn essay), but I am about to offer an IRL writing circle, inspired by a request from a Substack reader. That's a way of connecting I hadn't expected to experience through Substack, and I'm excited about it.
Feb 14, 2023·edited Feb 14, 2023Liked by Antonia Malchik
This was a wonderful essay that resonated a great deal. I wish I could write sooner to be more actively a part of these conversations, but it always takes so long even just to catch up. And to your own theme above, there are already so many great comments that I'd rather see what other people are saying and digest some of that first. But this idea of writing as community, by way of reading and commenting as community, is very close to my heart. Like many, I struggle with severe writer's block (or thinker's block) and rarely produce much of anything. Usually it is only in *informal* mode and as part of a spontaneous dialogue - blogs like this, an email exchange with a friend, a live discussion or seminar - that I can reliably write or convey substantive thoughts at all.
Maybe I'll come back and respond more eventually, but just wanted to say I think what you're talking about here is super important. It's no accident that Substack and other platforms are becoming a "thing" these days: many people are hungry for community, in a world that has less embodied community than ever. And "community" shares half of its letters with "communication."
But as someone who's been an editor for many people working on major projects, that can be the next best thing to writing yourself, to be able to participate in someone else's unfolding thinking and writing process and (if lucky) even contribute to that process. I like the image of all your readers as de facto co-editors.
You constantly surprise me, Antonia. I'm not sure why I did not anticipate your struggle with the commons and the ownership of your own words and ideas, but once suggested, it can never be un-suggested. I'll be mulling over it for a while, I'm sure.
I think working with a team is the best way to go, period. I've heard so many successful writers talk about the benefit of getting in situations where you have to work on a deadline, and are accountable to someone. My best writing lessons have been through working with editors, and a significant portion of the development of my last project was just talking to friends and random bystanders about the subject until the flow of the narrative started to get worked out in my mind. None of those people showed up in the credits of the story, even though I probably would not have been able to do it without them. Movies have extensive rules of credit, but many supporting roles in book projects only show up in the "Acknowledgements", a back-closet I wonder about every time I see it.
And, finally.... I am deeply frustrated that the publishing world is so gate-kept that there is precious little teaching and advice about the business of writing. It is baffling that there is an ecosystem of real estate investing podcasts where people tell all and get into the gory details of how much they spent and made and what systems worked and didn't, but writers are ON THEIR OWN to figure it out. Just the other day, on the How I Built This podcast with the Hank and John Green, Guy casually threw out that 2-3% of any book sells more than 5000 copies in a year. A guy at church gives me a copy of a kind of memoir he made, and when I respond with surprise, he says nonchalantly, "Oh, on Amazon, it costs about as much as a greeting card to print one of these, so I just give them out." What the heck? Why can't we crack this open and talk candidly about how it all works?
Thanks, Nia. This resonates. First, hooray for the editors. With so much writing now online, uncurated and unedited, good editors* are treasures and in short supply.
I similarly value writing here in the commons. I hadn’t expected Substack to be this much a community of writers and readers (as trite as that may seem). But it is — and I like it a lot. As I write, it helps me think even more WITH my readers. Maybe Substack isn’t all about getting the most subscribers, but more so the right subscribers.
Having read you for years, but not quite knowing you that well, I’ll only add that, yes, as you wrote above in this wonderful essay, you yourself don’t fully own what you’re writing on Substack. I dunno — when I read your posts I see them as yours, reflective of you — to be sure, a product of your mind and environment and other influences, but on the whole intrinsically you. There’s a lot of value in that.
Whatever the case, I’m grateful to be here as well with you — and your readers.
* I’d be remiss not to mention my editor at The Boston Globe, Kelly Horan, who is ruthless and yet respectful, and whom I trust more than anyone with my prose.
I’d go as far as to say that nothing, I write comes from “me“ exclusively. Where do the ideas come from? From the ether? I’m constantly inspired by other writers. And I probably couldn’t even tell you a lot of the time which pieces I might’ve gotten from where. That inspiration is a part of our common energy too. It always bothered me in the corporate world when someone would take an idea and patent it so no one else could use it. that is such bullshit. And don’t get me started on the pharmaceuticals that take government and charitable money for research and development, and then patent the drug and charge consumers a fortune.
