Hey lunch buddies, hope your week’s off to a good start. It’s nearly lunchtime, what have you got planned?
A quick note from me this week to let you know that I’m taking a little break from this weekly newsletter. I love writing it, I really do, and I could talk about food until the cows come home, but when you do something just for fun when it’s not your work, there’s no higher purpose, sometimes you need to take a break to make space for other things.
So this is me making space for other things for a few weeks. A five-week art class is one of those other things and I’m really excited about that.
In the meantime, I might share a few old posts from my old cooking blog over the coming weeks if I get around to having a digital dig around.
It’s “see you soon” not “goodbye”.
But while I’m here, here’s a bit more than a quick note about how I currently feel about writing my own weekly newsletter. I’ve written this bit for me, really, so I’ll understand if you skip it. I’m prone to overthinking; bear with me.
It’s an absolute privilege that my words arrive to you every week. I honestly love all the comments, ❤️, shares, and emails that it gets.
But…
This shit is hard. Week in, week out. Ideas. Time. Writing. Photos. The Cost. Proofreading (oops 🙈 not always good at that). Pushing it out into the world beyond my email list (really not good at that either).
And I don’t think I’ve been doing the best job of it recently.
In my year and a half of writing this, I’ve seen others come and go too. I get it.
I’ve really focused my offering by writing a newsletter that’s dedicated to lunch. On the one hand, narrowing it makes it clearer and simpler, for the ideas generation, writing, and when ‘selling’ it. But on the other hand, it’s restrictive. If I wanted to start talking about something else in my kitchen or something else in my life beyond working from home and what I’m having for lunch, would it fit here? Probably not.
Writing this newsletter is not my job.
It doesn’t even fit into my work. Not really.
I would truly love to make food writing my work. After 5 years of dabbling with a food blog and starting this newsletter, plus starting a stopping a dedicated Instagram account several times, I’ve faced up to the fact that’s probably not happening. Ever. All I’ve managed to do is feature in a magazine and run a couple of cook-a-longs — for free! While I am very grateful for those and enjoyed them immensely (thanks, Soph), I now know that I just don’t have the space and time or the right energetic personality to continually keep putting myself and my content out into the world in the way that’s needed to grow a “personal brand”.
So it’s time for me to think a bit more on what I want from it, how it fits, if I love it enough. I’m a firm believer that we can make time for everything we enjoy.
And then there’s the whole Substack thing.
As with most things, I hold two simultaneously opposing views of it.
It’s a great platform full of some wonderful publications, making it a great space for reading and writing.
It’s a platform where there’s pressure to play the game, increasing the need for visibility and engagement with Notes and Chat, and cross-publication promotion through recommendations (this is also a good thing). There are Substack publications devoted to growing your Substack publication. It feels meta, and Meta and a bit Twitter.
It’s created a bit of a paradox for me, personally.
While I fully support the fact that writers (or any creators) should get paid for what they do, I don’t actually pay for any subscriptions on here myself. I did. But competing demand for attention meant that I didn’t end up reading it. Maybe I just wasn’t that bothered by what they were writing. I also can’t ever imagine anyone paying to read mine either!
I create content for clients, I get paid for it. The writing isn’t even half of it. The ideas, the images, the research, the publishing, the checking. That shit takes time.
Even this foodie folly of a weekly newsletter takes time.
Which is why Substack is brilliant. It’s rewarding good writers for that. Putting them in control. There are also writers who are paid by Substack — being given the opportunity to have that needed space and time to make their publications amazing, thus making Substack a better platform to grow a community on.
It’s impossible to compare to those.
A rising tide lifts all boats but only if we’re in the same sea. . .
Choosing to wave, not drown. See you again, soon hopefully (if you haven’t all unsubscribed by then).
Thank you for reading The Working Lunch. It’s great to have you here. This post is public so feel free to share it.