I Need to Shift my Gaze: a Hiatus from Substack

I’m going to put this Substack on a short hiatus. I plan that break to last at least 67 days or so, until after the election.

First of all, thank you to all my loyal readers. There are some five dozen of you who read each “post” the day it hits your email, and I am grateful.  It means a great deal that you find value in what I write!

I began this Substack with the promise that I would cover a wide variety of topics. As you have no doubt noticed, there is only one topic to which I continually return. My preoccupation with self is immense and all-encompassing and, well, it attracts a few and it pushes far more away. I always tell myself that the next piece will be on some other topic of general interest, but even when it starts that way, by the fifth paragraph, I return, hopelessly and tiresomely,  to the subject of my past, or my family, or my exes, or my trauma. The only way to break the habit is to step away from the keyboard entirely.

When I return – if I return – I hope to write about something other than my past.

If I am to build a brand as a writer, I need a portfolio. My ghostwriting work isn’t a portfolio, because though I’ve written five books in the last two years, my name isn’t on any of them.  I have NDAs, which are lovely, but those make it impossible to promote the very thing at which I labor.  That means relying on word-of-mouth for the next gig, but it also would help if I could do something to clean up my online reputation.  Endless musings about celibacy, ex-wives, social class, despair, and manners? They do seem to engage a few of you (bless you!) but they do not constitute a CV. People want posts about politics and history and culture and other things that I can force myself to discuss – and maybe even discuss well! – but only if I first break the habit of coming back to my own life like the proverbial dog to his own vomit.

When I began this Substack, I charged for subscriptions. I haven’t charged anyone a penny since late 2021. All my posts are free. I have tried again and again to talk myself into resuming subscriptions (I certainly need the money, especially lately), but having taken down the paywall, it seems wrong to erect it once again.  A friend challenged me to either start charging for the Substack or stop writing it, and well – you know how I respond to challenges.  That same friend said, “Next time you write about your own life, it should be because you have a book contract to do so. Otherwise, you’re frittering away your energy and embarrassing your family without even getting a penny in return.”  There’s a point there.

I badly need more writing work, but my hope is that if I stop doing this personal writing, the work I do for the clients I do have will be of higher quality. I have a reputation for working quickly, but perhaps I can work faster still if I am not distracted by my labors in what is, in the end, a barren field. It’s worth a shot.

Above all, I have three great fears. The first, of course, is that one day my defenses against self-destruction will fail, and I will do the worst possible thing. The second is that I will once again abandon my children as I did in 2013, by becoming unable to provide again. These are real fears. The way to fight the first is to maintain my spiritual condition, check in with friends, pray to God and to the ancestors, and when all else fails, go on very long walks. The way to fight the second fear is to work like hell – and if writing continues to dry up, return to retail, to late night delivery, and to selling my blood plasma. Good dads hustle. Good dads know nothing is beneath them, no matter their education, their talents, or the aches in their bones.

The third fear is what drives my writing. The third fear is that I will not be seen. That desperate need to be known has intensified in my singleness, and it has made me a prolific writer in service of the cause of trying to make myself understood.  I mean, it’s a blessing that I’m not torturing some poor woman with my anxieties and fixations, but it does mean imposing those unhappinesses on readers, which is only slightly better!

The only way to battle this third fear is to deliberately throw the game, as it were. Let myself fall silent about my own story. Swallow hard and bite back the anecdotes. Let all that energy flow into making the stories of others’ lives all the more compelling.  Trust that those who need to know me will know me. Trust that I can be okay and live with so much unsaid and unheard. It’s worth a try, at least for nine and a half weeks.

I hope to return in November, perhaps just in time to offer words of comfort to the distraught and words of caution to the relieved.

Thank you for reading.

Hugo