On the Eve of The Unbelievable Thousand
I'm about to reach that milestone, happily of course, but what does it really mean?
As of this moment—9 A.M. EST, December 1, 2023—I’m nine subscriptions away from reaching One Thousand Subscribers. 991 and holding…
Is that wacky? Unbelievable!
I’m just going to say it:
Who, me? How could that be? Aww… You guys…!!
I’ll save you the weepy acceptance speech. (There’s a prize, right?) I wouldn’t even know what to say. And besides—where are those other 941 warm bodies? I mean, at most there are around 50 of you kind and generous friends who show up here and, even without the requisite refreshments, seem to have a good time. (Sorry, I’m out of everything! The snowplow came through and blocked off my driveway and I can’t get out!)
But, seriously—Substack is telling me I’m getting thisclose to that magic number. One freaking THOUSAND.
I know a thousand is not a big number to those of you who have tens or even hundreds of them, and I know it seems like a big number to those of you who aren’t even close, but I think I’m making a big deal of it today, even before it really happens, because I’m surprised at how much it feels like a milestone to me. Not exactly ‘validation’. More like WooHoo!
I do like WooHoos.
I’ve been thinking about what I can do to celebrate (assuming it’s going to happen) and, of course, because this is so unexpected, I’m drawing a blank. Nothing special comes to mind.
And because, now that I’ve announced it, I feel as if I should do something, I’m going to do what might turn out to be an embarrassing bust. But it’s all I can come up with:
I’m going to open this up, just this once, to questions you might want to ask me.
Anything
Anything at all.
And I really hope some of you will ask questions. Because I might just die if you don’t…
I worry, too, that you won’t be able to think of any questions and there I would be again. Egg on my face. So here are a few prompts:
Hey, Mona, is it true you only have 26 credits in ‘higher education’ and a bunch of them are CERAMICS-related?
So you got married when you were 18 years old and it was the 1950s. Was it a shotgun wedding? If not, what were you THINKING??
Did you really just walk into a newspaper office and say you wanted a job? With no experience? And they gave you one?
Did you really get fired from your job as a weekly columnist one morning and head over to the Detroit Free Press that afternoon and ask them for a (freelance) job? And they gave you one?
Did you really flub so badly when you were introducing Elmore Leonard at a writers’ conference that you heard someone in the audience say, “Who IS that woman?”
What was Joyce Carol Oates like? (Okay, this is a freebie: I don’t know. She barely said two words all through dinner and neither of them were directed at me.)
I know you were born a Yooper1 but why the heck did you want to leave the city and go back to being a Yooper?
Are there wolves up at your cabin? Do they howl at night? (A twofer.)
You know you’re older than Joe Biden, right? So why are you still hanging around?
Or maybe you could actually ask me some questions about writing, which might be better anyway, since this little salon here is called ‘Writer Everlasting’ and I like to pretend I actually know something.
Just don’t make them too hard. (See first prompt above.)
So have at it. I’m begging you. Don’t leave me hanging here on this day when I’m supposed to be celebrating. Thank you very much. Very, very much.
UPDATE: Monday, 12/4/32, 7:40 AM. After four solid days of ups and downs (yes, downs), I can finally report that I’ve reached that 1K mark. Now that it’s taken that long, be assured I won’t be bothering you with any more milestones. At least not before they’ve happened! 🙄🫢
Have you visited my other Substack, Constant Commoner? It’s where I pretend I’m an actual writer.
If you could throw a buck or two into the pot I might be able to get my driveway plowed. Then I could get out and get refreshments.
Yooper: someone who lives in or was born in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. (Da U.P, eh?)
Wahoo for you! I love your writing, so I can see why others have subscribed. I’m just younger than you, and I never worked as a writer before, but I wish I would have. I once took an article to the newspaper after my divorce forty years ago and asked if they thought I could be a column writer for them. I was told my writing was good, but I need to cut some words out. Edits were suggested. I was encouraged to make them and come back because they were interesting in me and my pitch. I never went back. I was too scared. My question: how did you have the courage to walk into that newspaper office and ask for a job. And why did you want that job?
I will see your Wa-Hoo and raise you a WOOT-WOOT!
I've got hundreds to go before I reach 1000, so thank you for modeling that this is A BIG DEAL and when I get there I get to celebrate. I'm so happy for you!
Here's a question for you, since you seem to have a history of meeting famous writers... Who's your favorite writer you've ever met? What's that story?