Category: Notes from a Writer

Table of Contents and Formatting

Here’s to the next 1,000 emails!

A comment that deserves further thought

Without Really Trying

What I read in Summer 2024

Each story, one at a time…

A look back on my experience

If you all remember, I honestly didn’t but because I’ve been spending the last week looking through all of my “non-fiction” emails I was given the benefit of hindsight, I wrote my first “Dear Substack [2023 Edition]” which, at the time, I promised I would do annually. As that one was done on March 15, 2023 it seems almost poetic that I would come across it when I did. So, just a week late, here are my thoughts on the platform one year later.

Dear Substack,

It’s been one year since my last, sort of, look back on your year and how I’ve experienced it as a creator. And though there may be some repeated stuff mentioned here, I want to start on a positive note by saying, I’m not going anywhere.

Thinking about you as a platform and not as a community (which is how I’ve come to look at you as) it reminds me why I came to Substack in the first place. I was running away from Mailchimp and their clear hunger for money despite their users. It felt like they were going after us (the user) for their financial needs instead of helping us bring consumers to our creative endeavors and getting their share afterwards. If that makes sense?

Of course, I know, you need to make money somehow. But what sets you apart is that you understand that we bring you that profit. You could easily go the Mailchimp route and charge your users regardless of whether or not we have paid subscriptions turned on or not. And quite frankly, all these years later, I’m both shocked and pleased that you never have (and it feels like you never will…).

I want to thank you for always putting “us” the user first, even though for many of us (fiction community) it may not always feel that way. And while I’d love nothing more than to gush at you about what you’re doing right I would like to briefly mention where I see a chance for improvement.

I’d like to start with the discontinuing of Office Hours. Now, I only used it once, maybe twice. I think the reason why I stopped and never looked back was for the same reasons others like me did as well; the conversations just moved too quickly and was really hard to keep up with, let alone join.

But and however, instead of getting rid of it in favor of a “let them suss out the communities” approach, I would’ve rather see Substack double-down with a better solution to the problem. Now, don’t get me wrong, having hundreds of people clamoring with questions and conversation is NOT a problem in my book. That seems to me like a cry for more input from you, not less. It seems to me this was an opportunity for Substack to take more steps towards open forums on a daily or even just more than once weekly basis rather than shut it down completely. I understand if it’s a bandwidth issue. In the industry I work in that is a word I am all too familiar with. But perhaps leaning on the community that cares to possibly facilitate conversation on a more regular and niche basis might be a conversation worth having. An example I can think of is breaking down the Office Hours by topics of a more granular level and then seeing if there are any “Substack Features” folks who might be willing to be Substack Ambassadors to host an Office Hour on a rotating basis. You get help with bandwidth, they get exposure (in a good way) and to feel like they are helping a community that has given them so much. Anyway…it’s an idea. And seeing as you have a larger audience than any of us, having you be the wheels that keeps us on track is important to keeping our communities afloat.

Something else I’d like to bring up because it’s still an issue; the updates. Yes, there are the infrequent major announcement of large changes like when DMs finally came round, but, and I don’t think I’m alone in this, I want to know the little changes. Do I think a small change of adding or removing a button or option is worth an email to all of us? No. But I do think having a place where we can go to see these little tweaks might be helpful for those of us who frequent our Substack Dashboards and get jarred when it isn’t quite right. It will at least save us time from having to try and suss out the changes ourselves.

Lastly, I want to talk about the single best thing you’ve done which is bring DMs to Substack. Though, I must confess, I have only seen the need to use it twice since its introduction. That can mean one of two things:

First, I’m far too busy at the moment with my own writing to be bothered bothering anyone else.

Second, I didn’t need the feature quite as badly as I thought at the time.

Either way, I can see the net benefits to it and I’m sure we are all delighted to have it.

If I could offer a brief list of some major (and minor) changes that I think would benefit all of us, not just the fiction community on Substack:

• Bulk changes in the Posts area. I’d love to be able to select multiple posts that are published (or in draft) to delete them, move their section from one to another, etc. That would indeed be a game-changer.