And. We all have to put food on the table and in heat our homes. The act of writing is a sacred act. We each follow the path as best we can and who knows?
"When I first heard this, I thought,"That song sounds like something I should have stayed up all night and written!.." (John Prine, after hearing Blaze Foley"s 'Clay Pigeons.')
You are so right about the roles of editors, and how often they are overlooked.
Brent and I are lucky that we have live-in editors, although having your spouse edit your work is a special kind of stress.
And I love the words about interacting with readers via comments/personal messages -- which presents both the best and worst of the internet. The worst is places that aren't moderated like much of Reddit or Facebook.
But places that are moderated? Man, that's a great way to interact with folks.
Which is part of why I like Substack so much. I think we've had zero negative interactions in almost two years on the platform. Instead, it's been getting really constructive feedback and getting to know folks.
I think maybe the interesting (and great!) thing about this platform is that it generally does feel like the words and essays are the author's creation but then the thing is posted and it becomes something that we're all communing about and around. It's fun! I read things and sometimes the words take me some place in line with the topic, and sometimes the words spin me off into another direction. Either way, there seems to be a community in the comments (isn't that a dizzying and weird thing???) ready to run with the author AND the comments in a generally wholesome way.
Beautifully written as always and it is a topic Ive been pondering on for a while. There is an implicit form of ‘collective labour’ in how ideas fall onto a writer’s page - and the most compelling articles are the ones that dance with the constructive and sometimes conflicting tensions that shape our voice. As you’ve alluded to, there is no craft without graft.
Feb 11, 2023·edited Feb 11, 2023Liked by Antonia Malchik
As always, I read your words and they are both incredibly calming and reassuring, like listening to someone explain something I've felt for years but never quite put into words, and also, EXTREMELY ENERGISING because they make me want to leap up and write a 20,000 word response. And I think that's part of the joy of this writing-commons approach. In Seth Godin's phrasing, we infect each other with the idea virus (it's funny how that analogy is no longer as appealing as it once was), or perhaps we're like musicians jamming off each other, finding deeper layers of the melody.
Or maybe: it's just how great writing happens, Mike. Stop making everything a metaphor.
I feel the same way as you do about writing in my Substack - with the knowledge I'm relying completely on the original scientific research of others, so even if I tried to claim "ownership" in some way, I really couldn't. (Which is why when something of mine suddenly reaches a wider audience and I get feedback like "this is amazing, thanks, random English guy" I feel like saying "thank you, I'll pass it on to the people doing the actual work!!!" and then present them with a hundred-entry bibliography).
I also feel like you do about traditional publishing. I'd love to have a publishing deal! But I wouldn't want to adapt something that deserves to exist elsewhere, because that's where it can be weird and risky and commons-y enough to flourish. It feels like an unspoken loyalty to what the work deserves, and from my (totally inexperienced) perspective, tradpub feels like a very different beast: much more risk-averse, much more grounded in marketing systems that have been around for decades and that are looking increasingly dusty and over-safe at least to my eyes, and operating on a work-cycle lasting *years*, which horrifies me in the same way when I was a freelancer I could never understand why the biggest publications were the ones that took the longest to pay me. (With a *check*. WTF.)
>>"I told this person that I wouldn’t be averse to the idea, if a publisher were interested, but there’d have to be something in it for all the people who’d already been supporting this work, financially or otherwise."
This really got to me. It's how I feel too, so much at this point. The kind of gratitude for my readers that makes me blink a bit faster. And - I never want the folk who have invested their time and money in me to feel like it was a bad bet. Whatever the finish-line is of the projects I've invited them into, I want to meet them there. I want us all to cross it together. So - YES. This. Thank you so much for putting it into words, because now I can see how important it is to me on so many levels.
I'm stopping this comment now because I'll write another 19,300 words, just you watch me. But I may come back.
Bravo. I love the way you're approaching all this, Antonia.
(And thank you for the kind shout-out! But I don't think that's my idea at all, I probably stole it! See: "even if I tried to claim "ownership" in some way, I really couldn't". 😄)
Nia, you are wordy and it really works for you and all of us! Not a simple task.
