The Plan - The Origin Story Behind The Crow

A quick glimpse behind the curtain

Photo credit - Ruth Foster

1.

Here at The Crow, I try to write thoughtful and beautiful pieces that, hopefully, you enjoy reading and might mull over for a while. I think of writing as a craft and I want to become a skilled craftsperson and create beautiful writing. And there is so much I want to write about, so much I want to say and right now I’m learning how, the hard way, here, on stage, in front of you.

Sometimes it’s more successful and sometimes less so. And sometimes it doesn’t matter because you’ll take from my writing whatever you want, regardless of what I think I’m trying to do or say.

And, I guess sometimes I think I’m too oblique, I think I’m trying to pack immense worlds into the smallest spaces, extrapolate huge feelings from tiny slices of time, folding political and social and philosophical observations into writing about forest walks or small family moments or memoir style glimpses or short fiction. I don’t know.

I am loving the whole process. Substack is an amazing space for me. I’ve come across some extraordinary writing and some truly wonderful people. I find myself thinking of you, rooting for you, caring for you. And I am immensely grateful that you take the time to read my writing and for the kind comments and encouragement you give me. I think of you as genuine “writers” and myself as a soon-to-be-uncovered fraud. You know, good ol’ imposter syndrome.

I have imposter syndrome for a reason. I’ve only been doing this “writing” thing for a short time. Let me rephrase that. I’ve only been writing what I want for a short time.

The truth is I’ve always wanted to be a writer. The problem was I never actually did the writing. I did the people watching and the thinking and the drinking red wine. I did the reading and the philosophical discussing of anything and everything. I did the dope smoking and the righteous abandoning of jobs because they were pointless, unfulfilling and morally indefensible. I did the learning, and the thinking (because I’ve always had an unquenchable curiosity to see beyond the facade, to disassemble the symbolic bullshit and discover something more in this world). But I didn’t do the actual writing. I was a writer without a pen.

So, to discover if I could become a writer I needed a plan that would force me to do some actual writing. So, 18 months ago I devised a plan.

2.

First I have to come clean about a dirty little secret - I love Arsenal football (soccer) club. So, now you know. Please don’t cancel your subscription. Football fans are human too!

Anyway, back to my plan.

First, I bought a subscription to The Athletic (a sports website) where they post daily Arsenal articles with comment threads below. I started commenting on a regular basis. The plan was to build up recognition amongst fellow subscribers by posting comments under the articles, so that when I started writing about Arsenal myself some would come and read.

Then I started commenting every day for months. I treated every comment as a mini masterpiece. I paid careful attention to the metaphors and the sentence construction. I considered each comment as a story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. I thought about pace and tone and style.

And it worked. People began to notice my comments. Even the professional writers on the site began to comment on my comments. Arsenal writer (and legend) Amy Lawrence (who has written some brilliant books on Arsenal players and the club) began to encourage me to actually take up writing! It was surreal.

After a few months of commenting I started Arsenal Wonderland on Substack and posted my first ever actual self-generated piece of writing. About 30 people came from The Athletic to read my piece, called Martin Ødegaard - The Worlds Youngest Village Elder, a short article on Ødegaard’s journey from promising starlet to Arsenal captain, his personality and Scandinavian culture.

Within three days of posting the Ødegaard article I received an email from Ødegaard’s PR and media manager. It was full of praise about my writing, my ability to capture his story and personality, and it said that Martin Ødegaard himself loved it. Now things were getting more surreal.

As an Arsenal fan this was thrilling enough, but as an “aspiring writer” I was on cloud 9. For about two hours I was convinced I was about to win the Nobel Prize for Football Writing (it should exist). I bought a book about pitching non-fiction to publishers and sailed off into la la land.

Then, I got on with writing a weekly article on the club, the players, the games and whatever else popped into my head, with the idea that eventually I’d quit football writing and commence writing The Crow.

My followers grew and grew and after a few months I had a few hundred subscribers and regularly achieved a few thousand reads. I was totally blown away, but also strangely anxious. For all the meager success Arsenal Wonderland was achieving, it was worrying because I didn’t really want to write about football. That was just a plan to force myself to write. What I wanted to write about was life.

So eventually I took the plunge and launched Jonathan Foster’s The Crow on October 27th, 2023 with a piece called Scribble And Shout. 30 people read it. A few people I’d never met actually commented. It was wonderful. Tiny steps in the right direction.

Since then The Crow has managed to gather about 230 followers. Not anything like the quick growth of Arsenal Wonderland but amazing considering there isn’t a global footballing brand with millions of fans waiting for content attached to it, and it’s basically just my whitterings.

So how is my plan going? Am I learning to write?

Well, I think so, I’m even quite proud of some of my posts. I think I’m improving as a “writer” and even though I still have imposter syndrome, it’s subsiding. I think I’m learning to say things with a “voice” and I’ve been building up a world of images and ideas that are unique to The Crow (I hope). I stay eternally optimistic that eventually, if I keep going, I’ll be able to feel like a writer and who know’s, eventually write something valuable.

So, one month away from the first birthday of The Crow, imagine that my ridiculous notion of starting commenting on a football site has led me to writing this piece. Funny old world.

I just want to say a heart felt thank you. I truly appreciate you reading and commenting and all your kindness. This is a wonderful space and I’ve learnt so much from you all, so thanks :)