• More freedom with Subscribers. I feel I’ve mentioned this before but I’d love to be able to change the sections that people are subscribed to for them, especially if they are unable to figure it out on their own. Right now we rely on our own ability to explain how to opt-in or out of certain sections/emails that we send and I wonder how many simply unsubscribe rather than take the time to change their subscription options.

• More formatting options when creating a post. Things like columns, center text, text along side images, etc.

• Mobile App – I’d love to be able to do TWO things in the mobile app: 1. Write a post. Divide the app into two views (writer and reader). 2. Opt IN or OUT of Substack sections within the app. The ability to manage a subscription within the app would be really nice and probably make our job easier to explain to subscribers who may not be familiar with Substack what the point of sections actually is.

I will return in March 2025 where I hope to report some of my suggestions have happened or at least things are still on a positive trajectory.

Substack makes it possible for me to worry less about the platform I’m using and more about the content I want to put out into the world. And for that I am grateful it exists.

See you next year!

And One Reason Why You Shouldn’t

I have two serial Substacks. One is active () and the other is coming in 2024 (). In both cases, the reason these exist is 100% for my own selfish reasons. I want to read these books for my own personal research. I have a vested interest in reading these. But I also want to go deeper into the text. I don’t just want to read them. I want to engage in dialog with others who are reading along with me. I could think of no better vessel than Substack to bridge these two things that are true together. But before I share with you how I did it so that you could maybe do it yourself, I want to share one reason why you shouldn’t start a Public Domain Serial:

First of all, they have been the only one able to replicate that model. It’s not easy to do and unless you have a further goal than “get tons of subscribers” then it won’t work. One thing I notice with a lot of these Public Domain newsletters that start is they will simply stop when the book is finished and then it’s just there, laying dormant, with no more communication or interaction with however many subscribers they got. The lead-up is great but nothing ever comes of it. If you want to recreate a success you have to be willing to put in more work than just copy/paste the chapter into an email and hit send. And sometimes that begins by simply wanting to read the work yourself.

Allow me to burst your bubble now. You won’t ever be just like Dracula Daily. But with enough commitment you can find other like-minded people who want to read that public domain book with you. All you have to do is be smart about your plan and make it as easy as possible for them to find you.

WHERE TO START

First, I wanted to see for myself if there might already be someone else who’d already started a serial specifically for reading all of the Oz books. If so, it meant I could potentially just tag along and let someone else do the heavy lifting. I could only find one other Substack but they stopped after the first book. This meant there might be at least some interest from others who wanted to read beyond the first book.

This is where my brain went thinking of a name. I didn’t want to call it “The Wizard of Oz” because the whole point was to read all of the books and they don’t all revolve around the wizard (that much I was certain of). The idea of calling it “Beyond the Wizard” was truly an epiphany moment. When the name came I quickly did a few things. Keep in mind, you don’t need to start with a name for your Substack but it is best to have one that you like and are willing to stick with for as long as you plan on keeping it active. Also, these steps I do for any new name of something I come up with just because you never know what you might need in the future:

• Get the publication started on Substack and set it to PRIVATE. This makes it so no one can see it exists while I’m working on creating it behind the scenes.

• Check BlueHost to see if the URL for that name is available and purchase it. Depending on how lucrative that name is considered to the “algorithm” it can costs anywhere from $.99/yr to $24.99/yr.

• Create an email address of the same name. Gmail is usually NOT the route I would take. Instead, I’ll create one from the URL I acquired and point to “@urlnamehere.com” so that it looks a bit more professional. If you don’t want the hassle of owning a URL then by all means, create a Gmail account that is free. There is another reason why you might want this that I’ll discuss later.

• Get the handle on all social media platforms. The usual suspects are: Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc. Why? Just in case you want to share your work on social media, it’s not a bad idea to use a handle that is associated with the Substack you created. Oh, and use that email to create all these accounts so any notification emails go there and not to your personal email address.

Once I have the Substack publication created, the URL and email address sorted, as well as my social media handles created, then I’m off to the next vital steps.

