The 4 Steps I'm Using to Boost My Substack Writing Productivity

Yeah, sure, let's try one of these creative advice pieces and see if it just happens to provoke more readership than columns about fascism on the march.

So, some of you may have noticed that I've managed to all of a sudden boost the pace of my writing here at the Substack. Part of that is certainly because the subject matter has all of a sudden increased in intensity as the white supremacist ICE war against San Bernardino County's people of color increases and as the concentration camps start going up as ICE's budget gets boosted.

How Many Nazi Parties Does America Need?

However, there is also a more practical component here. I've stumbled into a writing routine that seems to really be working. Here's how I'm doing it - and how you might adapt it to your own methods.

There are 4 steps, and they are symbolized by the four key components of being a writer:

1. READ

2. WRITE

3. EDIT

4. PUBLISH

Here's my morning routine lately:

1. READ

I do this each morning, having my first cup of coffee out in the yard with Jasmine, reading for 15-30 minutes depending on how much time's available based on when I woke up and what the pressing morning obligations are.

2. WRITE

Once my brain’s moving and there are some ideas percolating in there, I come in here to my library and writing room, where I sit down at my Freewrite, a digital typewriter that I use for writing first drafts. (See the photo above for how my setup looks. I’ll usually pile a few books to my right intended to inspire the drafting.)

I first write for 10-15 minutes in a file where I'm keeping a bit of a daily log/journal while

Sally Shideler Swindle

and I work on some new book projects. This habit of forcing myself into the daily discipline of keeping this journal—since it's directly for the book projects—then further revs up my mind. When I've banged away at this thing for 10 or 15 minutes, just writing forward, not worrying about typos or if something isn't that well-written—it can be fixed later—then it's not hard to transition into another form of writing.

The journaling has given me a chance to dump my thoughts from the reading and other issues and to then organize them a bit. Once I've done that and have some general idea of what I might like to explore in a piece—what is really driving my emotions most that morning?—then I switch over from my “A'“ Journal folder on the Freewrite to my “B” Substack article folder. (“C” I keep for an ongoing brainstorm of Ibis-Head People cartoon ideas.)

Then I see if I can write about 700-800 words. That's the ideal target for a news article or opinion column. So once you get to that range, just stop. If it's not enough, or it needs fixes, then that's fine. You can fix it later. Just conclude with a chunk of something you can then edit.

When I'm done writing, I tap the "send" button and it gets blasted into the cloud, where I can access it online. Then I just copy/paste it into the Substack draft window.

3. EDIT

Then the editing process begins. I'll go through and fix the obvious typos, smooth out sentences, drop in some subheads or numbered points if it's turned into a list post, then begin embedding any links or videos that I'd noted in the draft. And after that, once it's a fully readable draft that will resemble what the reader will view, then I'll look at it as a whole to see if it all works together or whether something needs to be added or cut. Perhaps I should hold it for a day or two to see if more news emerges, or maybe I'll decide I need to think about the subject further before publishing.

4. PUBLISH

And finally, the publishing process. While often I'm illustrating these with YouTube videos, sometimes an AI image will be appropriate. I usually make those last, rather than coming up with them during the writing process. That may change in the future. The image-making process can be started while I've begun editing. It takes time for each iteration of images to generate, so they can be started while the editing and revising takes place.

Once everything is ready, as I'd like it to be read by the reader, then most of the time, it will pass through Sally's editorial eye and we'll make some tweaks together. After we're done, then I'll give it one last pass for typos and then WHOOSH, we're off with the piece emailed to readers and posted online.

After the post is up, I'll usually share it with various friends, family, and colleagues who seem like they may be interested in it. I’ll also promote it on Notes. Sometimes I'll drop it onto my personal Facebook or LinkedIn, but so far, I'm not persuaded that it's really worth the time to do that. The readers that I want for my books and our authors’ books are here on Substack. There seems to be a big enough reader pool to build from on Substack alone, rather than wasting energy fishing in social media pools that are filled with non-readers and shallow thinkers.

OK, so: Do you see what I'm doing here? I'm breaking apart the reading-writing-editing-publishing process into distinct chunks, even going so far as doing the various parts in different locations.

Read out in the yard. Write in the library. Edit at my laptop in the living room. And then after hitting publish, the rest of the process takes place everywhere, as I can send the new piece to anyone around the world with just a tap on my phone.

Read in the yard, write in the library, edit in the living room, publish everywhere.

Fuck yeah, how does that sound for a mantra?

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