Hello Friend, You Like Spaghetti?
Missive #2 for all the people I love.
The older I get, the crazier I feel.
You’re nodding your head in agreement? Does this happen to all of us?
For the first half of my life, I had a singular mission. Make a career out of music. Of course, I did other things. Other jobs, other interests. But my one main mission was always out front, always driving the car.
Starting about four years ago, when music took its hands off the wheel, my creative energy went berserk. I began experimenting with all kinds of projects. I started a lot of things. Finished fewer of them. And failed at most of them. Fail, I have discovered, is not a four-letter word. Yes, it has four letters in it, but it is not a curse word or even a cousin to the wildly loved F*%#.
It’s a word I feared the first half of my life. A word that carried such negativity in my mind, I avoided it at all cost, even if that meant staying in a rut.
Fail was a slobbering, disgusting dragon, and the only way to tame that beast was to walk right up to it and touch it. Get to know it. Say, “Hello, you SOB,” on a monthly basis for a while. The dragon became my friend when I realized it had no desire to destroy me. I learned from it. It showed me exactly what I did not want to do with my life. It taught me what I was made of and what I wasn’t.
Fail is a trickster. Took a while to figure that out. Sometimes you think you’re dealing with a dragon when you really aren’t. Keeps you on your toes when Success rides in wearing dragon’s clothes.
SONGBONES Magazine & Podcast was born in January 2019. I learned some very valuable skills working on that project. The podcast was picking up steam. The last episode came in at 2400 listens. For a first-year podcast! Maybe in the big “out there” world that is peanuts. In my world, that is amazing!
THANK YOU to everyone who supported SONGBONES, bought issues, subscriptions, or listened to and shared the podcast. YOU made it awesome, and I had a blast creating it.
Covid happened. To all of us. And I won’t talk about what it has done to the music industry, or I’ll cry all over your should right now. Currently, it doesn’t look like SONGBONES will continue (I’m sure you may already know this). The niche and bones the magazine was built on, was house concerts, small venues, and coffeehouse shows. It may be a while before we get those back.
I’m going to leave SONGBONES parked right where it’s at, so the website will always be live, in case you get sentimental someday and want to listen to a podcast :) And who knows, at the rate things change these days, we could fire it back up, just like that!
Right now, writing has my heart.
I’m studying essays, short nonfiction, and learning how to blog. Basically, I’m writing my ass off and having a blast. Trying to figure out how to “Be” a writer is a whole other animal. So far, the most important thing I’ve learned is you have to write. A lot. All the time.
A friend told me to try publishing those stories on a platform called Medium, which is a supportive, great place for new writers to blog on. A publication, or online magazine, called P.S. I Love You (housed by Medium) published a handful of stories I submitted, and I’m stoked! Thanks, Medium!
Then I discovered Substack.
Yes, there are a gazillion platforms out there. It’s confusing and hard to keep them all straight. So stay with me here… I’m drawing you a map.
I am launching what the kids nowadays call a “newsletter.” That word sounds so boring and dry. But it doesn’t mean what it used to. This is not the old-school newsletter many of us grew up with. Substack newsletters are what Heather Cox Richardson is doing. Dan Rather just hopped over to Substack last week (uh… the cat’s out of the bag on Substack now), and there are other writers in almost any subject you care about starting up on this platform.
My newsletter is called StoryLife - the one you are reading right now. This one is me, The Writer. I write stories and send them to you, The Reader. There are no middle people. No editors (except myself, God help us). It is free to get yourself on the “list” or, the way I look at it, in the “community.”
You have a direct line to me (and each other). You can comment in the comment section or hit return on the email, and your message will shoot right back to my email inbox. You can cry, laugh, say nothing, say lots, just read, you can throw the email in the trash or save each one in a gold star file. Whatever floats your canoe.
Substack hosts this “newsletter” on a platform they created in 2017 to give writers a way to build an audience that Facebook doesn’t own, with an option to eventually make a living through subscriptions.
No, I’m not asking you to subscribe. Dan Rather might, though :)
I’m not there yet. At some point, I may start up a new podcast or create extra content that I would only make available to subscribers. But that feels like many miles away from here. In case your friends ask, this “newsletter” is free. Someday there may be an option to subscribe, but even then, the free will always be.
I used to play house concerts, coffeehouses, and bars. I used to sell CDs full of songs I wrote and recorded. Once a writer, always a writer. StoryLife is the equivalent of a CD for me now, only instead of you getting 10 songs every 3 years, you’ll get at least a story a week from me. Except you don’t have to go anywhere to get it, I’ll bring it to you.
I may even send you a song now and then, because like I said, Once a writer, always a writer.
I told my friend on the phone the other night, “2021 is the year I throw creative ‘spaghetti’ against the wall and see what sticks.”
I offer you these stories as creative food for the soul. I’m inviting you to word-dinner every week, so we can connect during this F-ing pandemic and get to know each other better.
You’re here! You made it this far with me! *Writer is blushing.*
You like spaghetti?
Show up hungry next week.
I love you beyond words,
Michelle
SPAGHETTI FIGHT!!!
SPAGHETTI FIGHT!!!