Hey Everybody. It’s been almost two weeks since I last posted. The longest lag since I began here nine months ago. You might think I’ve been off on a lovely vacation. Maybe ambling through the emerald hills of Ireland, where the ghosts of my ancestors still drunkenly regale each other with bawdy poems and folks songs about death.
No such luck. Rather, I’ve been grinding through week-seven of this California heat wave. And neither have I taken time off from writing. In fact, just in the last ten days, I’ve hammered out enough reading material for a bus trip across L.A. at rush hour. That is, if one could read with all the bouncing through potholes and braking for mad street prophets screaming at the merciless sun.
I’ve written plenty. Three full columns and a false-start or two. But, none of what I’ve come up with felt ‘right’. It was all a bit uninspired. Or repetitious. Or the tone was wrong. Or the writing was awkward.
Call it a slump. But I think that I know why everything I write is shit at the moment. And I think I know the solution, and that is something that YOU can help with.
You all know that I’m a performing singer-songwriter. At least I think you know that. I’ve been doing that since 1986. I’m probably out somewhere right now if you’re reading this after quitting time on the west coast.
That long-time avocation hinges on two things.
1. You’ve got to write good songs. And …
2. You’ve got to perform them in front of people.
A lot of people can do the first but are terrified of the second. A lot of other people love the second but will never be good at the first.
I like both things. I’m good at them both. And the doing of each one is - for me - inextricably linked to the other.
When I write a song, it usually comes fast. In a burst of inspiration. About 85 or 90% intact within an hour or so. If the thing is any good, it will hang around in my skull for however long it takes to become performable. This involves me tinkering with and gradually improving that first spontaneous rough draft, which always seems to have written itself.
And then … I take it out and play it live. Every song I write is headed for this moment of truth. Me up on a stage somewhere, plugged into a PA system, stepping up to a microphone and hoping to God that I can remember the words and melody and chord changes.
And, with any luck, I’ll do the infant song justice, and people will clap enthusiastically. And - with a little more luck - somebody whose opinion I value will come over and say “That’s a keeper, Dave”.
If it goes less well, I’ll try again. And possibly a few more times after that. But if the new song isn’t up to snuff, I’ll shit-can it.
I’m telling you this, so you’ll understand that for me, a happy relationship with writing is incumbent upon it working. I don’t write songs for my own pleasure. Or just so I can call myself a songwriter. I write them because good songs are helpful to my fellow human beings.
Whether something I write and sing is profound, or cathartic, of even just fun … it has to DO something! Or I have no use for it. And the only way that I know it works, is to get some sort of feedback.
After nine months of Morrison At Large, it’s become obvious to me that this longer-form writing is also powered by audience response.
And this is my problem. These columns are an extension of the hundreds of mini-essays that I used to write regularly on Facebook. A lot of people read that stuff, and they would comment. Sometimes threads would ensue that contained hundreds of comments. That amount of feedback made me want to write more and better.
It was that era of writing that brought Jason Siler into my life, and gave birth to the YouTube channel we shared. We did a mountain of work on that channel before we ever saw a dime. But it was fun and interesting. And it felt worth the effort because people told us every day what our work meant to them. Often by the hundreds.
This most recent job is no different in terms of motivation. It needs feedback to fuel its engine. And for these last nine months I’ve been running on fumes.
I average about 500 views here. This is a screen-capture of the most-viewed piece that I’ve had on this platform. According to Substack’s statistics, it was read by 872 people.
You probably know what the little heart outline means, and what the little conversation bubble means. But I’ve annotated them just in case.
17 comments, and only 7 ‘likes’. That is the sum total of feedback for this piece. And to be clear, only eight individual people commented, and the rest was cross-talk. It’s a good bet that the seven likes were also from the eight commenters, but let’s suppose that they were not. That’s 7+8 , for a total of 15 people who took the effort to let me know that they enjoyed the piece.
Or even that they didn’t enjoy the piece. What is that? 2%? At the very most? Two out of every hundred readers took the extra few seconds of time and effort to say “That’s a keeper, Dave.”
Or even, “I don’t agree, but thanks for the read.” Or left a simple ‘like’.
This example is not an aberration. It’s typical across all of my posts. Look for yourself. link
So far, I’ve published 41 columns here, not counting this one. An even greater number of columns were started and worked on, and then discarded because - having no friggin’ idea what’s working and not working - I got bogged down in over-thinking and unproductive self-criticism.
I’ve written somewhere in the vicinity of - conservative estimate - 120,000 words, since beginning this newsletter. That’s a nice hefty book. And all but the tiniest fraction of my readership has chosen not to respond in any way. Not even to move a mouse or finger to send a little heart-shaped token of appreciation.
Now does that seem sustainable to you? Because I assure you that it is NOT sustainable for me.
For all intents and purposes, I’m writing in an echo-less vacuum. I think I’ve lasted a lot longer than any of you would have.
(of course I do greatly appreciate those of you who have encouraged and supported me. but not enough is not enough)
So, here’s the deal: Either this column becomes a more interactive activity for me - and also for you - or I will take the hint and go do something more satisfying.
I’d be happy to keep doing my best to help unravel the tangled yarn-ball of life at the 1/4 mark of the 21st century. That would be my pleasure.
But I’m not gonna keep thinking and researching and writing for a per-hour compensation that’s less than half of what a first-week trainee at McDonalds makes … while also receiving zero attaboys from the enormous majority of my readers.
What kind of masochistic fool would do such a thing?
So that’s my reset. I guess we’ll see what happens. Apologies to those who have only just subscribed. If I do cancel this column, I’ll refund the small number of $50 yearly contributions that have come in recently, and prorate the others to the best of my ability.
I’ve disabled the comments on this piece to avoid awkwardness. But I intend to post a couple more columns with comments enabled before I make a final assessment.
Thanks for reading, -Dave