A masterclass in wasting your time (kindly)

#writingcommunity  #booksky #amwriting  #writing Unfettered Treacle on Substack

Two months ago, I was sitting on a mountain of Substack drafts, enough to last me … well, two months.

You can do the math.

Two whole months of posts scheduled. I thought I was a genius. “This Substack thing is easy,” I said to myself smugly.

Fast forward and I’ve hit the end of that queue. Do you know how many posts I have left in the hopper right now? Zero. Nada. Nothing.

So, here’s a post … about nothing.

At first, I was on fire. Posts came to me like free refills at a diner. I’d write, slot them into the calendar, Tuesdays became “slice-of-life and stuff I find interesting,” Thursdays turned into “writerly things.” Very organized. Very professional. Like a guy who color-codes his socks.

I kept waiting for inspiration to strike, the way it did at the beginning. Turns out “inspiration” is less like a lightning bolt and more like a cat, it shows up when it feels like it, ignores you when you call, and definitely doesn’t care about your posting schedule. But I knew that. Still, I thought something would come, something interesting, if not to you at least interesting to me. But no.

Now, this dearth of posts wasn’t because I was depressed about world events (though things are going downhill faster than my golf score on a windy day). And it wasn’t because of trauma.

It’s not like I didn’t have material. I mean, I’ve been through some stuff.

Flood? Check.

Wife died of cancer? Check.

Got shot at over enemy territory? Check.

Business collapse? Check.

That’s a whole HBO miniseries! But do I sit down and write “My Trauma, My Journey”? No. I just move on. Write some space opera with vampires instead.

But here’s the weird thing, I don’t dwell on it. I don’t feel called to write self-help manifestos or trauma memoirs. That lane is packed already, and I’d rather take the frontage road. Those experiences give me grit for my fiction, sure. People tell me, “Oh, you should write about healing, recovery, overcoming.” Why? The bad stuff already happened, I’m fine, let’s not make it a hobby.

Generally speaking, I’m happy. Like, absurdly happy. I found my soulmate late in life, and our relationship is everything I could hope for. I have four grown kids who are smart, kind, successful humans. I started out just above poverty level as a kid, single mom secretary providing for us the best she could, and she did an amazing job. I was a latchkey kid, played sports, and did well in school, and got an appointment to the Air Force Academy. I made a career out of flying jets and got to see a large swath of the planet. There were a few wars thrown in there for good measure. I was shot at several times over enemy territory, but came out unscathed.

By all rights, I should be miserable! Everyone else is out here turning pain into a personal brand, and I’m sitting around thinking, what if I just … didn’t?

I try to live fearlessly.

I do recall on my last deployment feeling like a cop walking his last beat. I was certain I was going to die. I accepted that fate and flew every mission without question. Nothing too strange happened. I had a very good boom operator1 that kept as out of trouble.

I believe wholeheartedly in servant leadership and combining that with living fearlessly, because there is nothing worse than having a boss that makes every decision from fear of consequences.

So, I had no excuses really. Just living my life and enjoying the fact that I didn’t have to sweat Substack, except for trying to post a Note now and then. I could probably do more there, but I never wanted this to be a growth focused blog. I want it to be as organic as it can be, with my focus on connection with people.

So why am I on Substack?

Because I like reading weird, funny, interesting stuff. I like humor, history, and posts that go nowhere, like this one.

The dream is that you laugh, maybe learn something, and one day buy one of my books. That’s it. That’s the whole business model.

Being a writer is ridiculous right now. Easier to publish than ever. Harder to be noticed than ever. It’s like opening a hotdog stand at a food festival where there are already 4,000 hotdog stands, and half of them are giving the hotdogs away for free, and one guy’s AI robot is handing out hotdogs that also write sonnets.

Publishing is shifting. Will there be fewer publishers? Fewer agents? More dreck? Probably. Will Gen Z and whoever comes after figure it out? Definitely. That’s what young people do, roll their eyes at us, fix the mess, and invent something we don’t understand.

So here I am again, writing a post about nothing, because nothing is what I had left in the tank. Turns out, this is just like writing a novel. You can’t count on inspiration to carry you. You’ve got to show up, do the work, and then slap on a witty closer so people come back next week.

Here’s mine:

If this post resonated with you, please like, share, and tattoo the link on your forearm.

1 – A Boom Operator is a enlisted Air Force member on a tanker crew who physically positions the boom, a long, hydraulically controlled nozzle located at the rear of the tanker, extending and maneuvering it to connect with the receiving aircraft, the one getting fuel. Thanks Nick!