THE PLAN

When I plan nowadays, I think about Austen Kleon and I “Steal Like an Artist.” What that basically means is, I do my research by hunting down other serials that are already in existence, doing what I hope to do, and see how they do it? What do they offer? How often? Etc.

There are plenty of great Public Domain Serial Substack Newsletters out there already and I recommend checking out my personal list of them here (just go to the Public Domain Serials tab).

Some questions you should definitely have an answer to once you’ve started but before you go public:

What is your Substack serial going to be about? Will you be releasing just one book? A series by the same author in the same world? All books by one author? All books from a specific genre?

How often will your release schedule be? This is very important.

Halfway through the first book of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz I realized that one chapter per week was just too long of a gap between each release. I longed to speed it up a bit but didn’t want to affect the hundreds of readers I had developed over the course of half a year. So, I decided to ask the subscribers for their feedback. Substack has a great poll feature that I have found indispensable to me when it comes to any changes I make to Beyond the Wizard. Turns out I was not the only one who felt weekly chapter releases was far too long. So, through a series of polls I was able to increase the rate of delivery from once a week to twice a week. The pace is much better now and it means we can get through at least 4 books a year vs two books, which is what it would’ve been like had I kept it the way that it was.

Don’t be afraid to make changes as you go, just always remember to poll your readers before you do, otherwise you can lose them quickly.

What day(s) of the week will you deliver chapter(s)? I went with Wednesday and Saturday. Why? I had no real reason except that initially it was just Saturdays and when I added the 2nd day I wanted it to have a couple days on either side of Saturday. I also liked the idea of having one a weekday and the other a weekend. I’m sure if I were to look at analytics and whatnot I would discover that Wednesday and Saturday are not the best days of the week to release anything but as you will see, analytics aren’t as important as community.

THE SET-UP

Once I knew what I wanted to do, how often, and when, I needed to get the Substack looking ready to go. This means creating a few early posts and pages before I even had my first subscriber. Here’s what I created:

THE ABOUT PAGE

Every Substack should take full advantage of an about page. It’s no different than the about page on a writer’s personal website. This is your chance to let a newcomer know what your serial Substack is all about. Make sure you answer the key questions they might have such as what you will be serializing and how often. If you’re not starting till later on in the year (or next year) then mention that. This makes a great FAQs page without needing to create a completely separate one. Here is the About Page for Beyond the Wizard.

THE BOOKS

First, I wanted to have an index page where anyone who came to the Substack could easily see what we intend to read and have an easy way to navigate to any book they wanted. Here is my index page for Beyond the Wizard. It might seem a bit overwhelming as it is 40 books. But what’s important to take note is the clean way in which I present the information. I grouped them by author and beside each book is a convenient link to the free text as well as free audio version of the book. I also include a link to purchase the book in print via Amazon if they want to. I also include a link to the next post I create per book.

THE TABLE OF CONTENTS AND INTRODUCTION

This is an email I send a few days before a new book is starting. It contains exactly what you might think: The current book’s table of contents. And in the case of every L. Frank Baum Oz book, he includes an introduction letter that I add just before the TOC. I’ve also been able to find the audio version of the introduction so I embed that as well. As each chapter is sent via email I will come back to this post and update it with the link. Also, it’s this post that I will link back to in THE BOOKS page. This way, if someone wants to see all of the chapters for a particular book we’ve read already, they can easily navigate to it. Here is an example of the TOC and Intro post for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

A NOTE ON SECTIONS

What makes Substack unique and specially suited for serialization is the feature of Sections. Each book I start gets it’s own section. This allows the chapters to all be gathered together on one page. Here is the Section page for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. As you can see, I also took the liberty of pinning the TOC & INTRO page at the top of that Section. Again, every choice I make is to make it as easy as possible for someone who stumbles upon this Substack to catch up, follow along, and most of all, want to subscribe.

THE COMMUNITY

Of course, none of this is possible without a community to make it all worth while. There are several Substack serials out there that have thousands of subscribers. The most notable being Dracula Daily (you could say they started it all?) with nearly 250k subscribers! You don’t need to be that large to make this worth your while. For me, I wanted the feel of a community of readers joining me. So, I set out to find a way to encourage engagement. One thing I couldn’t help but notice with all of public domain serials I found was the lack of engagement. Sure, many of them take the community somewhere else (Discord, etc) to have that kind of engagement. I like that Substack has given us tools to keep the community in one place.

