Hello Substack

A couple of weeks ago, my personal assistant, a young man I’m getting to know and mentor introduced me to Substack.

He told me he had gone through my WordPress and liked what he saw. Then he asked me if I knew about Substack. I told him I had heard about it, but I didn’t really know much about it. So he sent me the link, and I joined.

I even found a few of my contacts, people I know, on Substack. I did a little reading, saw that people were sharing their writing, and I thought, okay, I could do this too.

But something hit me. It didn’t feel like me. It didn’t feel like home.

Now, looking back, I think I understand why.

Substack feels more like a general public place, where so many people have something to say. Not that WordPress isn’t that, but to me, Substack feels more like a magazine. There are so many voices, so much going on, so much interaction.

And I like that. I really do.

But WordPress feels different to me.

WordPress, where I put up my articles, feels like home.

I am the kind of person who looks forward to putting my articles together and, someday, having a collection of them in a book. I want a collection of short stories. I want to be able to gather my thoughts and words and turn them into something I can hold, something that stays.

I’m a library kind of person.

So WordPress makes sense to me. I like knowing that I can go there, or someone can stumble across it three years from now, and they can get a sense of my thoughts, my words, the things I have written over time.

They would be able to go through the different categories… love, friendships, life, God, gospel, and so on and so forth.

It feels like a collection. It feels like me.

I like the idea of being able to design the page the way I want, so that when people come, it reflects me. It reflects how I see things. It reflects the kind of space I want to create.

So, I’m not throwing Substack away.

I like the interaction there. I like the idea of meeting other writers and seeing what people are thinking and writing about. It’s very similar to WordPress and I have made some great friends here on WordPress. So, I’m going to explore it and see what it is.

But I also know that if I make it my main writing platform, I might eventually get overwhelmed with the need to keep up with the back and forth and everything that comes with it.

And I don’t want writing to become another thing I have to keep up with.

So, for now, this is me saying we Hello to Substack.

Let me see it. Let me try it. Let me participate.

Substack is where I can participate. WordPress is somewhere I belong.

And I think I’m okay with that.

My home is still my home.

And I hope to keep it for as long as I can.

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Author: Emaistace

wife, mom, sister, daughter, aunty, friend. writing my everyday thoughts as they pop up.

14 thoughts on “Hello Substack”

    1. You know Derrick, those were thoughts exactly. There’s enough to do on WordPress already, reading, writing, catching up with friends I have made here.
      What actually tempted me was how I saw a number of people I already know there.
      Well, let’s see if I can sustain that. 😁

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  3. Hi Mimi, I enjoyed reading about your experience on Substack and 100% agree with you that I like the feel at WordPress a lot better
    However, I never was able to find a flow on Substack and the most annoying part for me is constantly having to say that I don’t want to pledge for a site. And it gets annoying when before I can even read something I have to say that I don’t want to pledge or I have to login and go through so many channels.
    And it frustrated me that they made me sign up for categories and follow sites before I could even read some of my friends on there. So I 100% do not like that platform and the two people that I follow on there are more than enough for me. In fact, if I did not like them so much, I just wouldn’t go and read their writing there.

    I could be wrong, but I think Substack was created as a place where people could eventually charge for their articles and give writers a chance to make a little money on what they post. However, I am not sure if the sub stack people I know of have made any money.

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    1. Honestly Yvette, the phrase you used is just about right… “Find the flow”.
      I was wondering if it was just me. Seems like a lot and too much going on at once.
      Then, about the pledge, that didn’t sit well with me too.
      What made me laugh was your last line… “I am not sure if the substack people I know of have made any money”.

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      1. Well I enjoyed hearing your thoughts about it and when I did flash fiction last year – there was one author who always linked to Substack account for his entry, but he never interacted with us and so I just stopped trying to login move through the not pledge this time, etc. and I prefer to stay away, except for those two people that I know. Anyhow, I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

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