Welcome to the Storyletter Meet & Greet. Please introduce yourself, your Substack, and your current project! You don’t have to be a writer to participate.
After a short intro, let us know what you’ve learned about yourself from writing publicly. Or, alternatively, what is something you wish you knew when you started? Then, try to respond to another member’s comment to keep the discussion going and meet someone new.
Here’s my intro and answer as an example:
Hello, I’m Winston. I live in Utah. I served 12 years in the military. I have a miniature schnauzer named Vinnie. I started a publishing company in order to learn the ropes and help others in the process. I’ve dedicated my Substack to platforming independent writers and creators. I’m currently working on my first collection of short fiction and poetry for a 2023 release.
I’ve learned so much since joining Substack, not only as a writer, but as a person. It’s always a great experience meeting and interacting with each of you. If I had to choose only one thing, it’d be that I’ve discovered how best to activate my drive to write fiction. I don’t enjoy sitting on projects too long. I like to craft something for a bit, then hit publish when I think it’s ready. The perk of this has been an iterative process that has now helped me finish projects I wouldn’t have otherwise completed. It can be messy, as first and second drafts generally are, but if that’s what it takes, then I’ll have to lean into it to make it work.
Can’t wait to meet you, and hear what you’ve learned! ~ WM
I've been learning how to serially or sequentially share my sketchbooks and artist books. I'm experimenting with sharing my paintings here too. I've discovered that I enjoy sharing my sketchbooks and artist books on Substack because they're more accessible than these same works are in galleries or museums. I love working with galleries and museums - but here on Substack it's so immediate, so full of details, so intimate... I think I'm becoming addicted 😁
Hello Sue, it's nice to meet you. That is so cool that you're utilizing Substack as a way to display your artwork. How do you like the interface of Substack for it? Such as the gallery feature? I haven't used it myself, but it seems like a great way to get your work out there for more people to see. I follow Karen Davis' Life in the Real World and she posts her photography weekly and I really enjoy it. I just subscribed to yours. I look forward to enjoying yours as well! Thanks for stopping by to comment. :)
So kind of you to subscribe! Thank you! I like the interface of Substack very much! I like it's ease of use. I like it that newsletters actually go to people rather than spam folders. I like it that my images can be easily zoomed or pinched to enlarge them. I like it that I can paywall things that I don't want very public. I like being able to connect easily with other artists, writers, readers and thinkers - and not get very spammed and trolled (I hope this platform can maintain that and make it easy to block those who try to spam, troll or proselytize religion). I like Notes a lot too! As far as the gallery feature goes I haven't gotten that to work for me yet. I also struggle with creating links. I'm certain I just haven't fiddled with it enough yet. But I'm loving the simplicity and straightforwardness of the platform so I'm quite happy and enjoying!! Thanks again for subscribing! Thanks for your work too!! I've subscribed to you also!!
Hello Winston -- thanks for hosting this great space for fellow writers and fiction lovers. I'm Dan and I live in Carmel on California's central coast. I grew up on a steady drip of fantasy and sci-fi -- it didn’t matter if it was a book, comic, movie, magazine or video game (even Zork!). Like most people, life gets in the way sometimes, but I’ve always kept journals of notes and ideas. Over the past few years I’ve finally started using those journals to write my stories. I'm currently in the final stages of editing the first novel of a gothic urban fantasy duology that's set in coastal California and have also finished the first draft of another fantasy story that I'm bursting at the seams to start editing. However, along the way, I've written dozens of smaller stories ranging from shorts to novellas that I am going to start publishing on my Substack, detect magic.
I've been on Substack as a reader for more than a year now and enjoy its quiet simplicity, but I was also watching how fiction writers and readers were engaging with it. Let's just say this - last week I launched detect magic and I now wish I would've jumped in long ago. I'm still working out the details but it was a relief to hit publish on my first one shot story. Sometimes it's hard to quiet the voices in our heads constantly talking to us - imposter syndrome anyone? So that's what I've learned. Just go for it. No better way to hone you're writing than to put it out there.
Thanks again to you for this community space and to Substack for making it all so simple for us.
Hey Dan, it's nice to meet you. Wow! Carmel is nice. I lived in Monterey for 2 years and would visit Carmel on the weekends every now and then. Beautiful weather. And those books and stories sound great. So you're in the editing phase of the first novel? How is that going? I'm also at a stage where I need to start editing but it keeps being put on the backburner. Not sure why. Time, I suppose.
You launched last week?! Welcome to Substack. Glad you've taken the leap to start publishing your work publicly. I think now is such a great time to join as new features like Notes and Recommendations have really helped people grow faster than ever. Last year was a grind in comparison.
Great lesson in learning by doing. That has been so helpful for me lately. I've been wanting to start a YouTube channel but keep procrastinating because it won't be very good at first. But like you said, no better way than to just start.
Thanks for stopping by. Sorry it took so long for me to respond. Busy week and they keep getting busier it seems! Hope to interact with you more on here and read your work. :)
Hey Winston - Nice to meet you too. Look me up if you're ever down this way again.
Editing has been a great learning process for me. I had a developmental edit done and the output from that was fantastic. It created some additional work for me but it's all been worth it and I feel the story is stronger for it. So overall a good use of time and money for me. I love my editor and she really got what I was trying to do with the story but challenged me to make it better, deeper and more concise. It's hard sometimes to keep at the edits but then I think of all the other things I want to write and that gets me back to work on them.
I agree about Substack - it just took me too long to take the plunge. I keep reading great things from other people on here and that just makes me work harder. I'm trying to balance my novel writing with what I'm doing on Substack so still working on the cadence of my posts but super excited about the possibilities. I'm pretty sure I'll start a serial novel on detect magic (my substack) later this year but have to get through the final 8 chapters of this edit first!
Good luck with the YouTube channel - what would your content be focused on?
Thanks again for noticing me 😁 and see you around!
I'll definitely do so! I have some friends out there right now for school. I wonder if I'll be able to travel over there to meet them soon. I'll let you know!
You're doing it the right way. Finishing the story before publishing it. I accidentally started a serial last year that was supposed to be 10 chapters and ended up being 30 lol. It helped me write a novel but there was a lot of undue stress involved. I hope to fix that will any upcoming serials by finishing them beforehand, at least a first draft.
The YouTube channel would likely be about writing, live readings, and books mostly. I just don't know the format or if people would find it interesting. What if it functioned like an open mic where anyone could request to come on and read a piece of their work? Hmmm.
Hey - I'm Cameron! Nice to meet everyone. I write fantasy/sci-fi fiction, commentary and reviews for my newsletter Verse. I started writing my substack about six months ago and it's been the best decision I've made. I love the community of writers and discovering new newsletters and I find it really motivating to keep writing and publishing my own work.
At the moment I'm focusing my commentary on transmedia storytelling because that's my background of research. Then I'm writing a series of fantasy short stories that collect different perspectives to tell the story of The Great Fire. Like a lot of people, I've learned to be happy with my work and just get it out there - which is very refreshing.
I'm still figuring out the best way to release my newsletter. At the moment it's twice a week with commentary on Tuesdays and fiction on Thursdays but I'm worried it's too frequent... Some interesting chat here about frequent/infrequent posts! At first I thought the more the merrier but now that I've found so many great newsletters I'm thinking of alternating weeks for fiction and commentary so that it's not too much for readers. But we'll see!
Hey Cameron! Nice to meet you, too. So happy you've liked Substack so far.
Transmedia sounds interesting. Is that how storytelling translates into various mediums? Like how a comic book could be digital, animated panels instead of printed?
Your short story series sounds compelling. I love that shorter fiction allows for such a wide range of approaching a world or a series. Plus, it works for sites like Substack where readers can enjoy it in bite-sized chunks.
I hear you on the frequency thing. I think there's a balance to be said about what it is you're writing and how frequently that needs to go out to your audience. I wouldn't stress about competing for attention with other Substacks per se, because the inevitable marker becomes not posting at all due to the sheer amount of stuff being sent out all the time. Twice a week is great for starting out! Ultimately, choose a schedule that works best for you and your peace of mind.
Thanks for stopping by to share! Glad you're here.
Hello everyone! I’m Shaina and I write Kindling, a horror/speculative fiction/banned book newsletter.
Honestly I’ve had a range of emotions since writing publicly. Until 8 months ago, I had never shared my fiction with anyone. Now I’ve written a handful of short stories and dozens of long form articles for mostly strangers! I’ve felt utter despair, embarrassment, elation, and most of all, realized that this is really the world I want to be in. Not Substack in particular, but in the writer/reader community. It’s made me work hard, take myself more seriously, and humbled me. I’ve loved it!
Hey, Shaina. It's great to hear your experience described that way. You've hit the nail on the head. There's so much growth that occurs with posting publicly like this. I'm glad that you find that it's working for you. It's such a supportive environment and fosters a lot of inspiration and creativity.
I'm super interested in your recent post about Lolita. I saved it, but am looking forward to reading it.
I've had very similar feelings and experiences, especially around keeping my writing private. I guess that's out the window for both of us now. Keep it up!
Hi, I'm Jacquie. I live on a farm in the Hudson Valley with a small herd of horses and an Australian Shepherd named Maisie. My main project is a historical fiction trilogy set in the 5th c. BCE among Scythian steppe nomads. The first volume, Of Wind and Wolves, is up on my Substack, and I'm currently revising Book 2. I have a mild obsession with ancient history, but I occasionally branch out into other genres, and am pushing myself to try more short fiction. Substack has been great for pushing me outside my comfort zone and opening my work up to some helpful feedback.
Hey Jacquie, thank you for sharing. How long have you lived in the Hudson Valley? I haven't traveled north past Baltimore, but I want to some day. I've landed in Bangor, Maine for a layover lol. There's also a tantalizing job opportunity over in Massachusetts. I don't know what it's like up there!