I am so grateful for the connection you drew between the commons and this virtual commons. One of my dearest wishes is to have more community in my life, and this newish (to me, anyway) platform feels a little bit like coming out of my cabin, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, and finding a field of new friends to play with. I haven't made the leap to paid subscriptions (and don't have any kind of plan beyond just writing the next damn essay), but I am about to offer an IRL writing circle, inspired by a request from a Substack reader. That's a way of connecting I hadn't expected to experience through Substack, and I'm excited about it.
Beautiful
This was a wonderful essay that resonated a great deal. I wish I could write sooner to be more actively a part of these conversations, but it always takes so long even just to catch up. And to your own theme above, there are already so many great comments that I'd rather see what other people are saying and digest some of that first. But this idea of writing as community, by way of reading and commenting as community, is very close to my heart. Like many, I struggle with severe writer's block (or thinker's block) and rarely produce much of anything. Usually it is only in *informal* mode and as part of a spontaneous dialogue - blogs like this, an email exchange with a friend, a live discussion or seminar - that I can reliably write or convey substantive thoughts at all.
Maybe I'll come back and respond more eventually, but just wanted to say I think what you're talking about here is super important. It's no accident that Substack and other platforms are becoming a "thing" these days: many people are hungry for community, in a world that has less embodied community than ever. And "community" shares half of its letters with "communication."
But as someone who's been an editor for many people working on major projects, that can be the next best thing to writing yourself, to be able to participate in someone else's unfolding thinking and writing process and (if lucky) even contribute to that process. I like the image of all your readers as de facto co-editors.
You constantly surprise me, Antonia. I'm not sure why I did not anticipate your struggle with the commons and the ownership of your own words and ideas, but once suggested, it can never be un-suggested. I'll be mulling over it for a while, I'm sure.
I think working with a team is the best way to go, period. I've heard so many successful writers talk about the benefit of getting in situations where you have to work on a deadline, and are accountable to someone. My best writing lessons have been through working with editors, and a significant portion of the development of my last project was just talking to friends and random bystanders about the subject until the flow of the narrative started to get worked out in my mind. None of those people showed up in the credits of the story, even though I probably would not have been able to do it without them. Movies have extensive rules of credit, but many supporting roles in book projects only show up in the "Acknowledgements", a back-closet I wonder about every time I see it.
And, finally.... I am deeply frustrated that the publishing world is so gate-kept that there is precious little teaching and advice about the business of writing. It is baffling that there is an ecosystem of real estate investing podcasts where people tell all and get into the gory details of how much they spent and made and what systems worked and didn't, but writers are ON THEIR OWN to figure it out. Just the other day, on the How I Built This podcast with the Hank and John Green, Guy casually threw out that 2-3% of any book sells more than 5000 copies in a year. A guy at church gives me a copy of a kind of memoir he made, and when I respond with surprise, he says nonchalantly, "Oh, on Amazon, it costs about as much as a greeting card to print one of these, so I just give them out." What the heck? Why can't we crack this open and talk candidly about how it all works?
Thanks, Nia. This resonates. First, hooray for the editors. With so much writing now online, uncurated and unedited, good editors* are treasures and in short supply.
I similarly value writing here in the commons. I hadn’t expected Substack to be this much a community of writers and readers (as trite as that may seem). But it is — and I like it a lot. As I write, it helps me think even more WITH my readers. Maybe Substack isn’t all about getting the most subscribers, but more so the right subscribers.
Having read you for years, but not quite knowing you that well, I’ll only add that, yes, as you wrote above in this wonderful essay, you yourself don’t fully own what you’re writing on Substack. I dunno — when I read your posts I see them as yours, reflective of you — to be sure, a product of your mind and environment and other influences, but on the whole intrinsically you. There’s a lot of value in that.
Whatever the case, I’m grateful to be here as well with you — and your readers.
* I’d be remiss not to mention my editor at The Boston Globe, Kelly Horan, who is ruthless and yet respectful, and whom I trust more than anyone with my prose.
I’d go as far as to say that nothing, I write comes from “me“ exclusively. Where do the ideas come from? From the ether? I’m constantly inspired by other writers. And I probably couldn’t even tell you a lot of the time which pieces I might’ve gotten from where. That inspiration is a part of our common energy too. It always bothered me in the corporate world when someone would take an idea and patent it so no one else could use it. that is such bullshit. And don’t get me started on the pharmaceuticals that take government and charitable money for research and development, and then patent the drug and charge consumers a fortune.
