I Fell Out With Substack

And it's all my fault...

I’m not entirely sure when this started, but Substack and I have been at loggerheads for a while. I’m sure it’s my fault. I went through a period of being bombarded with posts on how to make money on Substack, why I should be making money on Substack, and how everyone else is making money on Substack—and that bugged me because, yes, I know we all need to make money, but writers writing about it all the time? Well, it irked me.

And that, me getting irked, made me further irksome!

I knew the algorithm was hunting me down and labouring the point, but it felt as though Substack was flooded with writers trying to make money by telling me how to make money. It isn’t. It was the algorithm hiding all the others, which is why I came here in the first place: to get away from people selling stuff. Yes, considering my day job, I can see the irony. It felt like a pyramid scheme or the old stuffing envelope ads. Do you remember those? I fell for it once in the Friday Ad. Annoying.

I get more annoyed these days, too.

And that annoys me!

So, I’ve not written here for a while because I felt like I lost my mojo. It’s also been a busy year. I returned to uni at 50 (2022) and finished my MA two months ago (2024), and for most of the summer was lost in the dark tunnels of my final dissertation. It’s interesting how the academic world can make you take everything so seriously. I’m not knocking it; I loved every second. But for a while, I think I’ve been super serious about what I ‘put out there’, and it’s ended up with me putting myself in a straight jacket and putting nothing ‘out there’.

Dammit.

Photo by Nik on Unsplash

Somehow, I’ve got to break out of this ‘must be creating something unique’ lark. Not that I disagree with it per se, I don’t, but the more I judge myself, the less I’m inclined to allow my creative self to wax lyrical about whatever takes my fancy. I judge myself far more than anyone else judges me. I think we all do. We are our biggest critics and nay-sayers, aren’t we? It doesn’t help that my parents were also my biggest critics and always reliable nay-sayers. I confess that I get a touch of the green-eyed monster when friends and colleagues talk about how supportive their parents are—life on the other side. At least my kids know how it feels. I’ve made sure of that.

I think this must be a combination of empty nesting and such the like. I’m tired of saying hormone change, but there’s no doubt that, as women, we are defined by cycles and seasons. For the last 20+ years, I’ve been defined by redefining my experience of family… and it’s worked; we’ve made it ace! So much so that M and O are thriving at university and whilst I hear from them almost daily, their physical absence is in my bones. I feel a bit lost. I’m no longer rushing from pillar to post to be here for them... they aren’t here. Instead, for the last couple of years, the MA ‘held’ me in place; it gave me something else to be busy with, but now that’s done, too. And it’s too flipping expensive to go back again, as much as I would genuinely love to qualify as something that makes me feel like I contribute to something that matters in this world.

And then I realise the problem.

We need to matter.

I need to matter.

Ugh that took so much to admit!! I deleted it at least five times!

I’m from a painfully dissonant family, which I’m trying to memoir about, but it’s really hard going, so it needs huge breaks at a time. And I know I matter to my kids and my husband, and to my friends - but when you never felt as if you mattered to your parents, there’s this insatiable need to prove yourself - even at 50 something.

I hate that!

So this is where I am at the moment. What to do? How to fill my life with things that matter now the children aren’t here every day? There’s nowhere to hide. It’s me looking at myself in the mirror, asking all those horrible questions yet again.

• Who am I?

• What do I stand for?

• What’s next?

• What does my life outside a busy family environment look like?

• What do I want it to look like?

And so, I made a really clever choice, to stop doing something I love and get a lot of joy from… because I don’t want to stuff envelopes!

Writing is one of my first loves. It was my first Brownie badge, and while I thought I was a bit square for doing it when everyone else was doing their Nature badge, or Baking or Horse Riding badges, I was super proud of the little triangular trophy that I took home and sewed onto my sleeve (the uniform above isn’t mine, but it was exactly like it). Now, I’ve completed an MA in Writing at Warwick University, and I’m proud of that, too. So when Substack algorithms start bombarding me with, you should be getting paid for this, I recoil into my anti-capitalist state. Why does everything have to be for money? And why should people have to pay to read my ramblings anyway? It’s joyful enough just to ramble and have someone comment at the bottom and say - thanks Pipa, this has put a smile on my face! Do say if it has! Look, here’s a button to click…

So, I’m not entirely sure what my point is today, other than to say Hello! and that I’m still here, and I’m sorry for the silence. It’s been a weird few months. I fell out with Substack purely because it pushed my buttons. Whether or not I re-introduce subscriptions remains to be seen. We had them at the beginning and then I switched them off. It’s not that I don’t agree with them. I’m a very happily paid-up subscriber of a few writers here (shout out to

Kate Spicer

whose posts never fail to make me grin, choke a bit, gasp and remember the days when …). So, for now, I’ll continue chuntering through my midlife musings of the great reset, redefining who I am amid all the noise and taking one day and one post at a time.

Ha! That reminds me of a post I wrote only last year. I’m sure there used to be a button so I could post a link to an old post; ah, well, I’ll just repeat the important bit in a big graphic and remind myself instead…

I’d totally forgotten about rediscovering the ‘most fabulous version of me’, what a good idea! (It wasn’t mine, it was on a picture. You’ll have to see the post, Mission for Midlife)

I guess I’m still in the period of adjustment, like Autumn and Winter. It’s a season of change, a reset. Maybe a walk along the coast is in order—to have a good blow-through, as my mother used to say!

Maybe a rebrand for 2025…

Maybe a haircut…

Hmmm, that’s got me thinking … see? A wee connection with the words on the page, and I’m already feeling better!

Thank you!!

Here’s the button again, just in case …

Also…

Thanks xx