I’ve been here about 15 years now (time flies!) I love it, especially in spring and fall :-) I don’t know a ton about Mass, but I’m near the spot where NY, CT, and MA all meet and I think it’s a really cool little corner of the world with a lot of history and some wonderful character. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, come for a visit!
I'm Redd, I mainly write science fiction fantasy short stories and 'novellas' at https://reddoscarwrites.substack.com . I have been writing for almost 5 years but only in the last year started writing short stories. A whole different game to novels I've found. My current project is using a load of writing prompts that I found over the last 6 months and writing standalone short stories. The idea is to push myself into new genres and topics at speed.
I've learned to be happy with publishing my work when it is good enough. Or in other words I do not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. I could tinker away forever and never share anything. A twice a week schedule on Substack has helped me to 'get stuff out the door'. This fast paced method of writing has taught me how to generate, gestate, and build an idea very quickly. I love the blank page now.
I wish I knew how to leverage social media better to find the right audience for my work. Still learning and trying things in that regard.
Nice to meet you, Redd. Short stories are their own unique challenge. I only started writing short fiction since late 2019 and I really enjoy it. Most of them turn into longer pieces but that’s also part of the journey, I think.
Your lesson is very similar to what I’ve come to enjoy about writing on Substack. Yes, editing and proof-reading are important, but if you stare at it long enough, it’ll start to get stale and then you stagnate. Setting the bar high, but not so high that it becomes unreachable.
Social media is a whole different monster. I’ve seen some very successful use cases. I’m going to interview one such individual very soon to pick their brain on the subject.
Thanks for stopping by to introduce yourself. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Main thing I've learned since joining Substack is that most of the time and effort from doing social media over the last decade-or-so has been largely wasted. Met some good people, but it was all very ephemeral, and didn't really lead to anything useful. Whereas the (almost) 2 years I've spent writing on Substack have felt productive and purposeful.
Talking of which - I write serialised, weekly fiction that I send out on Fridays. Current project is a long-running science fiction crime thriller anthology called Tales from the Triverse. On Mondays I send out writing tips/insights.
Holy crap, Simon. You’re making me think about all of the time on social media where I didn’t really commit to building anything…. It is pretty nuts when you put it like that. I agree that the last 2 years has been exponentially better and much more conducive to writing with purpose.
I don't mind so much the more social side. But for a long time I thought I was 'building' some sort of platform and furthering my ambitions as a writer, by sharing stuff across multiple social networks. And that really wasn't the case, for the most part.
The ephemeral nature of other forms of social media is such a discouragement. Substack, in just the few short weeks I’ve been using it, has felt like a small treasure trove filled with gems.
In fact, you are one of my favorite gems so far! I’ve joined in with your latest Triverse entries (and am excited to go through your earlier ones), and your writing tips have been very practical and insightful.
Simon’s stuff is awesome! I’m 3/4 of the way through his post-apocalyptic novel “No Adults Allowed”. Entertaining read for sure. I’m still relatively at the beginning of the Triverse series. Slowly but surely.
It feels much more intentional here and because it is interest based, the conversation is usually more engaged and meaningful. Also, slow is a a great word for it too, thanks for that. I look forward to reading your work and tips.
It’s so interesting how many different people are saying similar things about their experience on Substack. It’s especially striking, to me, how many have found that writing in this space is re-igniting their passion or else maintaining the flame. That gives me a lot of hope!
One thing about Substack that I am learning is that it moves at a (wonderfully, blessedly) slow pace compared to other social media platforms. I am so excited to spend the next few days looking through everyone’s Substacks who has introduced themselves here.
Thank you so much for this meet and greet. What a wonderful idea.
Hey, Michael. Nice to meet you. Substack has kept me accountable and has motivated more than any other platform. I've written so much more in the past 2 years after joining. That alone is a huge plus for me. And it does move at a slower pace. I hadn't thought of it like that. It's much more nuanced and thoughtful, with a tendency to facilitate discussion rather than the shouting down of opposing ideas. I love it!
Thanks for stopping by to introduce yourself and your Substack.
Hello, I’m Priya. I started on Substack a month ago and I talk about late blooming, midlife, and my attempt to finish my first novel, a fairy tale. Writing in isolation vs writing within a community (Substack) has helped anchor my writing, making it more real and me, accountable.
Greetings, Priya! Nice to meet you. I love your quote from C.S. Lewis on your About page. It's so important to keep imagination alive no matter what stage in life. Community is key for me. I can't write without surrounding myself with other like-minded, driven folks who want to succeed. Otherwise, I don't have the motivation to complete or publish anything. Substack has been great in that regard.
I’m Matt. I mostly write science fiction and horror through a queer lens. I also love a good rambling essay about Star Wars. Beyond writing, I’ve got a cat called Gizmo and an unhealthy obsession with collecting Star Wars memorabilia.
I’ve learned so much since starting my Substack but for me, the biggest thing has been the confidence. The confidence to share my work with out worrying if it’s ‘ready’ or not. The confidence to engage with others on here and foster wonderful relationships. The confidence to share my passions with my fledgling community.
My current project is a science fiction universe that’s equal parts Star Wars/Star Trek/Hellraiser/Welsh mythology with just a dash of 90s Disney for good measure. I’m releasing a mixture of short stories and ‘lore’ on my Substack in the lead up to (hopefully) self publishing a novel later this year.
Hey Matt, thanks for stopping by to introduce yourself. I've been enjoying Altered Narrative for several months now, and love what you're doing! And I think there is an entire sub-economy of work on the internet just surrounding Star Wars commentary. It's apparently a great gateway to other creative folks I've noticed. Must be because it's a multi-generational cultural reference point that many people can relate to, among other things.
Confidence is a great lesson. It's an important marker in overcoming the crippling elements of self-doubt, procrastination, and perfectionism. It's also an interesting relationship with ego, which we all have and can be humbling to grapple with in the public arena.
Your project sounds insanely awesome. I hope to read some of those short stories. Are you looking forward to the new Evil Dead Rise movie?
Thank you for your support! It's be fantastic diving into some of the awesome content out there surrounding Star Wars just as a fan. It's always great to be able to talk about the kind of stuff I love with like minded people and Substack has been really great at facilitating that. On Evil Dead Rise, I can't want to check it out! Booked my ticket today actually.
Hi, I am Alistair. I live in Florida. I have been a civil rights lawyer for almost 12 years and began the process of stopping the practice of law a while ago. I had reached a personal kairos and decided to change my life. I picked up my writing after too many years away and the poetry has flowed out of me ever since.
I have always made perfectionism a convenient excuse for my procrastination with many things, writing included, so I resolved to stop that and started a substack called "Delight in the Attempt" a little more than a year ago now. Since then I have been ruthlessly publishing my poetry and proems and other little bits since then.
My writing tends toward mysticism, a fancy way for saying I am using my poetry to grapple with my fundamental questions and ideas about myself and my relationship with understanding reality. Poems as self-organizing systems are fertile ground for my explorations.
Starting here on substack I have learned to give up my perfectionism and procrastination. It has been freeing. It has also been freeing to have almost no one read my stuff. This has helped my ego to have a more right relationship with reality. I have discovered amazing writers and ideas on here too that have enriched my life and I have met new people as a result of that, for which I am super grateful.
In the end, I am happy to be here, throwing specks of dust into the air to see what I can make of them.
Hey, Alistair. I'm from Florida! Nice to meet you. I hear you on the life change decision as I'm currently grappling with the same desires. Glad you found your passion for writing once again. You're an inspiration for me to follow suit.
Perfectionism is the killer of dreams, I think. I've subscribed to "Delight in the Attempt" as I need more poetry in my life. I know several readers and friends of mine will love your work, and I'm eager to begin reading.
The lessons you describe are crucial in the journey of a writer, especially a writer publishing "in the open" on a site like Substack. It's much more vulnerable and it takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there. I commend you, and everyone here, for taking that leap. It's not easy.
So happy you're here, too! May our specks of dust flow through time repeatedly like the sands of an hourglass. :)
Hello, Winston and everyone! I've been writing fiction for a while, and recently - a few years ago - decided to actually put some work into it and see what happened. Since then, I've written three books (which all sucked) and one that might actually be good enough to publish, if it survives editing.
My Substack (https://wednesdayafternoon.substack.com/) is still barely born, as far as Substacks go, and has been alive for a month and a half. It features some flash fiction work and lessons I've learned about improving my own writing - things that weren't covered in the How To Write books I studied over the past few years. I'd like to keep expanding on that, and eventually build a community of writers interested in improving their own work and providing feedback to others, as well.
The biggest thing I've learned so far on Substack is that publishing my own fiction isn't as scary as I thought. There might be a mistake here and there, but I'm still learning, and so is everybody else. The most important thing is to keep writing, and keep posting, and keep honing my craft. The more I learn, the more I can help others, and more interesting my stories will be.
Nice to meet you, Olivia. Welcome to Substack and The Storyletter! So glad you're here.
I particularly appreciate your vision of helping others along the way. There's only so much we can learn by reading, the rest has to be learned by doing. In the process, we can share what we've learned to expedite the process for others.
The lesson of iterative development is so good! Create, adapt, create again. Love it!
What genres do you prefer to write in? Or are you experimenting with various styles and genres?
Thanks! Glad to be here. :) Writing is such a solitary endeavor, and it's nice to know that there are others out there trying to improve their craft, too. If I can help make their journey just a little bit shorter, that's worth it to me!
I'm still experimenting, but so far I've discovered that I like fantasy and horror. Sci-fi appeals to me, but I haven't figured out worldbuilding enough to make it successful. Same with the high fantasy political systems. My current project is more present-day, but I'd love to do something a bit more fantastical next time.
