Newbie News #2 - Cute Cat Videos, Deep Thoughts & Politics
The challenge of deciding what to focus your writing on. And, today is the day for you to tell us all about who you are and what you are working on!
Newbie Topic of the Day
How To Decide the Focus of My Publication???
I really struggled to even get started with my publication because of this very question! In fact, my very first post, Do It All, was all about having way too many ideas and struggling to pick a focus. 😁
Someone very kind had mercy on me and reposted a quote from that article as a Note, and so many people responded and said that they had the exact same struggle!! It now seems like such an obvious thing that others would have the same challenge… but truly I had no idea how common this was until I saw the responses.
The overarching advice I’ve been given is that it is completely fine to start really broad, and then to narrow down over time.
Well, I’m stubborn so when I first heard that advice what I really heard was “its fine to start broad, but other people will narrow theirs down over time”. In other words - I was like “nooooo I’m sure I must write about all of this all the time and I shall fall on my sword before I ever narrow down!!” 😂
Hopefully I won’t keep being so stubborn (one can hope), but remember, I’m still a super Newbie so I actually have no idea how this will all shake out in the end. But here is my general story:
I only came to Substack because I’m writing a book and all of my research told me that for any chance of getting a publisher I need to work on growing my platform (I wish this didn’t sound so shallow, but, c’est la vie…)
I hate social media so I dreaded doing this.
I knew about Substack and decided to give it a shot here because I read a few publications here regularly that were more business/organizational focused before I left my day-job to write; at that time I wasn’t involved in Notes and only participated passively as a reader. I didn’t know anything about the amazing community vibe here.
The plan was to focus on documenting the journey of writing the memoir. But this in itself includes a wiiiide variety of topics such as being a mom, the effects of abuse, support of teen moms, women’s rights and overall support of women, career, education, the space industry… on and on.
So I’m still in the process of figuring out what I should be focusing on, or whether I need to narrow down or not! But I am starting to have a little more trust that this will become more clear over time. And that it’s ok to be a little bit all over the place while I figure it out.
In case you still aren’t convinced that this will sort itself out organically, for you… I’ll share a story. Without even really being intentional about it, I feel like I’m starting to catch wind of a theme. A theme that does actually tie all my topics together, and doesn’t feel contrived.
The theme is mainly that I want to support and empower women. I care about supporting all people, and in my experience there are a lot of men who would like to better allies in support of women but who don’t actually know how - so I love having men engaged as well. But I do really have a soft spot for a number of women-specific issues.
That support for women could be in sharing strength or wisdom about overcoming hard things, or just being there because someone needs a mama figure in their corner, or because they want to be an engineer or an XYZ but don’t know if they really can. These align with both the topics and the motivations for why I am writing the memoir to begin with, so it seems to come full circle… it feels authentic.
It’s a bit like if someone asks me my favorite color and I say ‘I have no idea!’ or even ‘I don’t really have a favorite color’. But then I look around my home and see that I have shades of blue in every single room… soooo maybe I do have a favorite color and I even already knew what it was, I only hadn’t been able to verbalize it yet! (My daughter Scarlett will appreciate that since she has been asking me my favorite color for ages and I always give her worthless answers.)
So then - what does one even do with the information if they begin to notice a theme? I don’t know yet, sorry.
I’m so tempted to create a Section about every single topic! And perhaps I will. Or perhaps I’ll just give it more time and see if this theme still feels true next week and the next week. And then I’ll experiment with ways to frame my space here to make the theme more clear. I’ll keep you posted.
But one thing I do know is that I am very happy to not have to do it alone ❤️. So thank you for coming along on the journey with me! I hope that some of that will resonate and give you ideas for your own journey, or at least make you feel a bit less alone.
But goodness… enough about me already!!! Please-please-please tell us about YOU! This is what todays Assignment is all about!
Your Assignments
Assignment 1 - Take the Poll!
Assignment 2 - Tell us about you!
Use the comments section to tell us about you and what you are writing about! Some ideas:
Tell us how or why you are here on Substack?
Tell us what you are writing about, and why?
