Thursday! 3-19: I Don't Know Much and That Will Have to Be Okay.
V3, I19
Let me tell you a funny story. At least I hope you’ll find it funny. I also hope you find it useful, though the most likely outcome is you’ll find me utterly ridiculous, which is perfectly fine with me. I am!
Last Monday evening, after I had written Thursday!, I was talking to a friend of mine about how I thought it was one of the weaker things I’ve written and how I don’t feel I’m writing very well going back to a couple weeks before my Dad’s passing. I also lamented to her how I wasn’t sure Thursday! was working for most of you, because I wasn’t seeing the outward signs of what marketers call “engagement” — likes and comments or even e-mails. It bugged me a bit that as long as Thursday! has been on Substack, no edition had gotten more than 3 “likes”, no matter the length or subject.
She told me that wasn’t a big deal, that three wasn’t a bad number considering how many subscribers I had, and that my writing did just fine with her. She liked it and got something from it just about every week. I wasn’t ready to hear that, though. I had some moping to do and, by All The Gurus of Social Media Marketing, I would mope!
Wednesday came. My Thursday! admission of weirdohood went out to all of you…and something quite extraordinary happened. Y’all really liked what I wrote, and said so right there on Substack! Seven likes? Six comments? I was chuffed1 — heck, I still am! Turns out, you like that I’m a weirdo. More, you’re a bunch of weirdos yourselves and kind of proud of it!
On the other hand…what the heck?
Again, I’m baffled about my own art. What was it about last week’s newsletter that engendered such enthusiasm? Why has nothing else I’ve written done that? What was it that resonated so well with you. What did I write that you found to useful? How can I figure all that out so I can do it again? How do I make Thursday! that good for you not just once in a while but every week?
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The honest truth is this: I don’t know and I never will know.
The frustrating thing about art is that judging what is “good” and “what works” is almost entirely subjective. I could take last week’s essay apart in search of all the good parts, but I could never create one like it with the same life and “energy” in it. This is the problem Hollywood has with hit movies — especially Disney right now. If a superhero movie does well at the box office, the studio immediately tries to make three more like it. No movie can stand on its own. No new movie is worthy of an experiment. In almost no time at all, the formula produces stale, lifeless movies with predictable stories and boring characters. We’ve seen it happen with novels and television shows and even art. The lack of life, of creative inspiration, of the inherent risk of trying something new is what kills art2.
The problem, of course, is that none of us can ever know what “good” really is. We can know whether we’ve put in the work and whether our work was the best we could do, but “good”?3 I'll go one step more here. No one knows what "good" is -- not when they make it, not when they distribute it, not when they see it. The very definition of "good" squirms and shifts from creation to creation, from person to person. You might, for example fall crazy in love with a Taylor Swift song only to hear the next one from her -- into which she put the same amount of energy and craft -- and think it only mediocre. That's not Tay Tay's fault and it's not yours either. Our preferences change based on a bunch of factors, some we know about and some we don't. Maybe last night was a restless one for you and you didn't sleep well. As a result, you're a bit grumpy and not so willing to listen to my nonsense about creativity and "good"4. I can't predict that. Neither can you. It's real, though, and it does matter.
I don’t like the unpredictability of “good”. I like standards and measures. I like knowing what I have to do to get an “A”. It drives me a little bit nuts to know I won’t ever be able to predict how anything I write will do once it gets into your hands. I give you the best I have every week and I trust that it’ll be okay. That’s just how art is, for me and for you. I don’t like it, but I’m going to have to live with it. It’ll have to be okay.
Forgive me, though, if I pout about it once in a while.
Oh! One last thing. Substack has added new feature where you can pledge a certain amount of money if I offer a paid subscription for Thursday! at some point in the future. As of right now, I don’t have any plans to add a paid component to this newsletter but I haven’t figured out how to shut that option off inside Substack.
HOWEVER! If you want to support what I do here, you can jump over to my Patreon and subscribe there. It works the same way, pretty much. I’ve even created a few set tiers, or you can choose an amount of your own. Cool, huh? Also, you’ll occasionally get a surprise bonus thing5.
What I Wrote Last Week
Fancy a story or poem? Read all you want at JimmieWrites.
Buy my picture book of poems about werewolves and atomic monsters!
Read “The Paper Swans of Ellendell” in Postcards from Mars!
ONE LAST THING! Down under the footnotes is a little empty heart. I’d like it a lot if you’d click on it. There’s no guarantee it’ll do anything besides turn all red and happy, but you never know, right? Maybe Substack will tell more people about Thursday! if we all click the heart. Let’s see.
One of my favorite Britishims. It means I’m pleased, to the point of nigh-speechlessness. It’s like of like being twitterpated, but I wasn’t on Twitter when it happened, so I”m not sure that’s legal.
This is why I don’t worry all that much about AI art or writing. The only people AI will replace in the creative community are the boring, lazy artists.
I’m defining “good” here as “something more than one or two people will like”. That’s not to say I think everything that’s popular is good but if your work is good, it’ll find fans outside a small bunch of people. You might not find a million fans, but you’ll find more than a few.
I’m going to hope that’s not the case. You are wonderful and your sleep was wonderful, right? Right! Wonderful!
Which reminds me. I’ll get back to making those surprise things again soon. My Dad’s illness knocked me a bit farther off my axis than I had thought. But the surprises will come again!
👏👏👏 I like this. 👏👏👏