I resolve...
…to let this newsletter grow messy and full of errors. I resolve to begin thoughts I have no hope of finishing, but force myself to hit Publish anyway. I resolve to let light fall onto my abstruse, scattered creative process, and let go of the pretense that I know what the fuck I’m doing. I resolve to publish more often and with much less certainty. I resolve to ask questions for which I don’t have answers and give up on the idea that my place as a writer is to inform. I resolve to look for, if never find, the value in that.
I woke up this morning and started thinking about this post before I remembered that it was New Year’s Day. So, I don’t know if this counts as a New Year’s resolution, but it is a resolution of some sort. One I’ve been thinking about for a long time. It’s going on two years since I started this Substack, and I don’t even remember how many times I changed its branding. And I still haven’t found my groove with it. Aside from some big glaring issues (for which I’ve started another post), Substack has insane potential as a creative tool, but I’ve always felt hemmed in by my own hang-ups. A big one being that I don’t want to be frivolous, and I don’t want to waste your time. If you’ve read down this far, you already have my appreciation, and I don’t want to pay that back with bullshit. And the Internet is already so full of bullshit, what value could my bullshit possibly have in your life?
So, what would happen is I’d have an idea for a post, and then I’d research it, and collect bits of information that maybe would back up a suspicion I started off with. Then I’d start collating that into a post—which would, by this point, have been upgraded to the level of “essay” in my mind—and I’d get, like, about a third of the way way through it when I’d realize that this is really too thin to be an essay, and what I really should do is sit on it until I come up with new ideas to improve it. (Maybe it should be a book, or even a podcast.) Besides which, I’d have this brand new idea for a post that I can get up tomorrow with just a little research. My Drafts folder is like an archaeological dig site of my mini-obsessions.
I’m getting tired of this process. It has been pretty generative for ideas. But awful for output. And despite what society hammers into us, output is not the be-all and end-all of creative existence. But it is a part.
So, my plan now is to do a full head-scramble on what I think of this space. I know I’d like to use Thought Magnet as a space to self-publish full essays and stories, but I’m thinking that there’s maybe also space to think of it also as a blog. Remember blogs. Remember blog posts? You’d never confuse a blog post with an essay. They were less formal, more confessional. They projected lower stakes from the jump. I presume some people use Substack as a blog, but I more so see it being used like Medium. As a place for think pieces. Which, I think, are kinds of essays.1 Whatever happened to blog posts? I think they got out-competed by tweets and tweet threads, in particular.
When I say that I’m trying to reimagine this as a space for blog posts, I don’t mean a diary. I’m thinking more like a repository of cumulative thoughts. Like a scrap heap. A place where I can write a little bit about something that’s catching my imagination today—maybe in relation to a video I found on YouTube or a book I’m reading—hit Publish, and let it fall into the mess of other half-thoughts and intriguing concepts that I have previously tossed in. And nothing that goes in there is ever thought to my final say on the matter. Or received knowledge of the world I’m delivering to you. It’s more like a possible piece in something larger one day maybe.
Another thing I loved about blogs was how curative they could be. I used to have all sorts of blogs that I would go to for different things, specifically because I vibed with the writer or writing staff and trusted their judgement on books, music, film, or science. It was interaction with a mind instead of algorithm. So, I reserve the right to make short posts that act like signposts pointing to things you might like if you like the other things I post.
On a personal note, 2026 is going to be an emotionally difficult2 year for me, for reasons I will definitely be writing about as they arise. Some big changes are coming are for me with these next twelve months. And I simply cannot afford to keep all my writing locked up behind some bullshit preciousness. I need a creative outlet as a stabilizing force. This year more than ever. I don’t want to write ten3 really polished essays about my year. I’d rather write a whole mess.
And that’s what I resolve to do this year.
Thank you so much for reading all this (or at least taking the time to scroll down). Your reward is this: The greatest New Years Eve/Midpoint Event in cinematic history…
Am I completely off-base on this categorization? Very possibly. This is less diagnostic of the field in general than of my own perception of it. My own hang-ups. And I am admittedly slicing hairs very finely.
Not necessarily in a bad way.
Who am I kidding? Two, maybe.
I for one can't wait! Do it! BLOG, DENNIS! Happy New Year!