The pleasurable but painful habit of writing a newsletter in Substack

Be careful not to turn mediocrity and inconsistency into a rule

Inspired by

Mike and Hannah

, from

Mapping Memories

, who wrote about how it is to keep a weekly Substack, I decided to share my creative process, too.

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

Maintaining this newsletter for over a year is pleasurable but undoubtedly painful. Writing is always challenging, and writing regularly is even harder.

Every writer is tired of knowing that writing is more the art of rewriting than writing itself. The first version of everything we write is terrible. The more you dedicate yourself to a text, the better the chance it will improve. The texts with the most reactions in this newsletter have always been those that I managed to write calmly, read calmly, edit calmly, and think of a title calmly.

However, often it's necessary to trade perfectionism for frequency. You publish in any way possible in busy weeks, or there won't be an edition for the week. Accept that your text won't be as good as it could (or should) be. It's painful, and many people give up at this point, especially perfectionists.

Damage control is necessary. Writing a shorter but well-resolved edition is one way. Getting ahead on future editions is another. Or accepting that there won't be an edition for the week. I published for 48 consecutive weeks in 2023, a significant achievement requiring much sacrifice. In the second week of this year, amidst adventures in Uruguay, I fell behind a few days, marking the first week without releasing an edition of No Direction Home. And frankly, it was freeing. I didn't lose any readers because of it.

Just be careful not to turn mediocrity and inconsistency into a rule. If your text never reaches the standard you'd like, that's concerning. And I don't mean precisely in quality. Sometimes, the text may have been written hurriedly, but the idea is original, and the story told is enjoyable. The important thing is to look at the latest editions and be proud of some of those texts. Of my last five, for example, I like two, a 40% rate. A third one turned out okay; the other two could have been better, but I don't feel ashamed.

When I felt ashamed of an edition, it was time to recalculate the route. I used to write twice a week and couldn't keep up. I published for the sake of publishing due to this unnecessary obligation I imposed on myself. It's preferable to explain to the readers in the next edition that there was an unforeseen circumstance rather than releasing poor material. This is even the case with this edition, which only comes out late this Monday.

What can't happen is inconsistency becoming consistent. If that happens, reduce the frequency. I removed any mention of the release day. No Direction Home is a weekly newsletter. That's it. The most attentive readers may have noticed that I usually publish on Fridays or Sundays. I decided not to promise any specific day. I know this practice isn't recommended by many newsletter gurus who suggest fixed days and times. But I don't want to commit and fail or deliver something of poor quality.

If the newsletter is your main source of income or an important supplement to it, frequency becomes essential. This is not my case or that of many Substack colleagues. Most are building a reader base, implementing a personal project, or expanding networking.

My long-term goal is to write to bring in some revenue, but I know it's a long road. Producing better texts is not enough. You have to deliver a product that makes a difference in the lives of your readers so that they do the hardest thing: pay for the content. Substack offers great paywall features for those who want to restrict access to texts to convert more paid subscribers.

In this sense, thinking of the newsletter as a product is inevitable. But plotting this strategy (and executing it weekly) takes time that, unfortunately, I don't have at the moment. That's why I keep this newsletter as a source of reflections on the nomadic life without knowing where it will take me. Adopting a more personal tone, almost like a diary, is less inviting for monetization. After all, who is Mateus Camillo from No Direction Home? All I know is that the nomadic life never leaves me without content —sometimes I forget, but it's not trivial not to have a home and keep moving around. And sharing it here does me good. I'll figure out the strategy over time, and gradually you'll see more interviews and sections here. I have plenty of willpower and patience.

I have yet to talk about my creative process. I have a WhatsApp group with myself called "Me and Myself — Newsletter Topics", and whenever an idea comes to mind, I send it there and start developing it mentally. Every week, I review these topics and try to write about what's most prominent. Sometimes, however, a sudden topic from the week itself jumps the queue so it doesn't become outdated or I lose the excitement of writing about it.

Not everything needs to be written immediately. I've been trying to let a text mature naturally. I put it on the list, but wait to write it. I spend days, weeks, and months reflecting on the subject. Creating a temporal distance is good. The reflection will be less emotional and more profound. Like the world, our life has a historical perspective that immediate analyses are incapable of capturing what's happening.

I usually decide on the topic when I sit down to write. Then I recap memories and notes on that subject until the text you're reading comes out (before that, I read several times, edited, revised, and improved). I write in Portuguese, my native language. After the final version is ready, I translate it into English using ChatGPT and revise it in the Premium package of Grammarly. With my knowledge of English, I accept or reject what the tools suggest. Often, I rewrite an entire sentence. The whole process takes three to four hours.

Choosing the language was a tough decision. The texts would tend to be better and have fewer errors in my native language, Portuguese. However, I opted for the more universal language, English, to reach readers worldwide. The Substack community is much more robust in English. After a 2023 full of doubts about whether it was the right decision, in 2024 more than 70% of new subscribers are not Brazilian. Obviously, I wouldn't make a newsletter in Chinese, which I wouldn't understand anything translated. I've been studying English, a language I am familiar with, to sound increasingly natural.

Having people read you is one of the most pleasant things for a writer and journalist like me. Interacting with readers and meeting other writers has been exciting.

I hope this text has helped motivate you to start a project here on Substack or anywhere else. If you like my content, consider financially supporting this author. If you don't have the money now, I'll be happy if you can share it on your networks or interact with a like and a comment.