The 3 biggest Substack mistakes I made... before I'd even begun

My blooper reel, if you will.

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Banana skins: slippy Photo by Jake Nackos on Unsplash

There is no more procrastination to be had.

I know because over the last three months since I joined the Substack Australia team, I’ve tried everything to avoid banging in my tent peg to the gloriously varied and colourful campsite that is the Substack universe.

No one orders their spice drawer alphabetically, subjects their linen cupboard to a Marie Kondo overhaul or deep dives YouTube on everything from Bad Bunny to BTS unless they are deeply committed to avoidance. Especially when those particular avoidance tactics were popular five years ago.

Of course, in my head, it was going to be so easy to write my first newsletter. I knew exactly what I would bring to the party. The plan was simple. I’d offer wildly unsolicited advice on relationships with friends, family and colleagues and have outrageously good fun in the process.

As one of life’s bulldozers (Let’s just do it! What’s the worst that could happen?) the plans in my head made sense considering I once had a magazine sex column where I (fraudulently) styled myself as Dr Ruth.

Recreating something similar seemed like it could be jolly. And so Devine Intervention was born. Except that it wasn’t. The birth was long and torturous despite me not putting one iota of actual labour into it.

Because there was always something, everything, anything that had to be done first.

I should have known better

My whole working life has been made up of writing (all student chambermaiding and chicken factory horrors aside). First in the UK as a journalist and magazine editor and for the last 19 in Australia as a magazine editor and author. Aside from a fleeting flirtation with the idea of raising llamas on a lavender farm (and by ‘brief’, I mean the time it took for the kettle to boil and to realise that llamas’ teeth versus gum ratio was too confronting to ignore), writing is all I’ve ever done and crucially, all I’ve ever wanted to do.

Writing fills my cup in complex ways and on a myriad of levels I have never fully understood nor attempted to unpack. Not writing leaves me angsty and unsettled.

So, the fact that I was actively choosing to avoid launching a Substack was a big fat sign that there was a big fat fly in the ointment. And I was the only one who could hoik the big fat bugger out.

Saying I’m wrong not right is up there with my ability to ride a unicycle or speak Portuguese. I don’t use those examples lightly for I’ve tried both. The unicycle because I went into Aldi for milk only to have this simple mission usurped by the lure of a single-wheeled way of transport winking at me from the centre aisle. Naturally, I succumbed. Naturally, I was rubbish. Naturally, council clean up had some near-new surprising finds that year.

So, as much as my mono-cycling plans were dead in the water and my grasp of Portuguese remained nada, one thing I did know was that the wildly unsolicited advice would stay as just that. Unsolicited, unwritten and unread.

The truth is, a series of bin fire life events began in the embers of last year which stopped me from writing for pleasure. This was no slow death. One day I could write, the next I couldn’t. Work carried on because words are what I do for a living, what I had to do, but outside of that for fun? Impossible.

It’s a paralysis which so far, has lasted six months. By and large, reading for pleasure has gone the same way.

The right time to start is now

So where does all this leave me? You?

Right back where I should have begun three months ago, that’s where. Just getting on with it by showing up and creating something that’s authentically, unequivocally me.

Yes, I do feel horribly wanky writing that, thanks for asking, but you see, in a lifetime of working in media where the comfort that comes from spilling your ideas on to a page or a screen, is only as deep as advertisers, a content strategy or brand direction will allow, the knowledge that the sole influence on your words is you and the people who actively choose to read them is a cool drink on the hottest of days.

There are far worse things, of course, (let’s just take that as read) but when you have thoughts which you want, need, to get out of your head and there’s nowhere for them to go, it’s like sitting on an overstuffed cushion and having the filling poke out from underneath. You keep on poking the filling back in but it soon creeps its way out again. And so these untethered, homeless thoughts join the jumble of noise made up of all the other untethered, homeless thoughts you’ve ever had. The cacophony is deafening.

I wanted, needed, a place to write where I didn’t have to poke anything back anymore. And the fact is, that here on Substack, I don’t have to. That’s quite the thing for a writer.

Mistakes have been made

All bin fires and writing for pleasure paralysis aside, I made some doozies when it came to launching this Substack. Which for an editor who now works for Substack Australia was… interesting.

I happily and confidently advise other Substackers on what to do and how to do it but when it came to my own? Not so much.

These are the top three mistakes I made. Learn from them, friends, so you don’t have the same shame of knowing your Substack launched three months ago and yet this is your first post.

1. I didn’t trust my gut

I knew Devine Intervention wasn’t right for me – or anyone else for that matter. My gut told me so but I chose to ignore it and kept on stalling. The niggly voice that said if I really wanted to write it then nothing would have stopped me and that no amount of life dynamics could have prevented the words flying from my fingers, grew louder by the day.

My eldest, himself an enthusiastic Substacker, looked at its one-line premise and pronounced that it was ‘exactly what I’d expect from a middle-aged mum who’s been a magazine editor’.

I took myself to the burns unit for that one.

2. I wanted everything to be perfect

How could it ever be when perfection is subjective? Muck around with fonts and logos and colours as much as you like but if it’s what’s keeping you from actually any doing, then you’ve failed before you’ve even begun.

This isn’t perfect. I know it. You know it. I’m trying to be OK(ish) with that and just get on with it. I urge you to do the same in whatever way creating is meaningful to you.

3. I was too scared to turn on paid

Creators deserve to be paid for what they create. I could not champion this more. But that didn’t stop me turning paid subscription on and off a dozen times as I battled with what I believed fervently for others versus what I felt comfortable doing for myself. That imposter voice can be mighty screechy at times. Still, here we are. I’ve turned it on and I’m keeping it on. You should too. For the first month, all my writing will be free but after that, I’ll be putting some behind a paywall.

What to expect here

So, what’s on the menu? Bear With is a place to get my thoughts in order and to work stuff out – with your help, I hope. I’d love you to be part of the conversation. Truly.

I made some notes on things I wanted to write about when a flurry of organisation overtook for a good five minutes. Can’t read a word of them now but here are some of the conversations I’ve been having with my shower head lately while getting sudsy.

• The supreme art of self sabotage and other things I excel at

• The three kisses I’ll never forget

• I promised to marry my husband for five years at a time. We’re coming up to our next check in.

• Make like Edith Piaf and regret nothing. Except perhaps for this.

• 5 apologies I’d very much like to retract

• Why did I care when a man said I was unladylike? Answer: It’s complicated.

• I’ve just become a technical orphan. This is what I’ve learnt so far.

This is where I’ll be sorting out thoughts and feelings and conversations. Those in my head and those I glean from the world around me. Maybe you’d like to add to them. Maybe my take on stuff which really shouldn’t keep me awake at night but does will resonate. Maybe it won’t. Either way, I’d like to start a conversation with you and continue it. If only to get better at feeling comfortable with being… not right.

And as a magazine editor and author, I’ll share the insights I’ve learnt from over the last 20+ years because someone once helped me get started years ago and I’d like to offer what I can to you. I’ll tell you about the mistakes (because we always, always learn more from those), the wins, the people, the stories, the death threats…

My only guarantee for this is that there are bound to be more mistakes made along the way.

Brace yourself for those and in the meantime, bear with.

PS There’s a fourth blooper which I’ve just fixed with this post. A Super Blooper, you might say. The audio version which was posted at the top has been deleted because while it was crystal clear to me, it sounded as if I was yelling from a galaxy far, far away to others. As ever, bear with…