Substack: why I am here

How storytelling future-proofs us...

Feb 04, 2024

My eureka moment

I’ve been writing on Substack for a few months now and am beginning to realise how insular it is being a writer, so I decided to join more online groups to build my community.

Once you start looking, there’s a lot to choose from, most of which are Paid Subscriber perks, but some are free and I stumbled upon one which was all…

“C’mon over, here’s the Zoom link, see you then!”

“Happy Days!”, I think, I’ll pop along!

It's called ‘Writers Daily Dive’ run by the delightful

Kara Westerman

and meets for an hour every weekday at 18:00 GMT / 13:00 EST.

I’m warmly welcomed by Kara and two other ladies on the Zoom. It turned out we were all in different time zones, only four of us this time, but apparently there are 15 in the group in total, so there’s a nice rotation of different people on different days. Do join them if you fancy it, but not all at once, or you’ll ruin the cosy vibe.

These three had all met in a memoir writing group and were eager to start tapping away, but with only four of us present, we managed some pre-writing chitchat first (with our actual voices, rather than typing in the chat, which was a lovely change) and then we all dived into our own projects!

I studiously tweaked and teased my latest post until it was ‘ready for its close-up’ and the hour soon disappeared.

“Why did you decide to start a Substack?” Kara asked me, in our post-writing chitchat.

“Well…”, I started without hesitation “about 10 years ago, my son Charlie and I went on a trip to Venice and pretended to be restaurant critics! We had so much fun writing up and publishing our daily reviews to our ‘Mum & Son Reviews’ website that the following year we decided to do it again and went to New York.

And onwards I rambled…

“I have loved revisiting those posts over the years, the written words paint such a detailed picture of the experience, so much more than just pictures ever could. They still make me laugh and smile.
I recently mentioned to Charlie that I sometimes re-read them, and he said:
“So do I mum.”

Wow! ??? Really?

“I was really surprised by this, that he takes time out of his relentlessly packed University life to revisit a couple of mini-breaks that we took so many years ago! Wow. I thought it was just me that was enjoying them all these years later.”

It was at that moment, that I realised why I had started a Substack.

I have taken so much delight over the years from our ‘Mum & Son Reviews’ that I’m so so grateful we made the effort to do them, and I’d like to get more of our stories ‘down on paper’ so I can look back in years to come and chortle away to myself at the memories. Time is a ticking, before I forget them!

So like a Tolkien-esque Tom Cruise: “I feel the need, the need for tweed!”
… and story-telling.

When I started this project, my stifled1 stories were all jumping up and down in my mind, vying for attention, like a classroom full of Kenny Keenos desperate to be picked, arms aloft! It feels fantastic to, one by one, let them quietly file out of the door and set-up home here on Substack. Safe, cosy and waiting patiently, in case they’re called upon to entertain us in the future.

And as I’m still only a ‘mere girl’ I’m sure there will be lots more stories and adventures to document, so I can bank a few more future chuckles.

Off on a tangent

It’s funny, with all the talk of Hero posts lately here on Substack, I thought mine was pretty good at explaining why I’m here… and yet when someone asked me that very basic question, a totally different story fell out.

Thank you Kara, for giving me some clarity, I may well revise it now.

Back to Mum & Son Reviews

I’m toying with the idea of moving our old posts over here (just quietly into a separate section, mainly for my own reference) so I have everything under one roof.

I wouldn’t rule out the opportunity to reboot the experiment, now that we’re older and wiser, however it might be that I can only snaffle him away for a day trip or a lunch.

So if there are any restaurants or experiences in the London area (Pizza Express I’m talking to you here!) that are reading this and would like us to do a review, then I’m sure we could manage to pop along!

Just a thought.

Toodles!

K8x

PS: If you have another 2 minutes spare, here are my favourite dual entries from the New York trip:

New York – Day 1: Museum of Modern Art

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Mum

I love a bit of modern art. I love the bravery of the artist who proclaims it ‘art’ and not just an empty frame, a desk accessory or a pile of rabbit sh*t.

So with this in mind we hot-footed it over to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) to indulge in a bit of ‘art’ appreciation, or… seeing how long we could keep a straight face while asking where the exhibit ‘bunny-dropping-bunny’ was, which I had seen online earlier, and my dining companion could scarcely believe it’s existence.

We covered three floors at quite a pace and still couldn’t locate said bunny, so I resorted to asking a member of staff where ‘bunny-dropping-bunny’ was (preferably one who hadn’t given me a withering look earlier when my dining companion touched an exhibit).?

First one: No, I haven’t heard of it. What is it?
Me: a sculpture of a rabbit?
Them: no I’ve not seen it.
Me: ok, thanks anyway.

Second one: No, I haven’t heard of it. What is it?
Me: a sculpture of a rabbit, looks like a Lindt chocolate bunny, although you wouldn’t want to eat it as it’s made of rabbit poo.
Them: no I’ve not heard of it.
Me: ok, thanks anyway.

Third one (at an actual information desk, gold rush time baby!): No, I haven’t heard of it. What is it?
Me: a sculpture of a rabbit, looks like a Lindt chocolate bunny, made from shit.
Them: who’s the artist?

Seriously???? That’s the follow up question???? You betcha.

Me: Dieter Roth
Them: How do you spell that?
Me: D-I-E-T-E-R
Them: tap-tap-tap-tap…. tap-tap-tap…. tap-tap-….tap-tap-tap…
Them: How are you spelling that again?
Me: D-I-E-T… showed her my iphone for clarification, hoping a visual would cement it in her brain.
Them: tap-tap-tap-tap…. tap-tap-tap…. tap-tap-….tap-tap-tap…
Me (thinking, and hopefully not aloud): how can we extricate ourselves from this situation… wow that escalator down looks dreamy… I wonder if we should just make a break for it?
Them: How are you spelling that again? [I shit you not]
Me: D-I-E-T-E-R
Them: tap-tap-tap-tap…. tap-tap-tap…. tap-tap-….tap-tap-tap…
Me (thinking, and hopefully not aloud): AAARRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!! I wonder if I just hurl myself off the 4th floor mezzanine deck that might create enough of a diversion to get out of this conversational cul-de-sac.
Them: 4th floor, area 23.
Me: Thank you!

And there it was in all it’s glory…

I think you’ll agree it was worth the struggle. No doubt the artist would say the same.

And my runners up prizes go to: these three blank canvases, with different colour frames. They are part of a series… of other shaped blank canvases, with different colour frames:

The Punch in the Gut (my title, not theirs) and the Tape Dispenser.

Awesome.

-Mum

New York – Day 1: Museum of Modern Art

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Son

One of the things we had to do while in the big apple is truly admire some of the modern pieces of art that hold up the culture and state of society today. Boredom away!

Finding it was the first challenge, although the grid system in New York is great along one axis, it uses names for the other, which made finding the museum a little tricky, never the less we tried shouting at Siri and each other, which eventually got us there somehow.