Tell us about your struggle or successes in deciding on your writing focus - or where you are in this journey?
Assignment 3 - Your burning Newbie questions, and engage!
Have more Substack-Newbie burning questions??
That is what we are here for! So ask away! Any topic is fine! We are here to help and no question is ‘too Newbie’, we are learning together.
Do you have answers to other peoples questions? Advice? An encouragement? A good potato salad recipe? PLEASE share it in the comments and support your fellow Newbies!
**Feel free to skip the rest of this article and jump right into the comments for your assignment!!**
Or keep reading for the Newbie Lesson of the Day (lessons learned about Substack features, etc!), a quick recap of the last Newbie News post, and a blurb about who we are here at Newbie News!
Newbie Lesson of the Day
I figure it might be fun to share things as we learn them!
A Lesson Learned About Polls
Yesterdays post was the first time I ever put a poll in an article. And it was really easy, actually!! If you haven’t found them yet you can find polls under the ‘More’ dropdown menu when you are creating a post. Cool things I learned:
When you vote, there is no way to change your vote if you make a mistake or change your mind. Even if you created the poll. So be careful :)
After people start voting, you can no longer edit the actual poll. Well, you can - but if you do you will erase all of the votes so far! So make sure you really like the poll before you publish!
They don’t give you very many characters for creating the poll. So if the options provided on someone’s poll seem cryptic, that’s why.
Ok and now for the real doozy… which I actually learned from taking someone else’s poll today - you can neither vote in nor see the results of a poll unless you are a subscriber! But you know what? They had an interesting poll - and I was more than glad to subscribe in order to see the results! So polls seem like a good way to help encourage your readers to both engage and subscribe, right??
You can find the official instructions on all things polling from Substack here. Give it a try and create your own! If you do - please share a link in the comments, I’d love to see 😁
Newbie News #1 In Review
Since we are all Newbies here, I figure we may have super new people join at any time so I’ll give it a shot to always do a super short recap of the previous post to help others get up to speed.
Poll Results!
In the first edition of the Newbie News we took a poll on how long people have been actively writing on Substack. At the time of this writing, we had 10 votes. One of those votes was me and I failed and it the wrong option on accident 😂so I’ll give the recap based with slight change based on how I meant to vote and assume that no one else was as silly as me (more on this in the Newbie Lesson of the Day section!)
So far we are a group made up of:
30% just joined Substack this week!
60% have been here for 0 - 3 months
10% have been here 3-6 months
0% have been here longer than 6 months
Comments
We had some exceptional Newbie questions in the comments in that first edition of the Newbie News!! It gave me a few ideas for near term topics for us to cover in more depth - today’s Newbie News Topic of the Day being one of them (thanks
!).Brand new to Newbie News?
Our Motto: No Substacker Left Behind!
Our Mission: Ensure that every new Substacker has a safe space to ask their Newbie questions and to be encouraged to… just keep going, one day at a time!
What we are Not: You’ll find tons of amazing extremely experienced Substackers offering courses and amazing content… this is not intended to replace those! (Instead, consider this like a supplement. A safe place to come home to!)
Check out our intro post at this link to learn more about who we are!
I’m looking forward to reading your Assignment responses below! ❤️
I have just returned to Substack from the weekend!
Hello all. I write a lot about grief. My mother passed last year and I had a lot of complex feelings around our less-than-awesome relationship; it brought me here. Like a lot of artists/writers, I’m sensitive to the world around me, and I feel like I’m always grasping at the nuance - trying to make it tangible, I suppose. So I write about loss and life’s nuances..and healing (as time goes on).
Secondly, I am a subscriber, but for some reason I cannot vote unless I come back to the app, and I wonder if it is a mobile glitch?
Rose! That's such a great article, thank you!
My topic is inner conflict resolution: how to release shame, guilt, fear and anger to feel at peace with yourself.
My approach is intimate, because what I write is based upon my own experience.
I am sure you will love it when it comes out.
Here is my Newbie questions: is there a specific point where it becomes legit to monetize what I write?
Looking forward to your next article,
Florian