When you first started writing, did you already have a vision for the genre of stories you wanted to tell? Or was that something you developed over time?
We sound so similar. I love fantasy and horror, too, with sci-fi aspirations.
I suppose I don't think of myself as a genre writer, even though that's what I am. What I mean is, when I have an idea for a story it is devoid of genre and then as I develop it out I realize that it fits into a genre. Most of the time. There have been occasions where I set out to write a specific genre piece, but in terms of ideation, the genre comes later. But it's all very experimental and I'm happy switching up genres to tell the story I want to tell.
Where do you recommend I start with your work? What are you most excited about currently?
That makes sense! Every time I've set out to write a genre-specific piece so far, it completely falls flat. Usually the story decides which genre it wants to be in, and there's very little I seem to be able to do about that...
I don't have a lot of work posted yet, so you could probably start wherever! One of my favorite stories, though, is this one:
I'm Leigh, a writer of (mostly) horror short stories that are often set in the past. Probably the main thing I've learned is that there's more of an audience for my fairly niche stories than I thought. I don't have a large following or anything, but it's nice to know at least someone reads what I write. As a reader, I've also started to suspect that my slowness as a writer might not be as much a detriment as I thought. I follow a bunch of fiction Substacks and find it difficult to keep up with the ones that publish frequently, especially the serials. I like to believe my stories come as an unexpected but welcome surprise to my readers. :-)
Hey there, Leigh. I've saved The Other Country and the one on Distant Reaches but I haven't read them yet. Elsie is so good. I do find it difficult to keep up with Substacks. In February I decided to try to read my feed in chronological order but that quickly got out of hand and I fell a month behind. Now I'm lost in like March somewhere and I can't find my way out lol. Kidding. But it has made it much more difficult than just reading the most recent stories. The Save feature has really helped me build up a nice reading list of things to get to though.
Thank you for your kind words. I'll probably just go through and binge read the serials I like at some point, but I do feel like I'm losing some of the effect that way. I love the idea of serially published fiction. It makes me feel like a Victorian waiting for the next installment of Dickens' new novel. 😁
I've been reading J.M. Elliott's novel for almost 2 years. In a way it's much more a part of my life than other books that I read in a week or two. Strange to think about it that way. I'm also just a slow reader and I'm trying to get better at carving the appropriate time out.
I have wondered if my posting twice a week could be a detriment to readers (haha). Especially with serials. Though I do miss some days as life demands.
Apr 12, 2023·edited Apr 12, 2023Liked by Winston Malone
Yes, it can be hard to keep up with all the reading. I don't always manage in a timely fashion, but I catch up. One of the things I check out before subbing is the frequency of publication. Once or twice a week I can handle. Daily I can't do. Welcome!
Me too! I found so many Substacks that I liked, and very quickly found out that reading every single thing from all of them would take SO MUCH TIME. Suddenly the idea of an infrequent Substack sounds awesome. :) Subscribed!
I'm a US professional writer in Europe for over 20 years now. All of the book reviews, history, literature and culture in my stack (https://christopherdeliso.substack.com/) go, in one way or another, towards inspiring my work-in-progress, a series of detective stories (now halfway complete) taking place in Greece and its near abroad.
One thing I've learned that pleasantly surprised me about the Substack experience so far is how it has opened totally new and unexpected doors in print media (of all things.... newspapers) based on my newsletter research. Projects I pursued just out of a love of literature turned out to be interesting to others, for example, a newspaper in Ireland that published my work.
Hello, Chris! Thanks for stopping by. Glad to hear from you. I really like the concept of your Substack since it covers a wide spectrum of topics. What do you like to write about the most?
Detective stories are a lot of fun. I haven't written any myself as I'm not even sure that I could. Have you published any of the stories, or are you working on them all at once and then publishing later?
That is a pleasant surprise! Congrats on the publication. I think that might be a hidden advantage of Substack because even though the posts go directly to subscribers, they still exist on the web for others to stumble across while searching for topics. Very neat point!
Hey Winston, thanks for taking the time to check out and join my substack and make all these relevant points... to answer your question, I don't have one specific thing I like to write about the most as my interests shift within a sort of well-defined grouping of literary, historic and cultural topics, but the fact that I've had to make a living through non-fiction since 2002 has meant a sort of imbalance occurred in which I did not publish as much fiction as I would have liked (tho I wrote it), But this can be good as it allows for more self-editing. Hence, I am trying to rectify that now, while still also writing on non-fictional topics in shorter ways than in the past.
As for detective stories- I haven't published in this genre either and that is part of the thrill- it is a new challenge. I want to see if I can do it and if so, what new or different approach I might take. This partially developed from my studies of philowophy and Byzantine history and the Orthodox Christian heritage (Hagiography, or the lives of the saints, could be considered a form of medieval detective stories in many cases, as there are always things happening for inexplicable reasons to the characters of the narrative. And this is taken up by some modern authors of the genre as I believe I will cover in my next article in a few days, after our Easter here tomorrow.
So I do have a whole series in mind, several chapters written (both a stand-alone caper and the first few chapters of the book), which combines some of my own views of the region over the years with visits to monasteries and big picture world events (but often, the forgotten ones at least to people not from the early 200s in SE Europe), I have been working on this for 1.5 years and the final way the whole super-plot would ultimately be resolved took almost this whole time to make itself known to me. In the beginning, I had a different idea, somewhat, and about a year ago a published mystery writer cracked that I would probably see my best-laid plans for my characters change, as it is the nature of the creative business. I wish more readers knew how intricate and time-consuming the whole behind the scenes of writing can be... but I take a lot of joy and satisfaction in the concepts emerging in their own course. Every day is a learning experience!
Thank you for sharing that. I agree that writing in a new genre or style is a lot of fun. It's especially good for writers seeking to grow and learn how to write better. If someone writes in one genre for too long, their work might become derivative in some ways. That article sounds great! I'll try to check it out.
Glad you've figured out the resolution to the super-plot! Like you said, writing is insanely intricate and time-consuming. I hope that means there is a solid future for us fiction folks out there.
Hi there! I'm Lori (https://beyondforzora.substack.com), and one thing I've learned is that my short story (In Ruins) turned into a novella and is now actually closer to a novel. It's a little over 47k words, so I'm just shy of the 50k "requirement". I'm going to start the publishing process via AmazonKDP, and I just can't believe I've actually written a book! Plus, while writing this one I got an idea for my next story... so it's time to get started on that as well!
This happened to me! It's amazing how that works. I think it'll be how I write all my books moving forward. Almost like a discovery writing process, but with a rough outline of where to go. Is that how it worked for you, Lori?
Can't wait to see you publish your book! Very exciting.
My process seems to be imagining the stories almost like a movie playing in my mind.... And then I just write down however I see the scene playing out. It usually starts with a super broad idea and then I start thinking of specific moments in the story. From there I build out my characters' personalities and even more details. It may not be the best or most organized process, but it seems to be working for me!
That sounds very similar to how I do it. If I can't imagine the scene unfolding in my head, or rationalize a character action/decision, then it just won't manifest on the page. It has to excite me visually before I feel motivated to write it.
I'm Victor David, once upon a time from the states, now living in central Mexico. Three street dogs and some fruit trees.
I started Substack about 6 months ago and have been publishing my fiction weekly. My intention was simply to have a collection of my work in one place. I have a lot of influences because I love to read. People have said my work is my own genre, and I can relate to that.
The absolute best thing that has happened since I joined Substack is that I've been motivated to write. I was kind of stuck for a while, but I find lots of inspiration among the stacks. And for that I'm grateful. Good community.
Glad to hear from you, Victor. I started a Substack for the same reason, that and I felt like if I passed away suddenly, then at least a part of me would be out there in the world. Morbid, kind of, but still a motivating factor.
What story of yours do you recommend starting with?
I'm Reena and I write https://arrivalsanddepartures.substack.com/ on substack where I typically publish a poem and a photo(s) I've created usually with a pondering alongside about life, philosophy, and my own journey. I've been wandering into short shorties and essays as well but poetry is my first love. The most important thing I have learned and loved from being on Subtack for over 2 years now is that there is a whole universe of thoughtful people out there who want to have open, respectful and meaningful conversations, who like me have also tired of the hysteria, the selective outrage and ideological hissy fits of the social-media-verse. It's been wonderfully enriching and I hope it stays that way.
So nice to meet you, Reena! I've just subscribed to Arrivals and Departures. It looks amazing! And your artwork is gorgeous. I look forward to getting your posts.
I love your insight into how amazing the community of creators can be. It's truly a place that facilitates growth, learning, and compassion. I haven't seen anything like it before.
Thank you for commenting. Hope to connect with you more.
Wonderful to meet you too, Malone! Thank you for subscribing and for your kind words. This is exactly what I mean about Substack and the general atmosphere of benevolence I’ve found prevalent here. I look forward to learning more about your work and thinking… Thank you!
I'm John. I live in Utah where I work as a sports journalist and an author. My main genres as an author are science fiction and horror. I have published five novels and three short stories since 2018. My latest story, Hollow Planet, is a new release this week.
My primary substack, Strange New Worlds, (https://newworlds.substack.com) is devoted to sharing original short fiction and poetry. I also write Behind the Pages articles exploring the characters and settings of my published fiction. Additionally, I write Folklore Friday articles exploring topics related to folklore, mythology and urban legends. I'm also working on a secondary substack, the Indie Life, (https://indielife.substack.com) that I intend to be a resource to indie authors trying to market their books.
Substack has been an eye-opening experience since I joined and actively became involved on the platform. One key thing I've learned is that my fellow writers can be a source of strength and encouragement in the writing journey. The feedback I've received has given me the confidence to push my boundaries and experiment with my craft. I've grown as a writer along the way.