LIKES

My first goal was to engage the person who would never leave a comment or want to step out of the darkness. That reader who just wants to read the chapters. So, I came up with an idea for tracking when we’ve finished a chapter. The LIKE button on this Substack is there solely for the purpose of tracking. When you’ve finished reading the chapter, you click the Like button. And I’d say it works! An average of 10%+ subscribers are clicking the Like button. And what makes it so amazing is knowing that they are clicking it for a reason and not just because. Just as an example, here is the graph for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Like count:

COMMENTS

Next was to engage the reader who actually wants to go a step further. The person who wants that book club vibe but not in person. Just like me! So, I set out to use the Substack feature that allows for comments to be written under each chapter. An email with the ability to comment back and forth with readers is great and so easy to do. Sure, the same people are leaving comments but that is the point. And every now and then I’ll see a new person join in on the conversation. Organic growth is the best growth.

THE OZ GAZETTE

Yes, I know, there is already a legit “Oz Gazette” in existence. This is purely for the Subscribers and for no one else. On the 1st of every month I send out a newsletter. This includes a chart of the previous chapters with a count on how many people have read (aka Liked) a chapter, recap on the last month’s chapters. I also will include various facts and information about the book we’re reading that I’ve found on websites like Wikipedia and Oz fan sites.

THE RESULTS

When I created this Substack over a year ago I never publicized it. I did zero promotion for it. This is one where I let Substack do the driving to get me traffic and in a matter of 6 months it grew from zero subscribers to 400+! That was wild to me and still is. There has been little growth since that time but I will admit it’s likely because I need to step in and do my own advertising and it can also be because there aren’t as many lovers of the Oz series as there are of Dracula or Moby Dick or Les Mis. I’m not too upset at the lack of growth beyond 400. Especially when you consider I really did all of this for me and my own selfish reasons. I am doing research for a series I’m writing that takes the well known tale of the Wizard of Oz and changes it completely. It likely won’t be Wicked famous but if and when I decide to write it and release it, you could say I have a built-in audience primed for reading it.

TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF

Are you considering starting your own Public Domain Serial on Substack? If so, what are you thinking of reading? There are millions of public domain books and so many join the list every year! Use this as a way to get interested in the classics, meet others, find inspiration for your own writing. There are so many reasons for starting one and all of them are worth it.

Because I’ve got my own work to do.

I’m angry. I’m more than angry actually, I’m disappointed. For the better part of this year I’ve spent (wasted?) countless posts trying to point out ways for fiction writers on Substack to improve. To get better. And by doing so, bring in more readers, not confuse the hell out of them!

Substack can only do so much to help us. At some point we have to help ourselves. What’s that cliche saying about a horse and water?

Suffice it to say I’m tired and in 2024 I’m choosing fiction. This means I can’t help you anymore. At this point I am left to (try and) lead by example instead. My work in this department must come to an end and I truly hope you figure it out.

Maybe I’ve been too vague with my frustrations? Maybe I’m expecting too much of you? Of myself? How hard is it to do better with organization and navigation of our work on Substack? Does it really require moving the proverbial mountain? Having an About page, a welcoming email with usable and understandable information, being consistent, proper labels. These are all things I take for granted that everyone will do, and when I don’t see it done “en masse” it kills me straight to my core and I can’t do it anymore.

You could say it’s a self inflicted wound. After all, no one asked me to create “the list” and devote countless hours of my life poring through hundreds of Substacks, figure out how to fix them and help in the best way I can. I put that on my own shoulders. That’s definitely a “me” problem and I realize that. I’m working to heal (fix? adjust? change?) that about myself. The desire to do more than just see the problem but want to diagnose and help on a regular (weekly) basis has sadly run its course.

But fear not! As often as you choose to ignore my pleas to do better, there are countless other Substack fiction writers whose advice you seem to resonate with and even follow much more readily. And I have no doubt that these heroes will continue to urge you to do better long after I’ve called it quits. To mention but a few, there’s , , , .

