Field Notes

The new obsession that seems to have taken over writer twitter is Substack and paid newsletter subscriptions. It's like ... patreon, but more intimate?

It's also sort of being marketed as the next big thing in magazines, except you're paying individual writers. A while back I saw a writer on Twitter saying "hey, instead of everyone subscribing to our individual newsletters, why don't we just ... create ... a magazine?" Which really, when you think about it, is a multi-contributor blog except you pay for it. It's something I've considered for one of my professional projects, but it doesn't feel like an efficient way of distributing content. I don't know! Maybe it's what the people truly want! But the archivist/librarian in me wants things to be in one place, that is easily searchable, with complimentary content next to it.

There are plenty of unpaid newsletters as well, but I find those end up just stacking up in the unread part of my inbox. I'd rather all these separate newsletters be a feed - which I suppose my email has become, but still. With my email, everything feels so Important and Essential. It's also where my New York Times daily briefings stack up, because so frequently I just can't deal with the news daily. (And yes - I'm trying to get away from the NYT daily briefing email, esp since the NYT doxxed the whistleblower, but I just can't find something comparable.)

What if we all just collectively decided to go back to places like Dreamwidth and Google Reader? RIP Google Reader, I miss you daily. It would be so awesome to have a robust Dreamwidth community for personal life and diary stuff in one tab, and my Google Reader open in the other tab. 

Do y'all have favorite newsletters you subscribe to? Or an rss feed you're satisfied with? Let me know, I am curious. 

In other news: Started the process of perhaps going back to ED Intensive Outpatient therapy today. So ... yay I guess?

A friend of mine is also dying of kidney failure. He's only 32, so I'm hoping he'll be able to find a donor and be physically able to get the surgery. I've processed this a lot today, so I won't go into it too much here. Needless to say, I'm extremely sad about this and trying to figure out how best to support and help him. 

Time for therapy-suggested gratitude list: 

1. I am so grateful for the library.
2. I am grateful for lovely escapist fiction for hard times (currently sucked in to A Storm of Swords)
3. Extremely grateful for my partner, who helped me to clean the apartment yesterday and is really supportive of seeking more therapy.