5 novels since 2018! That's awesome. I've been struggling to get one out over the past 10 years haha. I think 2023 is the year. I love Folklore Friday btw.
I really love the supportive community here, too. It's also connected me with other amazing people locally here in Utah such as yourself. We should meet up sometime!
I hope you're able to release a novel this year. It's a rewarding feeling. I identify with the struggle to write and publish one. Alien People took me 23 years from the time I wrote the first draft before I finally published it. The other two books in the trilogy, on the other hand, each only took a year to write and publish.
Hi Winston. Substack has provided me with the incontrovertible and quantifiable evidence for what was once a mere flickering intuition: that I write niche, but that little nook is warm enough and has the potential to be full of delightful furry creatures. 🐭
Your comments are always so entertaining, Adrian. Thanks for sharing. I love that you're thriving and approach writing with such a great attitude. I wish the warmest and most delightful of creatures to accompany your nook. What are you working on these days? Isn't your book coming out this year?
Thanks, Winston. What a great bunch of people gathering here! Reflective of the space maker himself, (Winston Spacemaker - there’s a sci-fi character if ever). Set myself a goal last Nov to try to produce a flash and a short each month - that’s been a useful motivator. So, am shaping up another short and flash at present. Suffering a bit from techified middle aged attention shred - think ferrets trapped in trouser pockets - so thinking of investing in Scrivener to bring some order to proceedings/various projects and potentially increase appropriate output.
Yes, just putting final touches to proofs and cover and then we’ll be good for 28 May launch. The novella’s now showing on Amazon for pre-order so the E-book should be available prior to that date. Trying to make the cover artwork/design memorable - like all those books from which I can’t bear to be parted. Beginning to feel like a pivotal moment in the journey. Peace
Oooo, flash n short each month sounds good. I'd like to do that, too. I get caught up in the business side of things and forget to carve out time to write fiction. It's a lot of fun though either way.
Next month! It's coming up. How did you go about the cover process? I'm currently at that stage as well and I'm unsure how I want to do it. Are you working with an artist, or doing it yourself?
Working with the designers at the publishers: a navigation between personal expression and market expectation. What are you thinking? Feeling it doesn’t harm to get a commercial eye on things.
I'm not expecting my book to sell, so I don't want to pay an artist a ton of money. However, I'd like something unique and eye-catching. I might go the minimalist approach and design something through Canva.
Someone mentioned upworks to me as the place to find good value freelance cover designers. Yeah, I’ve gone minimalist too. Partly reflects my writing style but also appropriate for the story. Same with the text style which I hadn’t thought about at all but am very pleased with.
For my own initial visuals, I spliced and rendered a couple of photos on Procreate and worked up supporting visuals on Canva - love those apps. That was the total expenditure. And totally understand the investment/returns ratio: some of it is giving-to-get but there’s a monetary fatigue line for all of us.
Being on Substack has taken the guesswork out of likely readership numbers. For me, it’s beginning to look more like a patronage than a subscription model for fiction which means a small number of paying readers who care enough to immerse and discuss. No reflective fiction writer churns out stories at the rate mag journalists publish articles. Whether that translates to a living here is another story entirely, but, ‘twas ever thus. I’m looking forward to comparing any sales of the physical book to Substack readership numbers. I suspect people might be more willing to part with cash for a physical ‘product’. Time will tell.
Greetings! My name's Jake, I'm currently based out of Connecticut, and I am a, shall we say, "triple threat." I'm a filmmaker by trade with a knack for making music and writing fiction and nonfiction. My work on Substack amounts to a single, sprawling project: 365 Infantry.
It is a speculative fiction magazine set in a distant future of sprawling dystopias, hellfire deserts, of hot-rodding, hog-riding wolven warrior. We publish free quarterly issues of 5 stories, each a part of a larger narrative within the world, plus a barrage of paid content and merchandise. The series is equal parts Mad Max, Blade Runner, and Heavy Metal (Magazine, Movie, Music and all).
Working on it has been daunting, and exciting, but the one thing making it happen on Substack has taught me is this: just keep doing it.
The stories I tell are incredibly singular. They are a blend of New Wave speculative fiction, hardboiled prose, pulp action, and dozens of other influences. And having worked on this series for almost two years now (having spent eight months developing it before launch), writing it for Substack has taught me to never let up. Deliver your work on time, polish it to the best of your ability, and don't get hung up on the tiny minutiae. There's an audience out there waiting for what you do, and you have to make it happen for them by hook or by crook.
Nice to meet you, Jake! I’ve signed up for 365 Infantry as it sounds absolutely incredible. I’m trying to do something similar with my other Substack called Tales of Havek, however, it’s something I can only work on in my spare, spare time. Although, it’s not to the scale that you’re talking about! Very impressive.
I love your lessons, too. Stay consistent, edit as much as possible, and don’t stress too much! Perfect advice for making it work on Substack.
Thanks for commenting, Jake. Keep up the great work!
Apr 12, 2023·edited Apr 12, 2023Liked by Winston Malone
That's a good mindset: polish it to the best of your ability. For me, after writing a piece, I almost always wait 2-4 weeks before publishing it. Sometimes there's a deadline with a prompt that I enjoy to do once in a while, but if not, I generally keep things around and revisit them for a while.
Hello, I am Scoot. I write Catholic Things at my main substack, the Peasant Times-Dispatch. I want to write fiction and I have a lot of fiction living in my head. I write Fiction things at my second substack, Gibberish (gibberish.substack.com). I've written and am publishing in once-a-week installments my story I am calling Sandbox Earth. The last installment will publish at the end of April, only 3 installments left, they publish on Saturdays. The first installment is here: https://gibberish.substack.com/p/sandbox-earth-ep-1 .
Sandbox Earth started as an idea I discussed with my Dad more than 10 years ago. It has lived in my head ever since, and it serves as a prequel for a larger Sci-fi Universe I am writing and would like to write more about. The premise is an inversion of the classic sci-fi trope of humanity rising to the stars in peace and unity as a planet--what if we took our petty Earthbound fights and supercharged them with the promise of untold alien technology?
Here's a quick (unpolished) pitch for Sandbox Earth:
When an alien spaceship appears in orbit, people are amazed and terrified--when a second ship arrives, wonder turns into disbelief. When the two ships fight a battle against each other, oblivious to humanity--disbelief turns into a race, and humanity climbs over each other to salvage what they can from the alien ships!
===
My biggest lesson writing on substack has been how to try to write a full story on a tight word budget. I've been challenging myself at Gibberish to write 250 word crunches and other writing exercises every week (I'm taking a break due to real life things but i'll be back to it in no time). It's helped me see that snappy cliffhangers are fun but not what a STORY is made of. So i've started orienting my work at Gibberish towards honing the art of story telling. Because everything we write is a story and should tell a story, and that requires more than cliffhangers--it requires CLOSURE. development. Depth of characters, quality prose. It's not easy. Cliffhangers are cheap and fun. Providing payoff is hard.
Looking forward to meeting others and seeing what lessons have been learned!
Love your premise for Sandbox Earth. I'll have to check it out.
I also enjoy playing with classic sci-fi tropes in my writing. For example, my first novel in my Alien People Chronicles trilogy, Alien People, does the first contact with Earth story from the alien perspective.
Love the sound of Sandbox Earth, will check it out.
I agree, cliffhangers are fun and can keep readers intrigued but a solid ending is better. I have read, and written, a lot of work that is great but the ending flops. Even when I come up with an ending first it's hard to know if it has satisfying closure. I'm always surprised by how much thought and time is needed to create a purposeful story of depth, development, and closure.
Hey Scoot, nice to meet you officially. I’ve subscribed to Gibberish and really find the premise of Sandbox Earth an intriguing one. I love how ideas can percolate in the mind for years, decades even, and still be with us. It’s those stories that we have to get out of our heads to tell the world.
I particularly connect with your lesson about writing a story on a tighter leash. I only started focusing on short stories over the last couple of years and I believe it has really helped me craft my storytelling abilities. Not saying that I wasn’t honing my skills with long form fiction, but my problem was not finishing the novels to begin with. There’s definitely something to actually finishing a project and being able to step back and say, “That’s as far as that needs to go. It’s done.” Very glad to hear that Substack has been helping you in that regard.
Thanks for introducing yourself and I can’t wait to read more from you in the future!
Hi Winston. This is a great post. I'm new to Substack and thus far have learned that it's difficult to get new subscribers. :) But I've enjoyed the process very much.
Hey, Jim! So nice to meet you. You've written quite a few books it appears. I love epic fantasy so your Substack is right up my alley.
It is difficult to get new readers, but with the new features like Recommendations, Notes, and Cross-posts, I believe it'll be exponential. Glad you're liking the process at least.
Hi Winston! If you're an ebook person, book 1 of The Death Wizard Chronicles, a six-book epic fantasy for mature audiences, is on promotion for only 99 cents. However, trade paperbacks are available but they aren't on promotion. The books are not standalones and must be read in order. I'd be honored! Thank you.