If you aren’t already, I suggest you follow them both in their public teachings and in their example. You won’t find a better crew to lead you through the fray of fiction unscathed than them.

So, here is my final plea to fiction writers on Substack everywhere (for what it’s worth):

• No one believes in you and your ability to be the best storyteller you can be than me. I see that potential in each and every one of you. I’ve spent time in your Substacks so I know the truth even if you don’t. Believe in yourself more than I do and the difference will show.

• Fix your damn Substacks already! I say this with much love, truly. But if you’ve still not personalized your About page or Welcome email you cannot complain about lack of growth or reach.

• Find a way to be consistent. Even if that consistency is just once a month. It’s better than nothing. And it’s heaps better than inconsistency, which is the most seen killer of Substacks that could’ve been great.

• Organize your Substack! The tools are there and the explanations for how to use those tools are immeasurable! Use them to your advantage and stop being lazy about it!

• Lean on each other for support. Sometimes we are all we’ve got. Ask for help and stop waiting for the day when someone else will ask (or answer) that burning question you thought was too dumb to ask. Be brave! Ask the damn question!

• If you have a serial, for pity sake, make it easier to navigate. Don’t do silly things like hiding your table of contents post or your “START HERE” Chapter/Episode One post where only a keen eye and super patient person can find it! I never want to stumble upon a post like this ever again. Understood? I am about to dip my toes into that murky water and I can’t begin to tell you how many bad examples I’ve come across to help me know what NOT to do. I’m hoping to be a part of the solution and not add to the problem. It might take work to make up for where the Substack tools are clearly lacking (and perhaps not yet suited for serials), but it can still be done. So do it!

• Take care of yourself. This journey is by no means an easy one. Otherwise everyone would be doing it! This is not worth stressing out over, losing sleep over, or self-doubting over. We do it because it’s fun (however challenging it can also be).

• Don’t forget the fun. Always have fun.

If this sounds like some “last goodbye” it isn’t. I will still be around. But you will notice a drastic decrease in my weekly Wednesday Editorials. I’m scaling them back to just once a month. Which means I’ll have less time devoted to guiding you.

I knew this day would come. When I’d need to practice what I preach. When I’d need to write more fiction and stop using my desire to help others as a crutch and excuse for why I don’t have time to write as much fiction.

I’m afraid I must leave you now for my storytelling. If you didn’t already know, I’m writing a serial in 2024. It will take most of the year to release. I’m also continuing my 100 words daily journey. But I’m also going to do more to help you, the fiction community, to write more fiction alongside me. So, while I may not be pounding you with guides and how to’s I’ll be around more than ever with prompts and contests and things like that to motivate and inspire you to stretch your imaginations! I hope you’ll join me.

And lastly, in 2024, I’ll be returning to self-publishing. A land I left behind a while ago, thinking I would never look back. I’ve got four books planned in 2024. Three of them will be available for purchase online. Look for my 100 Word Stories (Collections I & II) as well as my first serial (Sleight of Hand) as a novel.

Paid subscribers will receive hardcovers of all three books I just mentioned plus one more. I’m not here to promote myself so I’m not going to say more about that. I just wanted to briefly mention what I’ll be busy doing behind the scenes with my fiction.

ONE MORE THING…

I will still be watching. I will still update the list. I will still be cheering all of you on in my own way. Helping is my nature. I can’t simply flip a switch and turn it off. So, don’t be surprised if you receive a wall of text from me every now and then on your Notes or a comment on your latest post. And don’t be a stranger either!

You’ll find me deep in the recesses of the land of fiction. Where everything is possible if I just imagine it, write it down, and put it out into the world for others to read.

2024, The Year of Many Fictions

I know we’re only finishing the first week of November with 7 more weeks of the year to go, but my mind is already firmly set on 2024 planning. And there is a good reason for that:

This might shock you to read. Trust me, I am more shocked to have to say it. But if I’m being honest, looking at the entirety of 2023 as well as the 7 weeks that have yet to play out, I did not, in fact, reach the goal I set out for myself in late 2022. That goal was simple, albeit vague at the time; write lots of fiction.

