Creative Conundrums #4: What Are the Substack ... Things Called?
A Writer's Corner series dedicated to challenges and worries throughout the creative process, doubts, queries and everything in between.
Welcome back to Creative Conundrums by Writer’s Corner! Today, the format of our Creative Conundrum is marginally different, for I have a general question instead of the standard confused.com predicament.
If you have not read Creative Conundrums before, first of all: welcome aboard. I encourage you to catch up on the three previous posts in the series. You can read about writing platform alternatives in Creative Conundrums #1: Streamlining or Diversifying? and Substack’s ‘home’ solutions for housing different (in nature, length, targeted audience, etc.) written materials in Creative Conundrums #2: Individual Publications or Publication Sections?. In the language-themed post that is Creative Conundrums #3: Dictionary or Gut?, we discuss the right to call ourselves writers.
To any new subscribers of Writer’s Corner this week, I thank you for supporting my humble newsletter (now a month old: whoop whoop!). I hope your stay here is enjoyable and please do say hello in the comments.
What is Creative Conundrums?
“What is Creative Conundrums”, you ask yourself. It is a series - if someone has a finer term for it, I would steal it in a heartbeat - dedicated to questions of creative nature, worrisome thoughts, plaguing insecurities, and day-to-day challenges that I wrestle with.
Over the years, I have realised that much of what we often consider to be unique to our personalities, for example the tendency to be indecisive, or circumstances, say our education background or job, resonates with others louder than we have ever imagined.
Creative Conundrums will, therefore, serve two purposes:
Aid me in un-baffling myself through endless rambling and mind backflips, and
Provide solace to you in the realisation that you are not alone in your troubles (Fingers crossed, sound practical advice will be a welcome by-product).
Preface completed, let us meet the fourth Creative Conundrum.
Creative Conundrums #4: What Are the Substack … Things Called? Context
Despite the image I have opted for just above, if I hazard a guess, I would say this is not a rocket science question. There are very many Help Topics by Substack themselves which I should go through. It is possible — in fact, it is outright probable — that an answer to my conundrum, alongside a thorough explanation, will be hidden in plain sight there.
However, since up until now, I have not come across a definition of this, I am calling out to supporters of Writer’s Corner and the Substack community at large to help a sister out.
Creative Conundrums #4: What Are the Substack … Things Called? The Actual Conundrum
I am not actively promoting my Substack to people, who occupy a physical space in my life and exist beyond the enormity of the Internet, but on the rare occasions that I do, I would like to be able to describe Substack and what my writing attempts here actually are.
I believe I should consider them published materials (a future Creative Conundrum on the topic; stay tuned), but what form of published materials are they?
Creative Conundrums #4: What Are the Substack … Things Called? Your Thoughts
There are bound to be some — or at least, one — of you who are not perplexed by this mystery in the slightest. If you do, I implore you to tell me and the readers of Writer’s Corner your secret in the comments section. Sharing is caring, my friend(s).
If you are anything like me and call these Substack things by various names, e.g., entries, posts, blog entries (distracted by your repetition of the same word three times in one paragraph), can I ask we make a pact? The first of us, who is in the know on this, will immediately volunteer the information to the other. I trust this is agreeable; raise any objections below.
I keep wanting to say blog, or post, or blog post. Blog is the thing that you post on. But do you post a blog post? That also sounds odd. Then there's the newsletter thing. But then some blogs have an email subscription thingy that sends out the entire post as an email.
If I changed over from my blog to Substack, which I'm still thinking about, I have no idea what I'd call the things. Entries maybe?
Maybe I post a blog entry. Hmmmmm......
Now I'm overthinking!
YES! Post/blog... newsletter still feels strange to me. I much prefer ‘blog.’