I've been learning how to serially or sequentially share my sketchbooks and artist books. I'm experimenting with sharing my paintings here too. I've discovered that I enjoy sharing my sketchbooks and artist books on Substack because they're more accessible than these same works are in galleries or museums. I love working with galleries and museums - but here on Substack it's so immediate, so full of details, so intimate... I think I'm becoming addicted 😁
Hello Sue, it's nice to meet you. That is so cool that you're utilizing Substack as a way to display your artwork. How do you like the interface of Substack for it? Such as the gallery feature? I haven't used it myself, but it seems like a great way to get your work out there for more people to see. I follow Karen Davis' Life in the Real World and she posts her photography weekly and I really enjoy it. I just subscribed to yours. I look forward to enjoying yours as well! Thanks for stopping by to comment. :)
So kind of you to subscribe! Thank you! I like the interface of Substack very much! I like it's ease of use. I like it that newsletters actually go to people rather than spam folders. I like it that my images can be easily zoomed or pinched to enlarge them. I like it that I can paywall things that I don't want very public. I like being able to connect easily with other artists, writers, readers and thinkers - and not get very spammed and trolled (I hope this platform can maintain that and make it easy to block those who try to spam, troll or proselytize religion). I like Notes a lot too! As far as the gallery feature goes I haven't gotten that to work for me yet. I also struggle with creating links. I'm certain I just haven't fiddled with it enough yet. But I'm loving the simplicity and straightforwardness of the platform so I'm quite happy and enjoying!! Thanks again for subscribing! Thanks for your work too!! I've subscribed to you also!!
I love all those things too!
Hello Winston -- thanks for hosting this great space for fellow writers and fiction lovers. I'm Dan and I live in Carmel on California's central coast. I grew up on a steady drip of fantasy and sci-fi -- it didn’t matter if it was a book, comic, movie, magazine or video game (even Zork!). Like most people, life gets in the way sometimes, but I’ve always kept journals of notes and ideas. Over the past few years I’ve finally started using those journals to write my stories. I'm currently in the final stages of editing the first novel of a gothic urban fantasy duology that's set in coastal California and have also finished the first draft of another fantasy story that I'm bursting at the seams to start editing. However, along the way, I've written dozens of smaller stories ranging from shorts to novellas that I am going to start publishing on my Substack, detect magic.
I've been on Substack as a reader for more than a year now and enjoy its quiet simplicity, but I was also watching how fiction writers and readers were engaging with it. Let's just say this - last week I launched detect magic and I now wish I would've jumped in long ago. I'm still working out the details but it was a relief to hit publish on my first one shot story. Sometimes it's hard to quiet the voices in our heads constantly talking to us - imposter syndrome anyone? So that's what I've learned. Just go for it. No better way to hone you're writing than to put it out there.
Thanks again to you for this community space and to Substack for making it all so simple for us.
Hey Dan, it's nice to meet you. Wow! Carmel is nice. I lived in Monterey for 2 years and would visit Carmel on the weekends every now and then. Beautiful weather. And those books and stories sound great. So you're in the editing phase of the first novel? How is that going? I'm also at a stage where I need to start editing but it keeps being put on the backburner. Not sure why. Time, I suppose.
You launched last week?! Welcome to Substack. Glad you've taken the leap to start publishing your work publicly. I think now is such a great time to join as new features like Notes and Recommendations have really helped people grow faster than ever. Last year was a grind in comparison.
Great lesson in learning by doing. That has been so helpful for me lately. I've been wanting to start a YouTube channel but keep procrastinating because it won't be very good at first. But like you said, no better way than to just start.
Thanks for stopping by. Sorry it took so long for me to respond. Busy week and they keep getting busier it seems! Hope to interact with you more on here and read your work. :)
Hey Winston - Nice to meet you too. Look me up if you're ever down this way again.
Editing has been a great learning process for me. I had a developmental edit done and the output from that was fantastic. It created some additional work for me but it's all been worth it and I feel the story is stronger for it. So overall a good use of time and money for me. I love my editor and she really got what I was trying to do with the story but challenged me to make it better, deeper and more concise. It's hard sometimes to keep at the edits but then I think of all the other things I want to write and that gets me back to work on them.
I agree about Substack - it just took me too long to take the plunge. I keep reading great things from other people on here and that just makes me work harder. I'm trying to balance my novel writing with what I'm doing on Substack so still working on the cadence of my posts but super excited about the possibilities. I'm pretty sure I'll start a serial novel on detect magic (my substack) later this year but have to get through the final 8 chapters of this edit first!
Good luck with the YouTube channel - what would your content be focused on?
Thanks again for noticing me 😁 and see you around!
I'll definitely do so! I have some friends out there right now for school. I wonder if I'll be able to travel over there to meet them soon. I'll let you know!
You're doing it the right way. Finishing the story before publishing it. I accidentally started a serial last year that was supposed to be 10 chapters and ended up being 30 lol. It helped me write a novel but there was a lot of undue stress involved. I hope to fix that will any upcoming serials by finishing them beforehand, at least a first draft.
The YouTube channel would likely be about writing, live readings, and books mostly. I just don't know the format or if people would find it interesting. What if it functioned like an open mic where anyone could request to come on and read a piece of their work? Hmmm.
Sounds intriguing. I'm sure you'll let us know more about it as you flesh it out. Take care.
Hey - I'm Cameron! Nice to meet everyone. I write fantasy/sci-fi fiction, commentary and reviews for my newsletter Verse. I started writing my substack about six months ago and it's been the best decision I've made. I love the community of writers and discovering new newsletters and I find it really motivating to keep writing and publishing my own work.
At the moment I'm focusing my commentary on transmedia storytelling because that's my background of research. Then I'm writing a series of fantasy short stories that collect different perspectives to tell the story of The Great Fire. Like a lot of people, I've learned to be happy with my work and just get it out there - which is very refreshing.
I'm still figuring out the best way to release my newsletter. At the moment it's twice a week with commentary on Tuesdays and fiction on Thursdays but I'm worried it's too frequent... Some interesting chat here about frequent/infrequent posts! At first I thought the more the merrier but now that I've found so many great newsletters I'm thinking of alternating weeks for fiction and commentary so that it's not too much for readers. But we'll see!
Hey Cameron! Nice to meet you, too. So happy you've liked Substack so far.
Transmedia sounds interesting. Is that how storytelling translates into various mediums? Like how a comic book could be digital, animated panels instead of printed?
Your short story series sounds compelling. I love that shorter fiction allows for such a wide range of approaching a world or a series. Plus, it works for sites like Substack where readers can enjoy it in bite-sized chunks.
I hear you on the frequency thing. I think there's a balance to be said about what it is you're writing and how frequently that needs to go out to your audience. I wouldn't stress about competing for attention with other Substacks per se, because the inevitable marker becomes not posting at all due to the sheer amount of stuff being sent out all the time. Twice a week is great for starting out! Ultimately, choose a schedule that works best for you and your peace of mind.
Thanks for stopping by to share! Glad you're here.
Hello everyone! I’m Shaina and I write Kindling, a horror/speculative fiction/banned book newsletter.
Honestly I’ve had a range of emotions since writing publicly. Until 8 months ago, I had never shared my fiction with anyone. Now I’ve written a handful of short stories and dozens of long form articles for mostly strangers! I’ve felt utter despair, embarrassment, elation, and most of all, realized that this is really the world I want to be in. Not Substack in particular, but in the writer/reader community. It’s made me work hard, take myself more seriously, and humbled me. I’ve loved it!
Hey, Shaina. It's great to hear your experience described that way. You've hit the nail on the head. There's so much growth that occurs with posting publicly like this. I'm glad that you find that it's working for you. It's such a supportive environment and fosters a lot of inspiration and creativity.
I'm super interested in your recent post about Lolita. I saved it, but am looking forward to reading it.
I've had very similar feelings and experiences, especially around keeping my writing private. I guess that's out the window for both of us now. Keep it up!
Hi, I'm Jacquie. I live on a farm in the Hudson Valley with a small herd of horses and an Australian Shepherd named Maisie. My main project is a historical fiction trilogy set in the 5th c. BCE among Scythian steppe nomads. The first volume, Of Wind and Wolves, is up on my Substack, and I'm currently revising Book 2. I have a mild obsession with ancient history, but I occasionally branch out into other genres, and am pushing myself to try more short fiction. Substack has been great for pushing me outside my comfort zone and opening my work up to some helpful feedback.
Hey Jacquie, thank you for sharing. How long have you lived in the Hudson Valley? I haven't traveled north past Baltimore, but I want to some day. I've landed in Bangor, Maine for a layover lol. There's also a tantalizing job opportunity over in Massachusetts. I don't know what it's like up there!
I’ve been here about 15 years now (time flies!) I love it, especially in spring and fall :-) I don’t know a ton about Mass, but I’m near the spot where NY, CT, and MA all meet and I think it’s a really cool little corner of the world with a lot of history and some wonderful character. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, come for a visit!
Sounds awesome! I most definitely will do that. :)
Greetings!
I'm Redd, I mainly write science fiction fantasy short stories and 'novellas' at https://reddoscarwrites.substack.com . I have been writing for almost 5 years but only in the last year started writing short stories. A whole different game to novels I've found. My current project is using a load of writing prompts that I found over the last 6 months and writing standalone short stories. The idea is to push myself into new genres and topics at speed.
I've learned to be happy with publishing my work when it is good enough. Or in other words I do not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. I could tinker away forever and never share anything. A twice a week schedule on Substack has helped me to 'get stuff out the door'. This fast paced method of writing has taught me how to generate, gestate, and build an idea very quickly. I love the blank page now.
I wish I knew how to leverage social media better to find the right audience for my work. Still learning and trying things in that regard.
Nice to meet you, Redd. Short stories are their own unique challenge. I only started writing short fiction since late 2019 and I really enjoy it. Most of them turn into longer pieces but that’s also part of the journey, I think.
Your lesson is very similar to what I’ve come to enjoy about writing on Substack. Yes, editing and proof-reading are important, but if you stare at it long enough, it’ll start to get stale and then you stagnate. Setting the bar high, but not so high that it becomes unreachable.
Social media is a whole different monster. I’ve seen some very successful use cases. I’m going to interview one such individual very soon to pick their brain on the subject.
Thanks for stopping by to introduce yourself. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Love you stuff. You've got +1 reader now after reading The Eye of the Seneschal.
