Thursday! 3-23: WHEEEEEEEHAAAA!!!
I3, E23
Two weeks ago, I got a challenge: do something creatively that scares you.
Last week, I turned on paid subscriptions and dove into Thursday! as my main place to share my work and life with you. Notes, Chat, and the comment section1 are my main tentacles of outreach while the newsletter itself is the great torso that has risen from its long slumber2. In time, those tentacles will be your tentacles as well, as you take a larger part in whatever discussions come up each week. Soon, Thursday! will rampage across the land, waking dreamers from their slumber, shaking artists into terrible fits of creativity, and (hopefully) earning me a fair few bucks with which I can enable more creative lumbering and whatnot3.
I am well aware of all the ways I might fail here and of the ways I have failed in the past. Still, I have an oddly high level of confidence, at least for me. Thursday! is an excellent thing — one of the better newsletters in its particular areas of expertise — and I’m seeing very early indications that its reach is expanding. That’s a huge deal.
See, in order for a creative endeavor to get outside the safe confines of the creator’s family, friends, and associates, it needs a breakout moment. Savvy marketing people call it “going viral”. I call it the “hit”. A band, no matter how popular in its own local group, needs to hit to get outside its home. A podcast needs a hit to get more than a few dozen listeners an episode. The same goes true for newsletters, especially newsletters like mine, that seek to provide some level of financial support.
This isn’t one of those annoying “please subscribe” post. I’ll put the subscription button at the end and would love for you to join up, but that’s not the point. The point is optimism! For the first time since I first had the crazy thought that my writing might provide a significant portion of my living, I feel it is possible. Very possibly. Possibly possible! I did something that scared me, disaster did not immediately follow, and now I know failure is not inevitable. You did not unsubscribe in droves. In fact, three new folks joined in4 and one of you lovely friends stepped up to a paid subscription. I’m closer to that hit, I think, then I have ever been. I’m extended farther into the wider creative world than I’ve ever been and that just might lead to something more cool than I can imagine.
Does that seem like beginner talk? Like something I should have learned when I was in my twenties instead of right now, on the verge of turning 55? I agree. It is. I should have. But it wasn’t easy for me to figure out and here we are, in the right here and now. All I can say is sometimes it takes you a heck of a long time to learn something that is simple to explain but, for various reasons, stupidly difficult to execute.
Look, I never claimed to be a genius. You’re not here for my IQ, but for my scintillating wit and Pitt/Clooney/Sam Elliott/Adonis-like good looks5.
What's in all this for you, though, beyond the aforementioned wit and smoldering? Well, I’ll tell you. The optimism I picked up from doing a small scary thing6 is real. The optimism you’ll pick up from taking your next scary step will be real, too. It doesn’t matter how basic the step nor how complicated, the benefit to your confidence will happen. You won’t miss it. Success breeds success. Confidence breeds confidence. One step leads to the next step. Bilbo didn’t get to the Lonely Mountain until he stepped over the threshold of his little hole in Hobbiton. The road goes ever onward indeed, but it begins with one step against fear.
I did a scary thing last week. Maybe it’ll come to naught but then again maybe naught!7 Honestly, I figured to be a few more scary steps farther down the road. Remember that list of things I wanted to do from a couple of weeks ago? I'm itching to get into one of them. I might have already started something entirely different as well, which you probably won't see for a couple few months8. My schedule needs a good sorting out so I know just how much room I have to work on poems and stories (Oops! Did I say stories?? Dun dun DUNNN!).
Sorry. The optimism makes me goofy. I feel, in a creative sense, like I'm on a wide-open road behind the wheel of a low-slung rocket ride. I want to mash the accelerator and shout WHEEEEEEHAAAAA! And maybe I will.
How about you? Anything you want to try but are a little scared to take on? Let’s talk about it. Maybe you’ll get that little nudge you need.
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! See the buttons down there? Click them and join in the shenanigans and tomfoolery. If you only want a little, click the heart. But if you click the comment button, you might find yourself adding real value to this crazy little community we’re building here, and wouldn’t that be grand?
Which I am still figuring out, so keep your eyes peeled but not too peeled.
That went toward Cthulhu a bit more than I intended. Still…go with me here.
Too much? Yeah, probably too much. But I’m having a good few days here and my enthusiasm runs toward the silly, as you well know.
Hi, new folks!!
Oh, you just knew there’d be a footnote here with a comment along the lines of “Okay, maybe John Goodman or Kevin Smith in his Silent Bob days” didn’t you? You are so clever!
Yes, it was a small thing, even if I considered it a big thing. That’s the beauty of stepping out in any way you can — the size of the step really doesn’t matter at all.
I am so clever too!
Though you might see it sooner if you happen to go to my church. HINT HINT HINTY HINTERSON!
YES! "The optimism I picked up from doing a small scary thing is real." It's weird but it WORKS. I'm so excited for this.
You do you. We'll be here