And. We all have to put food on the table and in heat our homes. The act of writing is a sacred act. We each follow the path as best we can and who knows?
"When I first heard this, I thought,"That song sounds like something I should have stayed up all night and written!.." (John Prine, after hearing Blaze Foley"s 'Clay Pigeons.')
You are so right about the roles of editors, and how often they are overlooked.
Brent and I are lucky that we have live-in editors, although having your spouse edit your work is a special kind of stress.
And I love the words about interacting with readers via comments/personal messages -- which presents both the best and worst of the internet. The worst is places that aren't moderated like much of Reddit or Facebook.
But places that are moderated? Man, that's a great way to interact with folks.
Which is part of why I like Substack so much. I think we've had zero negative interactions in almost two years on the platform. Instead, it's been getting really constructive feedback and getting to know folks.
I think maybe the interesting (and great!) thing about this platform is that it generally does feel like the words and essays are the author's creation but then the thing is posted and it becomes something that we're all communing about and around. It's fun! I read things and sometimes the words take me some place in line with the topic, and sometimes the words spin me off into another direction. Either way, there seems to be a community in the comments (isn't that a dizzying and weird thing???) ready to run with the author AND the comments in a generally wholesome way.
Thank you, Nia. It is so very good to be here with you!
Beautifully written as always and it is a topic Ive been pondering on for a while. There is an implicit form of ‘collective labour’ in how ideas fall onto a writer’s page - and the most compelling articles are the ones that dance with the constructive and sometimes conflicting tensions that shape our voice. As you’ve alluded to, there is no craft without graft.
Thrillingly insightful expose of Antonia's secrets. But one she still keeps close. Where did she stumble onto the secret of the 48 hour day?
Reciprocity - the best word ever!!
Here with you, thank you!
As always, I read your words and they are both incredibly calming and reassuring, like listening to someone explain something I've felt for years but never quite put into words, and also, EXTREMELY ENERGISING because they make me want to leap up and write a 20,000 word response. And I think that's part of the joy of this writing-commons approach. In Seth Godin's phrasing, we infect each other with the idea virus (it's funny how that analogy is no longer as appealing as it once was), or perhaps we're like musicians jamming off each other, finding deeper layers of the melody.
Or maybe: it's just how great writing happens, Mike. Stop making everything a metaphor.
I feel the same way as you do about writing in my Substack - with the knowledge I'm relying completely on the original scientific research of others, so even if I tried to claim "ownership" in some way, I really couldn't. (Which is why when something of mine suddenly reaches a wider audience and I get feedback like "this is amazing, thanks, random English guy" I feel like saying "thank you, I'll pass it on to the people doing the actual work!!!" and then present them with a hundred-entry bibliography).
I also feel like you do about traditional publishing. I'd love to have a publishing deal! But I wouldn't want to adapt something that deserves to exist elsewhere, because that's where it can be weird and risky and commons-y enough to flourish. It feels like an unspoken loyalty to what the work deserves, and from my (totally inexperienced) perspective, tradpub feels like a very different beast: much more risk-averse, much more grounded in marketing systems that have been around for decades and that are looking increasingly dusty and over-safe at least to my eyes, and operating on a work-cycle lasting *years*, which horrifies me in the same way when I was a freelancer I could never understand why the biggest publications were the ones that took the longest to pay me. (With a *check*. WTF.)
>>"I told this person that I wouldn’t be averse to the idea, if a publisher were interested, but there’d have to be something in it for all the people who’d already been supporting this work, financially or otherwise."
This really got to me. It's how I feel too, so much at this point. The kind of gratitude for my readers that makes me blink a bit faster. And - I never want the folk who have invested their time and money in me to feel like it was a bad bet. Whatever the finish-line is of the projects I've invited them into, I want to meet them there. I want us all to cross it together. So - YES. This. Thank you so much for putting it into words, because now I can see how important it is to me on so many levels.
I'm stopping this comment now because I'll write another 19,300 words, just you watch me. But I may come back.
Bravo. I love the way you're approaching all this, Antonia.
(And thank you for the kind shout-out! But I don't think that's my idea at all, I probably stole it! See: "even if I tried to claim "ownership" in some way, I really couldn't". 😄)