Thanks so much! Hope you enjoy the archive and what's yet to come.
Main thing I've learned since joining Substack is that most of the time and effort from doing social media over the last decade-or-so has been largely wasted. Met some good people, but it was all very ephemeral, and didn't really lead to anything useful. Whereas the (almost) 2 years I've spent writing on Substack have felt productive and purposeful.
Talking of which - I write serialised, weekly fiction that I send out on Fridays. Current project is a long-running science fiction crime thriller anthology called Tales from the Triverse. On Mondays I send out writing tips/insights.
Holy crap, Simon. You’re making me think about all of the time on social media where I didn’t really commit to building anything…. It is pretty nuts when you put it like that. I agree that the last 2 years has been exponentially better and much more conducive to writing with purpose.
I don't mind so much the more social side. But for a long time I thought I was 'building' some sort of platform and furthering my ambitions as a writer, by sharing stuff across multiple social networks. And that really wasn't the case, for the most part.
The ephemeral nature of other forms of social media is such a discouragement. Substack, in just the few short weeks I’ve been using it, has felt like a small treasure trove filled with gems.
In fact, you are one of my favorite gems so far! I’ve joined in with your latest Triverse entries (and am excited to go through your earlier ones), and your writing tips have been very practical and insightful.
Looking forward to the next ones.
Thanks, Michael! Really appreciate that.
Simon’s stuff is awesome! I’m 3/4 of the way through his post-apocalyptic novel “No Adults Allowed”. Entertaining read for sure. I’m still relatively at the beginning of the Triverse series. Slowly but surely.
It feels much more intentional here and because it is interest based, the conversation is usually more engaged and meaningful. Also, slow is a a great word for it too, thanks for that. I look forward to reading your work and tips.
It’s so interesting how many different people are saying similar things about their experience on Substack. It’s especially striking, to me, how many have found that writing in this space is re-igniting their passion or else maintaining the flame. That gives me a lot of hope!
One thing about Substack that I am learning is that it moves at a (wonderfully, blessedly) slow pace compared to other social media platforms. I am so excited to spend the next few days looking through everyone’s Substacks who has introduced themselves here.
Thank you so much for this meet and greet. What a wonderful idea.
Hey, Michael. Nice to meet you. Substack has kept me accountable and has motivated more than any other platform. I've written so much more in the past 2 years after joining. That alone is a huge plus for me. And it does move at a slower pace. I hadn't thought of it like that. It's much more nuanced and thoughtful, with a tendency to facilitate discussion rather than the shouting down of opposing ideas. I love it!
Thanks for stopping by to introduce yourself and your Substack.
Amen! I share your love for the slower pace of Substack. It allows me to enjoy all the great work people are putting out without the nonsense.
Exactly!
Hello, I’m Priya. I started on Substack a month ago and I talk about late blooming, midlife, and my attempt to finish my first novel, a fairy tale. Writing in isolation vs writing within a community (Substack) has helped anchor my writing, making it more real and me, accountable.
Greetings, Priya! Nice to meet you. I love your quote from C.S. Lewis on your About page. It's so important to keep imagination alive no matter what stage in life. Community is key for me. I can't write without surrounding myself with other like-minded, driven folks who want to succeed. Otherwise, I don't have the motivation to complete or publish anything. Substack has been great in that regard.
Hello all!
I’m Matt. I mostly write science fiction and horror through a queer lens. I also love a good rambling essay about Star Wars. Beyond writing, I’ve got a cat called Gizmo and an unhealthy obsession with collecting Star Wars memorabilia.
I’ve learned so much since starting my Substack but for me, the biggest thing has been the confidence. The confidence to share my work with out worrying if it’s ‘ready’ or not. The confidence to engage with others on here and foster wonderful relationships. The confidence to share my passions with my fledgling community.
My current project is a science fiction universe that’s equal parts Star Wars/Star Trek/Hellraiser/Welsh mythology with just a dash of 90s Disney for good measure. I’m releasing a mixture of short stories and ‘lore’ on my Substack in the lead up to (hopefully) self publishing a novel later this year.
Hey Matt, thanks for stopping by to introduce yourself. I've been enjoying Altered Narrative for several months now, and love what you're doing! And I think there is an entire sub-economy of work on the internet just surrounding Star Wars commentary. It's apparently a great gateway to other creative folks I've noticed. Must be because it's a multi-generational cultural reference point that many people can relate to, among other things.
Confidence is a great lesson. It's an important marker in overcoming the crippling elements of self-doubt, procrastination, and perfectionism. It's also an interesting relationship with ego, which we all have and can be humbling to grapple with in the public arena.
Your project sounds insanely awesome. I hope to read some of those short stories. Are you looking forward to the new Evil Dead Rise movie?
Thank you for your support! It's be fantastic diving into some of the awesome content out there surrounding Star Wars just as a fan. It's always great to be able to talk about the kind of stuff I love with like minded people and Substack has been really great at facilitating that. On Evil Dead Rise, I can't want to check it out! Booked my ticket today actually.
Thank you!
I can’t tell you how much I love the idea of Hellraiser with a dash of 90s Disney. You’re speaking my childhood love language.
Honestly, I just wanted to take Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules and throw pinhead into the mix and see what happens.
😂🙌🏻
Hi, I am Alistair. I live in Florida. I have been a civil rights lawyer for almost 12 years and began the process of stopping the practice of law a while ago. I had reached a personal kairos and decided to change my life. I picked up my writing after too many years away and the poetry has flowed out of me ever since.
I have always made perfectionism a convenient excuse for my procrastination with many things, writing included, so I resolved to stop that and started a substack called "Delight in the Attempt" a little more than a year ago now. Since then I have been ruthlessly publishing my poetry and proems and other little bits since then.
My writing tends toward mysticism, a fancy way for saying I am using my poetry to grapple with my fundamental questions and ideas about myself and my relationship with understanding reality. Poems as self-organizing systems are fertile ground for my explorations.
Starting here on substack I have learned to give up my perfectionism and procrastination. It has been freeing. It has also been freeing to have almost no one read my stuff. This has helped my ego to have a more right relationship with reality. I have discovered amazing writers and ideas on here too that have enriched my life and I have met new people as a result of that, for which I am super grateful.
In the end, I am happy to be here, throwing specks of dust into the air to see what I can make of them.
Hey, Alistair. I'm from Florida! Nice to meet you. I hear you on the life change decision as I'm currently grappling with the same desires. Glad you found your passion for writing once again. You're an inspiration for me to follow suit.
Perfectionism is the killer of dreams, I think. I've subscribed to "Delight in the Attempt" as I need more poetry in my life. I know several readers and friends of mine will love your work, and I'm eager to begin reading.
The lessons you describe are crucial in the journey of a writer, especially a writer publishing "in the open" on a site like Substack. It's much more vulnerable and it takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there. I commend you, and everyone here, for taking that leap. It's not easy.
So happy you're here, too! May our specks of dust flow through time repeatedly like the sands of an hourglass. :)
Hello, Winston and everyone! I've been writing fiction for a while, and recently - a few years ago - decided to actually put some work into it and see what happened. Since then, I've written three books (which all sucked) and one that might actually be good enough to publish, if it survives editing.
My Substack (https://wednesdayafternoon.substack.com/) is still barely born, as far as Substacks go, and has been alive for a month and a half. It features some flash fiction work and lessons I've learned about improving my own writing - things that weren't covered in the How To Write books I studied over the past few years. I'd like to keep expanding on that, and eventually build a community of writers interested in improving their own work and providing feedback to others, as well.
The biggest thing I've learned so far on Substack is that publishing my own fiction isn't as scary as I thought. There might be a mistake here and there, but I'm still learning, and so is everybody else. The most important thing is to keep writing, and keep posting, and keep honing my craft. The more I learn, the more I can help others, and more interesting my stories will be.
That's the hope, anyway!
Nice to meet you, Olivia. Welcome to Substack and The Storyletter! So glad you're here.
I particularly appreciate your vision of helping others along the way. There's only so much we can learn by reading, the rest has to be learned by doing. In the process, we can share what we've learned to expedite the process for others.
The lesson of iterative development is so good! Create, adapt, create again. Love it!
What genres do you prefer to write in? Or are you experimenting with various styles and genres?
Thanks! Glad to be here. :) Writing is such a solitary endeavor, and it's nice to know that there are others out there trying to improve their craft, too. If I can help make their journey just a little bit shorter, that's worth it to me!
I'm still experimenting, but so far I've discovered that I like fantasy and horror. Sci-fi appeals to me, but I haven't figured out worldbuilding enough to make it successful. Same with the high fantasy political systems. My current project is more present-day, but I'd love to do something a bit more fantastical next time.
When you first started writing, did you already have a vision for the genre of stories you wanted to tell? Or was that something you developed over time?
We sound so similar. I love fantasy and horror, too, with sci-fi aspirations.
I suppose I don't think of myself as a genre writer, even though that's what I am. What I mean is, when I have an idea for a story it is devoid of genre and then as I develop it out I realize that it fits into a genre. Most of the time. There have been occasions where I set out to write a specific genre piece, but in terms of ideation, the genre comes later. But it's all very experimental and I'm happy switching up genres to tell the story I want to tell.
Where do you recommend I start with your work? What are you most excited about currently?
That makes sense! Every time I've set out to write a genre-specific piece so far, it completely falls flat. Usually the story decides which genre it wants to be in, and there's very little I seem to be able to do about that...
I don't have a lot of work posted yet, so you could probably start wherever! One of my favorite stories, though, is this one:
https://wednesdayafternoon.substack.com/p/on-all-hallows-eve
Sometimes the words come together really well, and this seemed to be one of those moments. What about you? Do you have a favorite piece posted so far?
