Twelve days I posted my first Substack and today I took it (and three others) offline. I have also changed the name of my newsletter not once, but twice in this two week period.
Why? Simply because the vibes were off. I was saying what I wanted to say but not the way I wanted to say it. Does that make sense?
At other points in my life this public indecisiveness—regardless of the fact it is still on a very small scale—would have most likely led to me quitting entirely. Fear of what people would think as I tried to find my footing on this platform would have paralyzed me.
But in the past few years I have learned two very important lessons:
one
No one is thinking about you. Like at all. Ever. Or at least very rarely and definitely not in the horrible way you probably think they’re thinking about you.
Me changing my Substack name a few times while I get a hang of this space is not something that is going to register on anyone’s radar. And if one or two of my twenty-ish subscribers has noticed, I don’t think anyone really cares what I call my newsletter. All people care about is whether or not they connect with me and my writing.
(Subscribers, feel free to chime in if you feel different LOL.)
two
Literally no one has any idea what they are doing. This is everyone’s first rodeo and we are all just trying to figure it out as we go. Life is basically just one long learning experience and when we try something new, there are bound to be a few hiccups along the way. Sure, sometimes we might get it all right on our first attempt, but I have found that more likely than not our first pancake is going to end up in the trash.
Probably the second pancake too.
c’est la vie
c’est la vie is French for ‘such is life’ and is a motto I choose to live by.
(I also made a very ill-advised decision to tattoo the words on my lower back when I was eighteen. Do not recommend. 0 out of 10. Though, I guess ill-advised decisions are par for the course when you’re eighteen. c’est la vie indeed.)
To me, c’est la vie, means acknowledging that life is complicated. Being a human is messy and difficult and overwhelming as fuck at times, but it is also so fucking beautiful. So perfectly imperfect. There will be good days and bad days and everything in between because that’s just how life goes.
c’est la vie
Welcome to my little corner of the internet!
This is where I should probably add a little blurb about what you can expect from my newsletter, but I’m going to hold off for now. If the past twelve days and multiple name changes have taught me anything, it’s that I need to slow down.
So that is exactly what I am going to do. Take a few weeks to experiment. Play around with different formats. See what topics I most enjoying writing about. Find my voice.
If you take away anything from this newsletter I hope it is this:
You don’t have to have any idea what you’re doing to start something—most people don’t. Stop waiting for the perfect idea or perfect title or whatever it is you’re waiting for and just dive in.
Remember that nothing is real, everything is made up, and there are no rules, so go ahead and do whatever it is you want to do.
(Within reason, please don’t take this as permission to rob a bank or something insane!!!!)
That’s all for today! Have a fabulous weekend and don’t forget sunscreen if you’re going to be outside!!!!
If you want to follow along with my weekend my Instagram is @madelinepaigewrites.
I will be back with another newsletter on Monday and I pink promise that c’est la vie is here to stay.
XOXO,
Maddie
Yesss to this!!! I started my Substack a few weeks ago but did an overhaul of the branding for it (except the name) earlier this week because I felt it just didn't fit the vibe I was going for. And I keep rewriting my tagline because why the hell not – I'm just figuring out what my newsletter is and who it's for as I go along.
This whole thing made me laugh 😆 and yes SO relatable! I just went through this with my photo on here, freaking out and changing it 100 times and worrying and I was finally like WHO CARES NO ONE IS EVEN GOING TO NOTICE.
It’s very freeing!