I Could Have Made A Million Dollars In Ad Revenue If Only I Had Dismissed The Opinion Of The Love Of My Life
Not so long ago when my kids’ legs weren’t long enough to bend over the edge of their car seats and every drive they talked cute gibberish continuous, I thought a successful podcast would be to record their nonsense stories and post each drive as an episode, no editing. I assumed there would be a robust audience of former parents who missed hearing mumbled renditions of Let It Go and We Don’t Talk About Bruno and inquiries about ice cream dinosaurs and non-stop non sequiturs and… well, whatever.
Everyone I told the idea insisted it was the dumbest idea they had ever heard.
So, I never surreptitiously recorded my kids.
Now, their legs can easily kick their sibling beside them or their parents’ seats in front of them and they still talk non-stop, but now their conversations make sense, so the hook is gone.
BUT! I'm not convinced I didn't leave a successful second career just sitting there, waiting to be brought to market and to spread joy and love, all while making me millions in mail-chimp advertising revenue.
Currently Reading:
NONFICTION - Life Inside a U.S. Embassy
FICTION - McSweeneys 72, Aimee Bender’s The Color Master, Brian Hodge’ The Convulsion Factory. (All short story collections! So, not weird to dip in and out of each without ever finishing!) And some Tom King comics (Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow and Rorschach).
And, also, The Chronicles of Narnia, to my daughter before bed. She’s at the perfect age to read to- she makes character connections and story predictions. It’s interesting, reading Narnia as a parent and with Harry Potter more fresh in my memory - I’m surprised by the violence, on the lookout for sexism, and curious what, if any, of the Christian themes she might notice. So far, book one holds up!
SUBSTACK - Trying to catch up
Currently Writing:
Revisited a ghost story, that’s really an addiction battle story, that’s really a daddy fears he’s going to be the reason his kids fail story - told in a singer ringer, lots of rhyme time, mile style. It was very fun to write, so hopefully, it’s very fun bun to read.
This weekend, I hope to write a travel memoir inspired by the wrong turn hike I took my family on when we visited Portugal recently, but then add some monsters at the end. Another in my series of stories with the theme, dad destroys his family on accident by not paying attention.
Craft-wise, I’m revisiting whether I believe titles matter. I didn’t think they did, but blue, tell me true - did you read this post because of the promise of its title or because of its byline?
Currently Awaiting Rejections:
3-4 stories sent out last month
Current Goals:
Daily writing practice. If I could do 30 minutes a day I would be so pleased that I would kiss strangers on the mouth!
Yes, I’m jealous of all you novel and one story a week completers.
If last year was mostly stories written in response to a submission theme, this year I would like to write/finish all the stories I’ve been daydream writing forever.
What are you reading? What are you writing? What’s your current goal? How can I help? Do you think story titles matter? Should they be click-baity? Should I find someone else’ cute kids and ask if I can record their backseat conversations to pursue my dream of off kilter podcast glory?
FOR SURE titles matter; take for instance, the other day I clicked on a post that popped up on my Substack feed based SOLELY on its title, which was "Should I Do Anal?"
My kids mostly kick and scream in the backseat, otherwise I'd totally be recording them. Come to think of it, I have, in fact, recorded the kicking and screaming and played it back to them to see if them seeing themselves in tantrum mode would make them stop. So far this has worked only twice.
Titles absolutely matter, and are very difficult to get right. I tend to lean short and succinct. If I can consolidate a novel or story into three words or less that indicates I know what's most thematically resonant about the work.