an introduction to book notes
whoops
Hi y’all—
Just a reminder, this is The Official Book Notes Substack. I’m Book Notes. [1] Subscribe, if you haven’t already.
After making this Substack with absolutely zero plans, I realized unfortunately I’d have to follow through. Here’s a dumb lil list of things I came up with when brainstorming what to do with this newsletter:
Book Notes (but in your email)
I’d republish what I already publish on the Official Book Notes Instagram.
Pros: Probably what you were expecting when you subscribed in the first place; more readable than the IG; nice for me if I want to send out my writing as a portfolio;
Cons: Kinda boring.
Subtweet
In which I’d use Substack like a personal Twitter. You could expect to receive real time updates from me throughout my day. Retrospectively I’d call it an experiment in auto-fiction, but truthfully it’d be something to fill my lunch breaks when Bizzy or Mathilde can’t chat on the phone.
Pros: Low effort; something I already do; kinda troll-y, which I like; Jesse will no longer be able to plagiarize my jokes.
Cons: Would probably get annoying pretty quickly; I’m no good at witty one liners; basically spam.
Drunkstack
Pretty self-explanatory. I made this Substack when I was pretty drunk, so wouldn’t it be ha-ha-larious if I only wrote and posted when I was smashed?
Pros: I’d also be surprised when I read the newsletter the next morning.
Cons: I’m not as funny as I think I am; I definitely say some out of pocket shit when drunk; I plan on doing sober Lent again, which would mean I couldn’t post for the next two months.
@PhoneNotes_
I write everything in my notes app—from the mundane (to do lists, phone numbers, book review drafts, this very newsletter) to the ridiculous (5000 word long short stories) to the deeply humiliating (drafts of texts to Hinge dates, gleeful notes about my crush, basic math) and wildly incriminating (unsent angry post-breakup screeds, quotes from my friends). I’d post them here, with no context or editing.
Pros: I could again totally self-aggrandize and pretend this is some avant-garde, auto-fiction, alt-lit project; endless, as I have a huge backlog of 2000+ notes going back to 2012.
Cons: Mundane; ridiculous; humiliating; incriminating.
Serialized Fiction
I’d be the Charles Dickens of sorority novels in your inbox every week!
Pros: Challenging! Fun! A historied form of self-publishing I can respect!
Cons: Actually productive; a good use of my time; I don’t like Dickens.
Ye Ol’ Fanfic
I have, oh, a couple hundred thousands of words of NCIS and Harry Potter fanfiction that I wrote in middle school, and I’d publish it here weekly. You wanna read a 2006 Gothic origin story for Fenrir Greyback? (Summary: he’s evil because his muggle father tricked him into killing his best friend! Tragic!) How about a Lily/James/Sirius love triangle by a thirteen year old who’d never been kissed? And speaking of serialized fiction: shoutout to all my fanfiction writers keeping the form alive! Y’all are doing God’s work.
Pros: Honestly, there isn’t really any positive in this for me.
Cons: Besides the obvious, it’s all already published online.
Fight Club
In which I’d only respond to Olek and George’s blogs (George’s blog TK), refuting everything they say, regardless of whether or not I disagree with it.
Pros: I love fights; good for all of our SEO.
Cons: Olek is a molecular biologist getting a PhD at UC Irvine, George is a philosophy-reading computer-engineering savant, and I’m a creative writing major who mostly has no idea what they’re talking about; also, I don’t really care to do the amount of research it would take to fight them convincingly.
Taylor Swift / Bachelor Nation Recap Nightmare Hell Zone
Probably the least popular of all my ideas, you’d get a weekly recap of all my Taylor Swift/Bachelor related thoughts.
Pros: Maybe if I put these thoughts on paper, I won’t subject my friends to frantic texts and verbal screeds about two pop culture items they don’t really care about.
Cons: Maybe by writing about them, I’ll further my obsession, creating neural canals so deep that I will forever be a Bachelor Nation Swiftie, which, of all the totally humiliating things I’ve described, is definitely the worst.
Next review on Book Notes IG
I’m probably not going to do any of the above. Or maybe I’ll do a little of all it. Maybe I’ll get sick of this project in a month. Maybe in the cold light of sober Lent I’ll rethink my entire life and, like, disavow having an online presence altogether. You never know (or at least, I never know). You could, I dunno, vote in the comments (which should be at the bottom of this email) for what you want to read, and I could, I dunno, pretend to take that into account the next time I sit down to write whatever my lil heart desires.[2]
Right now, I think that most emails will just be the same reviews that I post on Book Notes IG. But I hope you’re now well prepared for some emails to be totally different: something unrelated to books, something personal, something I’m still thinking through and want your feedback on before I post it to The Official Book Notes Instagram.
Thanks for subscribing. I’ll see you next week.
Yours truly,
Book Notes
PS. You can sign alllll your friends up with the below link. They’ll thank you later!
Footnotes:
[1] Did any of you somehow find this newsletter without following my Instagram? If so, please DM me because, although you are very welcome, I’m incredibly curious how you found me.
[2] Here’s a shorter list of what Book Notes Newsletter will never be:
A list of links — or a list of any kind. I know, I know. This is the only exception, I hope. No shade to all the list-y newsletters. But a part of why I want to do this is to improve my writing, and writing lists constantly isn’t going to help.
Ironic — I deeply believe that being earnest is important in your writing.
Inconsistent — see you every Tuesday!
I reserve the right to occasionally break these rules.