softly falls the light of day
as our campfire fades away.
silently each Scout should ask,
“have i done my daily task?
have i kept my honor bright?
can i guiltless sleep tonight?
have i done and have i dared
everything to be prepared?”
these are the words of the Scout Vesper’s Song, something we sang at the end of every Scout meeting, weekend campout, and summer Skymont trip. the song is to the tune of “O Christmas Tree”, but somehow the tune doesn’t feel borrowed from a holiday song. it feels like an ancient, transcendent expression of something mystical — not religious, but definitely sacred. in fact the original folk song predates even the German “O Tannenbaum”; it’s a 16th-century folk song about the fidelity, reliability, and dependability of the evergreen tree.
i think this is why the tune fits so perfectly. the respect for nature, the gratitude for its supply and solace, as the Earth spins into darkness and self-reflection… have i been faithful? reliable? dependable? ever green?
campfire
i asked some mentors recently for some help with my distribution strategy for the darkness rolled over her and all the marketing that will need to go along with it. one of them said something that hoisted my attention above all the advice i might receive from influencers, marketing gurus, and youtubers peddling their $99 courses.
he said, “your Substack is a campfire, not a billboard.”
immediately i was transported back to Hoot Owl’s Rest. my back cold, my pant legs hot. the fire glowing brilliant, i struggle to see the dim outlines of my fellow campers. boys, many of whom would rather be setting something on fire than singing a hymn, yet we are all here, and we all sing… “have i done and have i dared…”
1000 true fans
Kevin Kelly — futurist, believer, and a co-founder of WIRED Magazine, among dozens of other incredible endeavors — says a creator needs 1000 true fans to be sustainable as a creator. here’s an excerpt from his 2008 essay (updated):
A true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce. These diehard fans will drive 200 miles to see you sing; they will buy the hardback and paperback and audible versions of your book; they will purchase your next figurine sight unseen; they will pay for the “best-of” DVD version of your free youtube channel; they will come to your chef’s table once a month. If you have roughly a thousand of true fans like this (also known as super fans), you can make a living — if you are content to make a living but not a fortune.
he goes on to say there’s two parts to this, and both are my responsibility as the creator.
first, i need to generate enough content to make about $100 worth of profit off of each true fan every year. that’s a tall order, but one i hope i can eventually fulfill. all i’ve ever wanted is to enrich the lives of others with what i make. if i can enrich someone’s life enough that it’s worth around $100-200 each year for them, then i know i’ll be providing some real value for others.
the second is to create a community. this is not something i’ve successfully ventured to do. and i’ll be honest, i’m not sure of the best way to do it.
i love people. i LOVE people. well, let me take that back. i love PERSONS. i love a person. one at a time. i love engaging and dialoguing. but as soon as the number of people gets to about 5, i withdraw into observer mode. and if the 4 who remain active are having a conversation i am not passionate about — or, worse, disagree with — i’m likely to withdraw entirely.
this makes the Internet… not always the best place for me.
any feeble attempts i’ve usually made at interacting online or trying to get some engagement going have usually been met with silence. or worse, with immediate responses by the type of people i suppose are inclined to respond immediately: self-assured geniuses, infallible arbiters of taste, inconsiderate rude blockheads, etc.
i, of course, have never been any of these types of people (that’s something only other people are). and even when i try to create positive engagement, i find being agreeable or adding “me, too!” to an opinion doesn’t really add anything at all except noise, and so i usually just tap a like or repost and move on, leaving only the contrarians in the comments.
please hear me, i’m not blaming the audience. it’s my fault alone if i can’t talk about something people want to engage with.
but this leaves me feeling like a performer or a salesman, and these are not really true to my identity. i can do both when times warrant, but friends around a campfire don’t want either of those guys.
my couch
i used to have a group of friends over on Thursday night. it was a very small group. there was a core group of people who came most weeks, but it seemed we often had new people or occasional visitors quite often. so some weeks there’d be 3 or 4 of us, other times 11 or 12. i knew these people. they knew me. we supported and helped each other grow. there was real Love in this group, a love like the love of my family when i was growing up. close. consistent. resilient and enduring.
i must admit that i — perhaps unwisely — don’t often respect the unsolicited advice of people who don’t know what color my couch is. my immature notion is, if you haven’t entered my world, then how could you possibly critique it? perhaps i should repent of this, but i cling to it for now.
