The Autumn of My Discontent

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Across the American Internet today, newsletter writers are pouring out thanks to their beloved subscribers—people just like you, my dear friend {first_name}. Some of them are taking shortcuts with their copy, rounding up recipes it’s too late for you to make or summarizing and linking out to heartwarming Thanksgiving content. A few of them are even taking this national holiday off entirely. Lazy fucking bastards.

But I love you all too much to take the easy way out—or, really, to let you take the easy way out by giving you a day off from my harrowing prose and revolutionary ideas. No such luck, dudes and dudettes. I got 12,000 words about John Mellencamp coming after the ad.

Kidding! The singer of “The Eyes of Portland” doesn’t merit more than, say, 4,000 words. Maybe if he’d kept “Cougar” as his middle name I could work up 5,000, but alas.

Seriously, I do want to thank you all, especially because I think I’ve figured out a way to pad that gratitude out into a full-length newsletter, and also because I have an idea of how to take that thanks and turn it to my favorite subject: Star Wars myself. Let’s get specific—right after the ad!

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Ordered some gummies? Good—you’ll need them for this, because it might get maudlin. Let’s gin up some subheads:

Thanks for Subscribing!

This is a gimme: If you weren’t there, if you hadn’t signed up when you saw this on social media, or when I texted you (“I regret to inform you I’ve begun writing again”), or when I slipped notes under your door or snuck into your bedroom to drug you and tattoo trying.beehiiv.com/subscribe on your forearm (yeah, sorry, that was me!), well, then I would probably have quit this long ago. But you opted in, and some of you even chose to throw a few bucks into my virtual tip jar, and I really am grateful that you’re here and that I don’t have to keep picking your locks and buying industrial-size jugs of ether.

Thanks for Enduring!

This is, I realize, not your normal kind of newsletter: It’s turning into a feat of writerly endurance, performed in public. I’m turning out a lot of words every day, more than I expect anyone to realistically keep up with. I mean, if you want “Trying!” to be the main course in your daily media diet, I’m not going to argue, but I’ll understand if your attention is occasionally drawn away by my only true competitors: the New York Times, arXiv.org, and OnlyFans. Still, the analytics gnomes at Beehiiv tell me that a goodly number of you keep opening the emails every day. Maybe you’re just checking in to see if I’ve finally, truly lost it (not yet, but maybe tomorrow!), or maybe you’re devouring every sentence, including the footnotes. Either way, it’s immeasurably¹ gratifying.

Thanks for Understanding!

This is also not your normal newsletter in the sense that it is all over the damn place. It’s not one of those tightly focused productions that the marketing-industrial complex will tell you, via LinkedIn and YouTube, are necessary for building a dedicated, monetizable following. To be sure, I thought about doing that, but after decades of writing for very focused publications, I felt the need to rebel against conventional wisdom. I think of “Trying!” not as content but as discontent, the antithesis of the bland, careful professionalism that pollutes our mediasphere. And me, I’m no influencer—I’m an unfluencer, doing and writing the things no one else wants to and inspiring literally no one to follow in my footsteps. (The smart move is to witness what I’ve done and hurry off in the opposite direction.) Despite the perversity of this project, I have not yet succeeded in driving away large numbers of you, so I guess there’s still some work to be done. Surely, somewhere in the vast range of subjects I’m taking on, I’ll find something to offend you into cancelling. And I sincerely hope you’ll stick with me till then!

Thanks for Emailing!

According to Kazuo Ishiguro² , the three things you need to be a writer are: omnidirectional fury, a deep sense of powerlessness, and a bottomless need for attention and approval. Every day I publish one of these newsletters, and then I wait. And wait. And wait. And then—bing! I get an email from one of you saying you liked the story, or pointing out an error, or suggesting an angle I hadn’t seen. And this is really, really, really what I love and am so thankful for. To feel that my words are resonating, even a little bit, makes this whole endeavor worthwhile, and not only gives me strength to face the next day’s writing but also provides me ideas and material to steal and pass off as my own. So thank you for that. If you have not yet emailed (or commented—I think I have that working now!), please feel free to respond to these newsletters with any and all feelings, so I know this is amounting to something. If I, uh, borrow your idea, I’ll surely give you the absolute minimum credit possible. You’re welcome. 🪨🪨🪨

Notes

1. This is not true. It’s actually quite measurable—directly proportional to this newsletter’s open rate.

2. Not really.

Read Yesterday’s Attempt