Scruffy hospitality is not a term I’d come across before. I understood it instantly though. It’s also comfy hospitality. It’s cosy mugs of tea at the kitchen table, not formal cups and saucers in the drawing room. Kitchen suppers with mismatched plates. (Though I can’t bring myself to do that casually or formally. Not that we do much entertaining these days, still, Mr B and I have matching plates).
I was listening to Sarah Raad‘s podcast Doing It Anyway the link happened to land in my inbox this afternoon. I was toasting, or rather burning, teacakes (I’d gone to turn the washing round and reload the machine, forgetting for the moment that they were under the grill) we had toasted muffins and blackcurrant jam instead. I’d been out with the bois in horrid cold, windy, wet weather and absolutely needed something afternoon tea-like to warm up. So, whilst doing all the other things, I was listening to Sarah, who had evidently been rummaging around in the rag bag of my thoughts recently.
Much of what Sarah said resonated because I don’t do, live, have, a perfectly curated life to photograph, to post on Instagram and Facebook. My work is often photographed for me, but is not often shared as I haven’t styled it, haven’t used a filter, haven’t had time, or inclination, to do a magazine-style product shoot. I get chronic comparisonitis from various accounts on Instagram. Beautiful work and tidy studios, Wonderful homes and gorgeous gardens, that freeze me in my tracks. I absolutely know that these are just the lovely bits. That just around the corner, the dog’s been sick, or the compost heap is smelly, or the toddler has upended the pasta jar into the loo. That’s not the point. The point is that they have, for that moment, produced an image of calm, or carefully placed items on a window ledge. Written beautiful words. I often feel that I don’t get those moments terribly often. Which is one reason why there are long stretches of time when I avoid putting anything anywhere. It will also, often, coincide with a shrill, sharp voice that asks, Why are you doing this anyway? Who’s it for? What do you want to show, tell, achieve? Why would anyone want to read that? Who do you think you are? That voice, known as Vera, can shout so loudly I simply can’t do a thing. That I’ve completed two years at Uni and passed my MA does allow me to say “Ya boo, sucks to you” for a little while.
I’ve been swithering about writing ‘stuff’ and putting it somewhere more words than IG or FB posts. Just words that fall out of my pen onto the paper. The muse was prodded when doing Beth Kempton’s Winter Writing Sanctuary course after Christmas. And across the New Year. Inspired and needing something to do that didn’t involve assignments, I signed up for three more of her courses. The seven-week immersion course “Ink + Flame” started on Monday and included the suggestion to do the “Write for Love Write for Money” course. It’s an introduction to writing on Substack. Generating income from your essays, posts, and having a subscription group. Now, I have nothing to say that anyone would give a tuppence for, so I’m not interested in it from that point of view. I wanted to see which would be better Blogging or Substack. I’ve been slightly wary that it is simply just another social media platform. You need to promote your ‘stack’, send newsletters via it to subscribers. I just don’t think it’s really what I want to do just now.
I went to a Blogging for Your Business webinar run by Business Gateway this afternoon, simply to see if a. there was anything new, I needed to know, and b. to ask which the tutor considered better. Blog versus Substack. It wasn’t terribly helpful; there wasn’t anything new, and he didn’t know anything about Substack, which, I have to say, I was disappointed about, and felt it was a bit remiss. I didn’t stay to the end. The bois had started to fidget, and it was time to battle through the wind and rain. A quick Google of my questions got the answers I was looking for anyway. Firstly, like social media sites, Substack holds your work. If the company goes bust, gets a bug, sells to another owner (Elon Musk would like to buy it for example) or if it just pulls the plug, down the drain go your posts, responses, mailing lists etc. We’ve seen how it can happen with Meta just last year. I wondered if it is a bit ‘flash in the pan’. It’s a hugely popular just now, it will go out of fashion, and then what? There is already a move away from Substack. Folks who dislike the shift toward algorithmic features, such as Notes, following the social media models, therefore prioritising engagement over straightforward publishing. And then there is the way it’s run and the moral standards it upholds or doesn’t. Critics argue that Substack hasn’t done enough to combat Nazis and extremists, and there is little or no moderation.
There are alternatives, Beehiiv, Ghost, and Patreon, which has been going for a long time. However, that’s yet another site to find, to learn how to use, and, in time, they too will change… and I don’t have time to panda to the tech giants.
As a result of this, I’m going to stay old school, vintage if you like. My kind of style anyway. I’ve pushed open the door with its creaking hinges and stepped inside. The floorboards haven’t given way. I’m not sure scruffy would quite describe the layers of dust and cobwebs in here. Derelict would perhaps be more applicable. I’m coming back to blogland, my site, my words, and sometimes I’ll turn up a little bit scruffy. Most times, if I’m honest. And if it wasn’t for Sarah’s encouraging words about that being OK, Vera would be holding me back, and I wouldn’t have written this tonight.
So, it’s lovely to see you. Pull up a chair, you’ll need to dust it down. Move the cat, and I’ll put the kettle on.