but my Thursday night people know my couch. some of you are reading this right now. you know because you’ve seen it. sat on it. dropped Girl Scout cookies crumbs on it. you’ve felt the texture of it under your fingers. or maybe smelt that Larry had been lying on it (though she’s not supposed to). maybe you slept on it, for a nap, or for a month.
when these people talk, i listen.
it’s not that other people aren’t wise or have something i need to hear. it’s that it’s hard for me to know if they have all the information, if they understand who i am and what i’m trying to do. it’s that i’m not sure who they are or what they’re trying to do.
it’s that those who have rested on my couch know me, love me, i know them, love them, and we are helping each other become the best us we can be.
fire
about four times a year, i’d have a cookout. it wasn’t unusual to have as many as 60 people throughout the night coming through my home. many friends, some strangers. i would often busy myself with the grill or the dishes, and i would watch from my station as friends from different parts of my life would smile and laugh with each other.
the sun would disappear unnoticed, and we’d light a fire in the ring of stones between the two towering walnut trees. we would huddle around the Light and warmth and talk, tell stories, play music, laugh, bond, and just be together — a sacred ritual as old as humanity.
though we never sang a vesper’s hymn, these people were the ones who had me asking “have i done? and have i dared? everything?”
community
this is my standard for real community, and it is high. it is so special and sacred. you can see why i have trouble trying to create something like this in a digital space.
during pandemic lockdowns, i live-streamed 6 nights a week, about an hour a night. i was surprised that sometimes ~100 people would stop in during the stream… no idea how many were actually watching for three seconds or watching the whole thing. i have since put those livestream lessons up as a podcast here on Substack. i never look at the listener/download metrics (they were never much to look at). i’ve put a couple on YouTube, but the viewership is so small, it’s hard to find the energy to do the rest… as John Adams sings in 1776, “…is anybody there? …does anybody care?”
and so most of my social media presence has been monologue. like this. i am speaking. you are listening (reading) or ignoring. you might leave a comment or reply to the email, but the likelihood a robust community erupts around this one-way communication is zero.
some of this is on me, and some of it is on the mechanisms available to us. most social media is designed to be one-way communication. we say otherwise — web 2.0 moved us from websites that announce to interactive social sites with user-created content — but web 2.0 quickly became the global telephone pole, stapled over with every selfie, side hustle, family vacation, and homespun movie review… becoming a visual cacophony where any earnest interaction can be hard to uncover. and when there are some tools that are good for this — like maybe Discord or even Substack’s chat feature — they are used by niche audiences for niche reasons and feel hard to implement, which once again leaves me unexcited about trying.
my super fans
i want more than anything for my Substack to be “a campfire, not a billboard.”
i don’t know what that looks like. or how to make it work.
but i know i want those campfires again.
not just the ones i have in person at my home. i know how to do that.
but i want to create something like that for those who read my stories, who will watch my films. i want a place for my superfans (should i have any) to gather and share with each other, and to share with me. i don’t think anyone grew from my Thursday night gatherings more than i did. i want to grow from this community, too.
look, i want to make money from my books and films, of course. i’m not selling t-shirts and coffee mugs to clothe the naked and feed the hungry, right? like, i’m trying to make a buck here and there. but for me, that’s not why i want a community of “superfans”. i’m hopeful that such a community could put me in a place where i fully live off of the things i love creating. but it’s not what i want most (but please buy my books tho).
what i want most is the campfire.
most of the people reading this are people i know “in real life”. but i know there are people out there who desperately need to read kindling and know that if they don’t kill resentment, it will eat their lives and relationships. there are people who need to read ciao bella and know that unexpected lovely things could happen to them at any moment, but they must be ready to receive them. there are people who need to read God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and be assured that a Peace is coming. there are people who need to read and watch the darkness rolled over her, because they want to give up and ache to find a way to keep moving.
i know these people exist because i exist, and i am all of these people.
they are why i keep writing.
these are the people for whom i would do and dare everything.
i don’t know the best way to gather these lovely people in the digital space. i guess i will keep trying little things in the usual places — Instagram stories, Threads, 𝕏 — and maybe see if some new folks stop by for a chat in the Substack chat (get the Substack app if you’d like to participate). i’m open to suggestions, whether or not you know what color my couch is. regardless, i’ll continue posting into the void, even if no one responds.
the Fire burns even just for me.
but i hope you will join me, and bring a friend.
