Writing and juggling real life as a modern grown ass woman

How it's pretty challenging to maintain a Substack and grow your readers

I’m going to be completely honest here. I committed to doing 3 posts a week on Substack and as I’m now holding down a 4 day a week job and raising 2 kids, I’m finding it difficult to keep doing this.

I love writing for several reasons- I find it helps me connect with other like-minded women (and men).

It’s cathartic and helps me get things off my chest. I have a lot of frustrations and sorrows. I have often found that others share these sorrows too.

It also helps in terms of generating bigger ideas (for books for example). On the weeks that I’m not writing I get grumpy. Frustrated. I curse a lot. And am not very nice to be around. I also see my paid subscribers decline (because they feel like they’re not getting value for money which is fair or they’re struggling financially which is also fair of course).

I think many of us join Substack and like other new platforms believe that it’s going to be an upward trajectory. That perhaps looks like this:

But then we’re disappointed because it actually looks more like this:

Where is the world domination we cry into the abyss? Where is my fame? When will I actually go viral?

Oh readers please don’t desert me now.

Please!

What I’m saying is that unless writing is your full-time job (and let’s face it who can afford it to be these days?) then there are going to be times when you’re building up your paid subscribers, you’re getting loads of positive comments and interaction and the energy levels are high. Like the equivalent of being 18 on the dance floor and busting out some moves (sorry showing my age) for several hours without pausing. That shiver of optimism and like the world is opening up on every level.

Then other times (when you’re navigating parenting/work/fucking everything that is expected of modern women these days)…well then you can see those Substack stats taking a bit of a nose dive. It feels personal. Like the odds are stacked against you. I need to write but I have no time because of the patriachy! The ‘pram in the hall,’ (The writer Cyril Connolly famously said that 'There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.’). Or more accurately the pram with a washing machine, sick child, laptop, client emails, Teams messages and 100 unanswered WhatsApp messages. If you’re in that boat and feeling bad then take heart. Also ask yourself WHY you are writing on this platform or in fact writing at all?

Is it to connect with an audience? Does it make you feel better about your life?

Or are you looking to get rich and be one of those big shots that gets interviewed on the Elizabeth Day podcast and plays chess on the weekends with Phoebe Waller Bridges? If it’s the latter then I’d argue it’s going to take some time, and you possibly need a pretty big profile before you even start writing (and also there is a clique and nobody talks about it- but I’ve been to writing awards and networking events, and the clique is hard to penetrate and also class driven which we all know already).

Quick aside- I once went to the Harper Collins Summer Party and saw a selection of high street name writers all together in a small group. With a couple of famous literary agents. They didn’t speak to anyone outside the group. They didn’t even let their eyes roam beyond the group. Us plebs were invisible to them. It made me realise that they were there to promote one another, support one another but also there was no chance they were letting anybody into that group either.

I get quite a few people reaching out to me and asking how I have built up my following, and for a while I was cocky (when I first got on and it was going up and up) and was like - well ‘I just try and write good stuff’. Build a temple and they will come- isn’t that what they say? Somewhere? Then I realised that I was often writing because I was coming from a needy place, a suck-ass place where I wanted people to love me (cue using a sensational title perhaps or digging into my past/present as an influencer dickhead). These posts, the ones that are a bit more ‘trying to please readers’ tend to get me more subscribers BUT they are not what I really want to write. I don’t want to be tied into writing content that is about telling tales on people I’ve worked with in the past and not liked.

Instead I want to write about menopause, my ageing face, drooping jowls, my kids and their addiction to tech, my fears around death, grief, working and feeling overwhelmed, the cat kibbles stuck between the floorboards, the fact that nobody replaces the toilet roll…all that stuff. It might not be ‘an effective Substack strategy,’ but it’s what I want, and I believe that others like reading at least some of this stuff because it makes them feel less alone.

It’s a long winded way of saying (if you’re reading this) - thank you. It means a lot.

I will continue to write as much as I can and I’ll write from the heart. Sometimes it might go quiet, and that just means that I’m writing Powerpoint slides on a new marketing plan for a famous sweetcorn brand, so I can feed my family. So I can get my shower fixed because up until last week it would only give you hot water if you put the cold tap on full, and stood in freezing cold water. Or I’m dealing with a kid with a chest infection. Or we all have nits. Or I’m sick and have a cold. Or a client is badgering me all the time with a deadline that seems to be getting more and more unrealistic each day.

I really appreciate you. You reading this now.

Oh Lord it would be sweet if I could generate enough income to write 24/7 but for now, right here, right in this moment, as the rain beats against the bedroom window and I sit with a damp tissue wedged up my nostril…well it’s fucking beautiful.