In Honor of My Two Year Substack Anniversary

Uhmm, What Should I Write About?

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." Benjamin Franklin

See I have this problem where I tend to do both and then try to keep them far enough apart where I do something one day and then try to write about it that evening. I’ve realized that this is a recipe for a hot mess. Sometimes I’m tired or I don’t know how to articulate on events yet in the fog of war and mass confusion. Sometimes the subject matter isn’t even worthy of your time.

I started my first substack on November 9, 2021. My introductory post was very profound, I can assure you:

Coming soon

Now you don’t need to click on the link because that is all of it. I had no idea what I was doing back then and am not marketing savvy now. I probably never will be. I had no clue what passed for good content or what made a “Clickworthy article that will generate $$$$$".” I’d simply been a writer all of my life, almost always defaulting to the mundane level of writing about my existence and my conversations with others on this plane in the same space and time. I could default to mommy blogging, money blogging, health blogging, travel blogging or religious and spiritual issues.

Yet 2021 had been the worst year of my adult life hands down. My long time antivaxxer stance had been picked up and was no longer tolerated in my previously safe and nonjudgemental circles. As the corona catastrophe enveloped and metasisized into my my previously private life I felt that I had to say my peace. I had no idea what to say. Should I put on my academic hat? My therapist hat? My spiritual hat? Should I do scientific analysis? Should I go deep on money market flows? Should I just share pictures and talk about my kids? Should I make this specific about Thailand as a sort of niche? Should I write about homesteading? Should I just hope that someone out there somewhere sees me as human?

I had no idea what to expect when I put my first (non) post out there. I’d signed up for substack and was sometimes commenting on Steve Kirsch and Margaret Anna Alice articles along with a few others. I was a voracious reader because in a sea of facemask wearing conformists there was little else I could do but seek out others who at least saw what I saw online. I’d written books which nobody read so the idea that nobody might find my substack didn’t put me off at all.

“At this point Jasmine I’d be thrilled for a bad review on one of my books. I mean a terrible review. As long as it was sincere it would mean that the person had read what I wrote and had become so worked up about it that they had taken the time out of their life to critique it. That shows investment, which is a blessing.”

My books, as best Amazon Kindle would tell me, averaged 0 page views every day for months and months. This made no sense because I was sometimes getting small royalty checks from them, not enough to pay the bills by any means, but far above their soul crushing metrics. Why was I getting 11 cents from India, and 23 cents from France, 4 cents from Mexico and $1.23 from Australia (You go Aussies!) along with $4.21 from the US and $1.65 from the UK when my page showed 0 views, 0 clicks, 0 buys, 0 read throughs and 0 likes in any given week or month?

What I did know though was that I was getting zero feedback. There was no connection with whatever strangers somehow meandered to an affiliated website that somehow paid back to me some pittance. Substack and the readers and commenters on here have helped me evolve in ways that would have never been possible without it. I certainly didn’t know how funny I was! I’m happy if I can make people smile. Or think. Or connect. Or love. Or just be human and realize that you are loved.

I don’t always get it right. But I appreciate all of the feedback. What a long strange trip it’s been…

To our continued existence…

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