Less work and more money: About this space (circa half a year in)

So far, so good…

In one of my favorite movies, A Man For All Seasons, Thomas More—“no longer a great man,” and no longer able to support a great household—asks his steward Matthew if he will stay on. “There will be more work and less money,” More says frankly, and Matthew, his face falling, says that he doesn’t see how he can. “Quite right, Matthew—why should you?” More agrees. It’s not a great value proposition!

Why am I feeling a little like More in this scenario? Well…

When I launched this Substack in late January, I knew I needed a new home for writing that didn’t fit at Decent Films, the central home of all my film writing. Long, long ago, I was a frequent guest blogger at my friend Jimmy Akin’s blog … and then for many years I had a blog at the National Catholic Register website when I was writing for them. Those days are long over. In the interim, other than stuff I sold, I had no place to put anything, which made it hard to write just because I wanted to. Sometimes I posted awkwardly long thoughts on Facebook? Clearly it was a problem, but I could never quite work up the motivation to improve the situation.

What finally helped me overcome my inertia was Pope Francis declaring 2024 a “Year of Prayer.” I preach fairly regularly as a deacon, and so I decided to preach a series of homilies on prayer throughout the year—and with that decision I knew I needed a place to collect those homilies. Then, when Dune came out, having a new place to write stuff inspired me to write about Dune and The Lord of the Rings, though of course that could have gone at Decent Films. More significantly, I was moved to labor over a longform piece on Catholic antisemitism and translation issues regarding the phrase “the Jews” in the Catholic New American Bible—a piece that has improbably become the most popular thing I’ve written here so far!

When yet another round of renewed scrutiny of Donald Trump’s “very fine people” remark converged with a typically reality-defying comment about Trump thinking George Washington “probably” didn’t own slaves, I was ready. (Full disclosure: I have a longform piece in the pipeline also about the former president!) I was ready for St. Maria Goretti’s memorial day, and I was glad to have a place to showcase my 18-year summer-vacation obsession with sculpting Christ crucified in sand, along with an anniversary poem I wrote for Suz.

It’s a motley assortment of content, to be sure, along with my epically obsessesive mega-series in progress on meaning and nihilism in superhero multiverse movies (more to come, including a look at Deadpool & Wolverine) and much shorter pieces on subjects like silly poetry about Alan Rickman. Even I can’t tell you what the focus of my writing here is! Who on earth actually wants to read all of this, or even most of it, except a few close friends and family members?

Don’t get me wrong—if you’re just here for the movie content, or for the homilies, or whatever, and blithely skipping past random stuff you don’t care about, I’m delighted that you’re here! If you stumbled across this site at random, or if you subscribed accidentally when signing up for another Substack, and you happen find my writing just diverting enough not to unsubscribe, welcome—I’ll do my best to continue to be worth reading. That’s why God created free subscriptions!

For some reason, though, a fair number of you have actually pledged to give me money if and when I activate paid subscriptions. (Bless you. I do need money!) I wasn’t sure when I launched this site if I would ever pull that trigger, but I decided to give it six months or so to see what kind of value I could offer to readers and what kind of reader engagement I would get, from subscriptions and reading rates to pledges. On all counts, I’m pleased with how it’s gone. My readership is growing nicely; I’ve got a gratifying number of pledges; and I’ve been able to write quite a bit, particularly in the last few months.

The thing is, though, as a teacher I’ve had the summer off—and it’s now mid-August. Starting in September, though I hope to continue writing as much as I can, my productivity will drop off again. Nevertheless, for a number of reasons, the time has come to activate paid subscriptions, and I plan to do so shortly.

And this is where I feel a bit like More, but in reverse. More offered less money for more work; I’m promising less work (starting in September) but asking for more money (more than zero). Again, not a great value proposition! Not planning to subscribe? Quite right—why should you?

Here’s some more cold water: So far, every word I’ve published online, I’ve given away for free. (I’ve been paid by publishers, and I’ve written some stuff for books that you can’t read without acquiring the books—but my words have never appeared online behind a paywall, so far as I’m aware.) And I have no plans to paywall content here. (The one thing I may occasionally do is restrict commenting on certain pieces to paid subscribers.)

The bottom line is that a subscription here won’t even get you elite access to premiere content hidden from the freeloading masses! No, if you choose to give me money, it will be a gift. A gift that helps me in some way to support my family, but a true gift, not a purchase. (For what it’s worth, there was a pledge threshold I had hoped to reach before activating paid subscriptions, and I’m almost there—one more pledge would do it. If you are the one reader who decides to make that pledge now, just before I activate paid subscriptions, it would mean a lot to me!)

And that’s all I have to say about that, except, of course: Thanks for reading.