Hello all,
I'm Leigh, a writer of (mostly) horror short stories that are often set in the past. Probably the main thing I've learned is that there's more of an audience for my fairly niche stories than I thought. I don't have a large following or anything, but it's nice to know at least someone reads what I write. As a reader, I've also started to suspect that my slowness as a writer might not be as much a detriment as I thought. I follow a bunch of fiction Substacks and find it difficult to keep up with the ones that publish frequently, especially the serials. I like to believe my stories come as an unexpected but welcome surprise to my readers. :-)
Hey there, Leigh. I've saved The Other Country and the one on Distant Reaches but I haven't read them yet. Elsie is so good. I do find it difficult to keep up with Substacks. In February I decided to try to read my feed in chronological order but that quickly got out of hand and I fell a month behind. Now I'm lost in like March somewhere and I can't find my way out lol. Kidding. But it has made it much more difficult than just reading the most recent stories. The Save feature has really helped me build up a nice reading list of things to get to though.
Thank you for your kind words. I'll probably just go through and binge read the serials I like at some point, but I do feel like I'm losing some of the effect that way. I love the idea of serially published fiction. It makes me feel like a Victorian waiting for the next installment of Dickens' new novel. 😁
I've been reading J.M. Elliott's novel for almost 2 years. In a way it's much more a part of my life than other books that I read in a week or two. Strange to think about it that way. I'm also just a slow reader and I'm trying to get better at carving the appropriate time out.
I love getting your stories! It’s exactly as you described ❤️
Aww, thank you!
I have wondered if my posting twice a week could be a detriment to readers (haha). Especially with serials. Though I do miss some days as life demands.
Hey, lots of people can probably keep up just fine, judging by the popularity of serials. I'm just not one of them
Welcome! I’m here for horror short stories set in the past so sign me up.
Yes, it can be hard to keep up with all the reading. I don't always manage in a timely fashion, but I catch up. One of the things I check out before subbing is the frequency of publication. Once or twice a week I can handle. Daily I can't do. Welcome!
I feel the same. Can't tell you how many daily writers I have unsubbed from due to overwhelm.
Yes, I unsub reluctantly, one of the reasons I like to check things out / lurk for a while...:)
Me too! I found so many Substacks that I liked, and very quickly found out that reading every single thing from all of them would take SO MUCH TIME. Suddenly the idea of an infrequent Substack sounds awesome. :) Subscribed!
Thank you! I appreciate your subscribing.
Cheers, Winston- For an intro:
I'm a US professional writer in Europe for over 20 years now. All of the book reviews, history, literature and culture in my stack (https://christopherdeliso.substack.com/) go, in one way or another, towards inspiring my work-in-progress, a series of detective stories (now halfway complete) taking place in Greece and its near abroad.
One thing I've learned that pleasantly surprised me about the Substack experience so far is how it has opened totally new and unexpected doors in print media (of all things.... newspapers) based on my newsletter research. Projects I pursued just out of a love of literature turned out to be interesting to others, for example, a newspaper in Ireland that published my work.
So, that's what I have for now!
Hello, Chris! Thanks for stopping by. Glad to hear from you. I really like the concept of your Substack since it covers a wide spectrum of topics. What do you like to write about the most?
Detective stories are a lot of fun. I haven't written any myself as I'm not even sure that I could. Have you published any of the stories, or are you working on them all at once and then publishing later?
That is a pleasant surprise! Congrats on the publication. I think that might be a hidden advantage of Substack because even though the posts go directly to subscribers, they still exist on the web for others to stumble across while searching for topics. Very neat point!
Hey Winston, thanks for taking the time to check out and join my substack and make all these relevant points... to answer your question, I don't have one specific thing I like to write about the most as my interests shift within a sort of well-defined grouping of literary, historic and cultural topics, but the fact that I've had to make a living through non-fiction since 2002 has meant a sort of imbalance occurred in which I did not publish as much fiction as I would have liked (tho I wrote it), But this can be good as it allows for more self-editing. Hence, I am trying to rectify that now, while still also writing on non-fictional topics in shorter ways than in the past.
As for detective stories- I haven't published in this genre either and that is part of the thrill- it is a new challenge. I want to see if I can do it and if so, what new or different approach I might take. This partially developed from my studies of philowophy and Byzantine history and the Orthodox Christian heritage (Hagiography, or the lives of the saints, could be considered a form of medieval detective stories in many cases, as there are always things happening for inexplicable reasons to the characters of the narrative. And this is taken up by some modern authors of the genre as I believe I will cover in my next article in a few days, after our Easter here tomorrow.
So I do have a whole series in mind, several chapters written (both a stand-alone caper and the first few chapters of the book), which combines some of my own views of the region over the years with visits to monasteries and big picture world events (but often, the forgotten ones at least to people not from the early 200s in SE Europe), I have been working on this for 1.5 years and the final way the whole super-plot would ultimately be resolved took almost this whole time to make itself known to me. In the beginning, I had a different idea, somewhat, and about a year ago a published mystery writer cracked that I would probably see my best-laid plans for my characters change, as it is the nature of the creative business. I wish more readers knew how intricate and time-consuming the whole behind the scenes of writing can be... but I take a lot of joy and satisfaction in the concepts emerging in their own course. Every day is a learning experience!
Happy writing to you and all.
Chris
Thank you for sharing that. I agree that writing in a new genre or style is a lot of fun. It's especially good for writers seeking to grow and learn how to write better. If someone writes in one genre for too long, their work might become derivative in some ways. That article sounds great! I'll try to check it out.
Glad you've figured out the resolution to the super-plot! Like you said, writing is insanely intricate and time-consuming. I hope that means there is a solid future for us fiction folks out there.
Hi there! I'm Lori (https://beyondforzora.substack.com), and one thing I've learned is that my short story (In Ruins) turned into a novella and is now actually closer to a novel. It's a little over 47k words, so I'm just shy of the 50k "requirement". I'm going to start the publishing process via AmazonKDP, and I just can't believe I've actually written a book! Plus, while writing this one I got an idea for my next story... so it's time to get started on that as well!
Let us hear how the publishing process goes but more importantly keep working on that next story!
I will! This article (https://storyletter.substack.com/p/self-publishing-on-amazon-kdp) has been super helpful, and I also check out this website (https://kindlepreneur.com) from time to time, which has several good articles about the process.
This happened to me! It's amazing how that works. I think it'll be how I write all my books moving forward. Almost like a discovery writing process, but with a rough outline of where to go. Is that how it worked for you, Lori?
Can't wait to see you publish your book! Very exciting.
My process seems to be imagining the stories almost like a movie playing in my mind.... And then I just write down however I see the scene playing out. It usually starts with a super broad idea and then I start thinking of specific moments in the story. From there I build out my characters' personalities and even more details. It may not be the best or most organized process, but it seems to be working for me!
That sounds very similar to how I do it. If I can't imagine the scene unfolding in my head, or rationalize a character action/decision, then it just won't manifest on the page. It has to excite me visually before I feel motivated to write it.
That's awesome! It must feel great and sounds like you were super inspired to by the story itself. I look forward to reading your work.
Thank you so much!
Hello Everyone,
I'm Victor David, once upon a time from the states, now living in central Mexico. Three street dogs and some fruit trees.
I started Substack about 6 months ago and have been publishing my fiction weekly. My intention was simply to have a collection of my work in one place. I have a lot of influences because I love to read. People have said my work is my own genre, and I can relate to that.
The absolute best thing that has happened since I joined Substack is that I've been motivated to write. I was kind of stuck for a while, but I find lots of inspiration among the stacks. And for that I'm grateful. Good community.
Glad to hear from you, Victor. I started a Substack for the same reason, that and I felt like if I passed away suddenly, then at least a part of me would be out there in the world. Morbid, kind of, but still a motivating factor.
What story of yours do you recommend starting with?
Winston, I understand perfectly. I had the same thought when I turned 70 last year. Morbid or not, here we go. :)
As for a story, well here's the first one I posted. I guess that's good one to start with. It's pretty short.
https://dcreed.substack.com/p/connections
Just read it. Very well-written. Great job!
Thanks Winston.
Hi Victor! I’m totally the same, having even a small community here has made me want to write and publish my work every week.
Agree! We all just have so many ideas bubbling and it's not fair to keep them to ourselves.
Same here, Matt!! It’s been incredibly motivating and productive for me. It’s like a writing group but more public and fast-paced.
I'm Reena and I write https://arrivalsanddepartures.substack.com/ on substack where I typically publish a poem and a photo(s) I've created usually with a pondering alongside about life, philosophy, and my own journey. I've been wandering into short shorties and essays as well but poetry is my first love. The most important thing I have learned and loved from being on Subtack for over 2 years now is that there is a whole universe of thoughtful people out there who want to have open, respectful and meaningful conversations, who like me have also tired of the hysteria, the selective outrage and ideological hissy fits of the social-media-verse. It's been wonderfully enriching and I hope it stays that way.
So nice to meet you, Reena! I've just subscribed to Arrivals and Departures. It looks amazing! And your artwork is gorgeous. I look forward to getting your posts.
I love your insight into how amazing the community of creators can be. It's truly a place that facilitates growth, learning, and compassion. I haven't seen anything like it before.
Thank you for commenting. Hope to connect with you more.
Wonderful to meet you too, Malone! Thank you for subscribing and for your kind words. This is exactly what I mean about Substack and the general atmosphere of benevolence I’ve found prevalent here. I look forward to learning more about your work and thinking… Thank you!
Hi Everyone!
I'm John. I live in Utah where I work as a sports journalist and an author. My main genres as an author are science fiction and horror. I have published five novels and three short stories since 2018. My latest story, Hollow Planet, is a new release this week.
