It’s common among sitcom TV writers to wish they could go back and re-do their first few episodes. They’re still figuring out the characters, the timing, and how everyone gels on set. The North Star isn’t immediately visible.
Well, you might have noticed that my entries into your inbox have so far arrived tardy. That’s because my North Star isn’t immediately visible. Trust, I had a goal coming into this: I (a Dutch-American) wanted to cover the Eredivisie (a league with no dedicated American coverage) in a way that is accessible. Usually, reading a soccer article requires you to decipher soccer-specific terms, and most of what they’re discussing flies over your head because you’re missing context—that’s exactly what I wanted to do differently.
In the back of my mind, this blog is something I could send to my most American of American friends (e.g. an Idahoan who works in banking; a Wisconsinite who works as an attorney) and they could immediately understand the story of what’s going on. But how does one best do that? For Week 1, I focused on the games; but I also recognize that this “structure” of formatting for a soccer blog is already an invisible barrier to entry, because me saying “let’s preview PSV v. Excelsior” means nothing to you unless you know who those teams are, what’s interesting about them, and why they matter. And so for Week 2, I tried a bit more of a looser, less-structured vibe akin to someone talking to you at a bar about the games. Ultimately, I think the right answer is somewhere in between. It’s also important that I finish my “Eredivisie overview” article, which is meant to help you choose which team to support, but would also provide context. I think that a potential solution is having a living, breathing “Context” document that lists each team and tells you what’s going on with them currently. But even that raises questions: what makes the cutoff for interesting?
Do I continue doing the little flags to signify non-Dutch people? Do I continue linking to Wikipedia pages, or does that mean nothing when there’s no photo? Maybe, I should instead link to Instagram pages, but that doesn’t tell you about their playing history. There are just so many questions in addition to these that I must face and answer through the most effective strategy: trial-and-error.
All in all, I’m a textbook over-thinker. Usually, that benefits me, but in moments like these, I think the added element of you, a spectator, puts that into overdrive. And that’s on me.
Relatedly, a big reason why I’ve been slower with Orangerie has been because I, at the same time, launched another blog: Heterofactual, a blog that recaps episodes of a reality TV series & franchise (go subscribe!!!). But I didn’t tell anyone about it because spoilers were more of a threat. It’s been easier to find my North Star for that one. But that’s also being written more for the insider’s ear—I think part of my struggle for the Orangerie is that I haven’t decided how much my audience knows about soccer.
Either way, thank you for subscribing and receiving (and hopefully reading?) my erratic Eredivisie posts.
It took a whole season of The Office (US) for them to make things click. I won’t take a whole season. And I’m sure that in due time, we’ll reach the Substack-equivalent of an Emmy.