Getting Organized On Substack
Making Sense Of the Chaos
I’ve been posting on Substack for something like 10 months now, a couple of times a week. There are getting to be quite a few posts in the Archive - by Substack’s count nearly 130. Getting close to 200,000 words! That’s almost as many as there are in Moby Dick!!
Since I’ve posted on a range of topics as I’ve been inspired to write about them, this undertaking may at times have seemed chaotic. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were to tell me you’ve had the thought, “What in the world does this one have to do with the others - and where in the world (or elsewhere) did it come from!?” I’ve had that thought myself occasionally.
But it turns out it’s not quite as chaotic as it may at first appear. It turns out, now that I look back over the pieces, that I’ve actually (though not always consciously) been writing a few stories in serial parts, often published as stand-alones, but really often linked. And so I thought that for both you and me, organizing them into their different sections might be useful - especially now that there are so many of them. (This may, in part, be the Librarian in me coming out; got to get all those word-filled fragments into some kind of order - or be buried by them!)
In this effort to organize, I’ve expanded my use of the “Sections” feature of Substack. I’ve created half a dozen Sections in order to bring together the pieces which tell a particular story (or otherwise relate).
You can see the Sections in the Navigation Bar at the top of the homepage for my Substack, Recollections, Reflections, Fantasies, Fictions. If you click the Section name on the Navagation Bar, you’ll get to the section, including all the posts for the topic - easy access to the topics that may interest you most.
For some topics, where further organization seemed like it might be helpful, the first post on the Section page will be START READING HERE. That’s where the pieces in the section will appear in the order in which they may make most sense. This might be useful, for instance, in diving into the novella Left Bank on the Bayou, where the order of the parts tells a chronological story. In other sections there really isn’t any particular order, so they won’t have a START READING HERE. (And by all means feel free to read any of the pieces in any order that appeals to you!)
These are the Sections I’ve created (so far), with a hint of what you will find in them:
Left Bank on the Bayou - A Queer Houston Story of the 1930s - A novella in which our Narrator has returned home to Houston after a decade in Paris and New York, to construct a Queer life in the Bayou City. (This one is ongoing, one new serial part a week until finished, and is a sequel to the previous novella, Song of the Amorous Frogs - A Paris Story of the 1920s.)
Scenes of a Life I Think Was Mine: Memoirs - In which I look back at my life, and try to make sense (in public!) of some of the events that have made me who I am.
Saint Louis Blues: Gay Days and Nights in the 1970s - Mostly Saint Louis, mostly gay and mostly fiction - yes, even though I happened to be living in Saint Louis in the 1970s, still mostly fiction. (BE WARNED: These pieces may not be for everyone.)
The Gay Thing - Wherein I group together my otherwise unrelated pieces on gay themes.
Houston Art History - Which is pretty much described by the title.
Reflections: On Life, Death, and Anything Else - It’s here that you’ll find all the many pieces on DEATH, which have become something of a trademark for me - and also some non-deathly pieces.
As I keep writing and posting, all these sections will likely grow - even the novella, since I’m already thinking of a third related one when Left Bank finished (probably in September with part 20; let me know if you have ideas for the direction novella number three might head). I’m pretty sure that Scenes of a Life will get added to as I dredge up more memories (that’s what us old folks do - for as long as we can remember, anyway). And certainly Reflections will get bigger as DEATH gets closer. I even have a few more pieces to add to Saint Louis Blues, as soon as I can figure out that the “fictional” characters in them are no longer around to sue.
I hope this organizing effort is helpful. I’ve had fun doing it. And what a pleasant surprise (to me, at least) finding out that all the little pieces I’ve been writing may add up to something bigger than I had the imagination to envision when I started.
Thanks for joining me in this adventure. And if you’ve found some things that you’ve enjoyed, please recommend my Substack to your friends.
Best, Randy