My primary substack, Strange New Worlds, (https://newworlds.substack.com) is devoted to sharing original short fiction and poetry. I also write Behind the Pages articles exploring the characters and settings of my published fiction. Additionally, I write Folklore Friday articles exploring topics related to folklore, mythology and urban legends. I'm also working on a secondary substack, the Indie Life, (https://indielife.substack.com) that I intend to be a resource to indie authors trying to market their books.
Substack has been an eye-opening experience since I joined and actively became involved on the platform. One key thing I've learned is that my fellow writers can be a source of strength and encouragement in the writing journey. The feedback I've received has given me the confidence to push my boundaries and experiment with my craft. I've grown as a writer along the way.
Hey, John, thanks for stopping by to share.
5 novels since 2018! That's awesome. I've been struggling to get one out over the past 10 years haha. I think 2023 is the year. I love Folklore Friday btw.
I really love the supportive community here, too. It's also connected me with other amazing people locally here in Utah such as yourself. We should meet up sometime!
Definitely need to meet up. :)
I hope you're able to release a novel this year. It's a rewarding feeling. I identify with the struggle to write and publish one. Alien People took me 23 years from the time I wrote the first draft before I finally published it. The other two books in the trilogy, on the other hand, each only took a year to write and publish.
Hi Winston. Substack has provided me with the incontrovertible and quantifiable evidence for what was once a mere flickering intuition: that I write niche, but that little nook is warm enough and has the potential to be full of delightful furry creatures. 🐭
Your comments are always so entertaining, Adrian. Thanks for sharing. I love that you're thriving and approach writing with such a great attitude. I wish the warmest and most delightful of creatures to accompany your nook. What are you working on these days? Isn't your book coming out this year?
Thanks, Winston. What a great bunch of people gathering here! Reflective of the space maker himself, (Winston Spacemaker - there’s a sci-fi character if ever). Set myself a goal last Nov to try to produce a flash and a short each month - that’s been a useful motivator. So, am shaping up another short and flash at present. Suffering a bit from techified middle aged attention shred - think ferrets trapped in trouser pockets - so thinking of investing in Scrivener to bring some order to proceedings/various projects and potentially increase appropriate output.
Yes, just putting final touches to proofs and cover and then we’ll be good for 28 May launch. The novella’s now showing on Amazon for pre-order so the E-book should be available prior to that date. Trying to make the cover artwork/design memorable - like all those books from which I can’t bear to be parted. Beginning to feel like a pivotal moment in the journey. Peace
Oooo, flash n short each month sounds good. I'd like to do that, too. I get caught up in the business side of things and forget to carve out time to write fiction. It's a lot of fun though either way.
Next month! It's coming up. How did you go about the cover process? I'm currently at that stage as well and I'm unsure how I want to do it. Are you working with an artist, or doing it yourself?
Working with the designers at the publishers: a navigation between personal expression and market expectation. What are you thinking? Feeling it doesn’t harm to get a commercial eye on things.
I'm not expecting my book to sell, so I don't want to pay an artist a ton of money. However, I'd like something unique and eye-catching. I might go the minimalist approach and design something through Canva.
Someone mentioned upworks to me as the place to find good value freelance cover designers. Yeah, I’ve gone minimalist too. Partly reflects my writing style but also appropriate for the story. Same with the text style which I hadn’t thought about at all but am very pleased with.
For my own initial visuals, I spliced and rendered a couple of photos on Procreate and worked up supporting visuals on Canva - love those apps. That was the total expenditure. And totally understand the investment/returns ratio: some of it is giving-to-get but there’s a monetary fatigue line for all of us.
Being on Substack has taken the guesswork out of likely readership numbers. For me, it’s beginning to look more like a patronage than a subscription model for fiction which means a small number of paying readers who care enough to immerse and discuss. No reflective fiction writer churns out stories at the rate mag journalists publish articles. Whether that translates to a living here is another story entirely, but, ‘twas ever thus. I’m looking forward to comparing any sales of the physical book to Substack readership numbers. I suspect people might be more willing to part with cash for a physical ‘product’. Time will tell.
Greetings! My name's Jake, I'm currently based out of Connecticut, and I am a, shall we say, "triple threat." I'm a filmmaker by trade with a knack for making music and writing fiction and nonfiction. My work on Substack amounts to a single, sprawling project: 365 Infantry.
It is a speculative fiction magazine set in a distant future of sprawling dystopias, hellfire deserts, of hot-rodding, hog-riding wolven warrior. We publish free quarterly issues of 5 stories, each a part of a larger narrative within the world, plus a barrage of paid content and merchandise. The series is equal parts Mad Max, Blade Runner, and Heavy Metal (Magazine, Movie, Music and all).
Working on it has been daunting, and exciting, but the one thing making it happen on Substack has taught me is this: just keep doing it.
The stories I tell are incredibly singular. They are a blend of New Wave speculative fiction, hardboiled prose, pulp action, and dozens of other influences. And having worked on this series for almost two years now (having spent eight months developing it before launch), writing it for Substack has taught me to never let up. Deliver your work on time, polish it to the best of your ability, and don't get hung up on the tiny minutiae. There's an audience out there waiting for what you do, and you have to make it happen for them by hook or by crook.
Nice to meet you, Jake! I’ve signed up for 365 Infantry as it sounds absolutely incredible. I’m trying to do something similar with my other Substack called Tales of Havek, however, it’s something I can only work on in my spare, spare time. Although, it’s not to the scale that you’re talking about! Very impressive.
I love your lessons, too. Stay consistent, edit as much as possible, and don’t stress too much! Perfect advice for making it work on Substack.
Thanks for commenting, Jake. Keep up the great work!
That's a good mindset: polish it to the best of your ability. For me, after writing a piece, I almost always wait 2-4 weeks before publishing it. Sometimes there's a deadline with a prompt that I enjoy to do once in a while, but if not, I generally keep things around and revisit them for a while.
Hello, I am Scoot. I write Catholic Things at my main substack, the Peasant Times-Dispatch. I want to write fiction and I have a lot of fiction living in my head. I write Fiction things at my second substack, Gibberish (gibberish.substack.com). I've written and am publishing in once-a-week installments my story I am calling Sandbox Earth. The last installment will publish at the end of April, only 3 installments left, they publish on Saturdays. The first installment is here: https://gibberish.substack.com/p/sandbox-earth-ep-1 .
Sandbox Earth started as an idea I discussed with my Dad more than 10 years ago. It has lived in my head ever since, and it serves as a prequel for a larger Sci-fi Universe I am writing and would like to write more about. The premise is an inversion of the classic sci-fi trope of humanity rising to the stars in peace and unity as a planet--what if we took our petty Earthbound fights and supercharged them with the promise of untold alien technology?
Here's a quick (unpolished) pitch for Sandbox Earth:
When an alien spaceship appears in orbit, people are amazed and terrified--when a second ship arrives, wonder turns into disbelief. When the two ships fight a battle against each other, oblivious to humanity--disbelief turns into a race, and humanity climbs over each other to salvage what they can from the alien ships!
===
My biggest lesson writing on substack has been how to try to write a full story on a tight word budget. I've been challenging myself at Gibberish to write 250 word crunches and other writing exercises every week (I'm taking a break due to real life things but i'll be back to it in no time). It's helped me see that snappy cliffhangers are fun but not what a STORY is made of. So i've started orienting my work at Gibberish towards honing the art of story telling. Because everything we write is a story and should tell a story, and that requires more than cliffhangers--it requires CLOSURE. development. Depth of characters, quality prose. It's not easy. Cliffhangers are cheap and fun. Providing payoff is hard.
Looking forward to meeting others and seeing what lessons have been learned!
Love your premise for Sandbox Earth. I'll have to check it out.
I also enjoy playing with classic sci-fi tropes in my writing. For example, my first novel in my Alien People Chronicles trilogy, Alien People, does the first contact with Earth story from the alien perspective.
Love the sound of Sandbox Earth, will check it out.
I agree, cliffhangers are fun and can keep readers intrigued but a solid ending is better. I have read, and written, a lot of work that is great but the ending flops. Even when I come up with an ending first it's hard to know if it has satisfying closure. I'm always surprised by how much thought and time is needed to create a purposeful story of depth, development, and closure.
Hey Scoot, nice to meet you officially. I’ve subscribed to Gibberish and really find the premise of Sandbox Earth an intriguing one. I love how ideas can percolate in the mind for years, decades even, and still be with us. It’s those stories that we have to get out of our heads to tell the world.
I particularly connect with your lesson about writing a story on a tighter leash. I only started focusing on short stories over the last couple of years and I believe it has really helped me craft my storytelling abilities. Not saying that I wasn’t honing my skills with long form fiction, but my problem was not finishing the novels to begin with. There’s definitely something to actually finishing a project and being able to step back and say, “That’s as far as that needs to go. It’s done.” Very glad to hear that Substack has been helping you in that regard.
Thanks for introducing yourself and I can’t wait to read more from you in the future!
Hi Winston. This is a great post. I'm new to Substack and thus far have learned that it's difficult to get new subscribers. :) But I've enjoyed the process very much.
Hey, Jim! So nice to meet you. You've written quite a few books it appears. I love epic fantasy so your Substack is right up my alley.
It is difficult to get new readers, but with the new features like Recommendations, Notes, and Cross-posts, I believe it'll be exponential. Glad you're liking the process at least.
What's the best place to start for your fiction?
Hi Winston! If you're an ebook person, book 1 of The Death Wizard Chronicles, a six-book epic fantasy for mature audiences, is on promotion for only 99 cents. However, trade paperbacks are available but they aren't on promotion. The books are not standalones and must be read in order. I'd be honored! Thank you.
Heck yeah!! I’ll check them out.