Note: Views contained in this blog represent mine alone and explicitly do not represent those of my institutional affiliates including, but not limited to, the Medical College of Georgia, SNaHP, PsychSIGN, and AMA-MSS.
Introduction
Hello, I’m a third-year medical student who likes to write in my free time about a range of topics including narrative essays, health policy op-eds, poetry, and book reviews. My writing style ranges from reflective to polemical (sometimes both within the same piece).
I started a Substack in November 2020 because up until that point, I had frequently listed writing as one of my hobbies but have never started anything close to a blog. Sitting in my OneNote were pages of journal entries, essays, and opinion pieces. And very little of it has seen the light of day.
Until now. Rather than using it as a mailing list with recurring newsletters, I use Substack as a blog. I do not have a publishing schedule, and there is no unifying theme for the blog. I write whatever I want, whenever I want (or can).
Why Substack?
Just like the next person, I find Substack to be the simplest to use. WordPress requires way too much effort to make it look nice. Medium is nice but now has paywalls. The other platforms out there are too niche and are lacking in visibility.
One unique reason why I like Substack is the flexibility it offers in “unpublishing” (rather than having to delete the post) as well as editing the date of the post.
Why do these come in handy for me? I am someone who wants to share my writing with the world as soon as I am done with a piece, like within 2 seconds. I do not like waiting to hear back from editors.
What I usually do when I am interested in submitting to another outlet or journal is that I post a draft of my piece here first, continue to work on it, and when I am ready to submit, there is typically a requirement that the "work has not appeared anywhere in print or online, including personal blogs…"
So, I temporarily remove my piece from my blog until I hear back from them. When finally published in an official outlet, I repost my piece on the blog, and I change the date to the same day it was published in the outlet.
Why do I do this? Because I believe my blog is my blog, not an "online publication." The notion of one listing their own blog post on their CV as a "publication" would be laughable. So why does it suddenly count as a "publication" when I am submitting? We cannot have it both ways.