At this point you might be saying to yourself, “hold on, Erica, you’ve been writing these 100 word stories now since May and you’re on track to finish out the year having written 245 of them! If that’s not writing lots of fiction, what the hell is?”

Well, firstly, to answer your question I’d say, calm your damn nerves! lol Secondly, I’d say, 100 words daily is great but not much when you quantify that against the other things I’ve been writing for my newsletter. Those other things amount to (again I’m quantifying here) nearly triple the number. You can say I’ve been writing more fiction but it only seems that way because they are coming daily. At the end of the day/year the truth is, that is not how it happened.

And with my newfound “come to Jesus” moment I realize I have to do something drastic to my output or I’m in danger of being someone who talks about writing but never actually does any herself. I hate those people. If I’m going to ever talk about writing and be of help to those coming behind me, then the least I can do is actually produce more fiction content so I can have that to say “look, I know how cause I been doin’ it a long time, damn it!”

In any event, I have been beating myself up about this fact and licking my wounds the past week or so when I decided to take a look behind the curtain at my “stats” and production. It wasn’t pretty, let me tell you. But that is what makes the end of year so great (and mildly depressing at the same time)!

A NEW YEAR FOR RESTRUCTURING

In 2024 you will see a whole new Erica Drayton Writes from top to bottom. This drastic change might be my greatest achievement in the world of fiction or my biggest disappointment and failure and I’ll wish I had stayed with the 2023 blueprint. There wasn’t anything wrong with it. I got a hell of a lot done this year. But a change gon’ come! Starting with a process I’m calling “Scaling Back to Scale Up.” It’s a fairly simple concept that I came up with on the fly. Please use it as you wish if it appeals to you at all.

The basic idea of it is to look at what I’ve been producing this year in terms of content and then decide what needs to either go away completely or just take a step back in order to work on the next new thing I have plans for.

The reason I’m doing this, beyond the fact that I like to be as highly organized as possible is because I don’t want to overwhelm myself by simply piling on new things with the old stuff and hoping it all just works out in the end. That is an easy way to feeling overworked and stressed. Whenever I make any drastic move like this the first thing I make sure is none of what I am about to do will leave me burnt out and hating my own writing.

When it comes to deciding, with your own writing, what should stay or go I recommend a list. Lists are a beautiful thing. Draw a line down the middle of the page and on one side put what you’re currently writing. All the things. And then on the other side write down what you’d like to be writing. If it’s anything new. Then, with a highlighter (if you don’t have one, circling or underlining works in a pinch) select those things from both columns you really want to move forward with in the new year. Keeping in mind the time you have at your disposal to produce the content, those things that you love to write vs could do without. There are many factors that go into deciding what stays, what goes, and what you just want to do less of. The idea is to take personal stock and try not to let outside influences, especially algorithms and numbers and statistics play into your decision making. This is a writing cadence you’ll likely keep for 12 months, best to make sure it’s one you are most happiest with and won’t regret later on.

Now, onto my two columns. I decided to make one that was my fiction and one that was my non-fiction work. Then I decided, because I’m crazy with nothing better to do with my life, to see the word count across both. Suffice it to say, it was leaning much too far to one side. This meant I needed to make some key changes. I don’t want to outright get rid of my Editorial Wednesdays. They are important to me as it’s a way for me to get some points across that I otherwise can’t do anywhere else. I won’t bore you with the details but highlight below what I’m scaling back and scaling up in 2024. Keeping in mind that I’m actually not getting rid of anything. Just doing less of some things in some cases and more of another. What should happen at the end of 2024, when I do a similar review in November, is that my fiction will far outweigh my non-fiction writing and I will consider that a HUGE win in my book.

SCALING BACK

Wednesday Editorials | I will change from weekly to once a month. I’m going to attempt to share my thoughts on the second Wednesday of the month. This should prevent there being multiple emails from me on the first of the month as tends to happen and this way I can organize my Editorial email into a format more resembling my First Edition emails. Multiple topics discussed in one email a month.

The First Edition | This email will still come on the 1st of the month but I’m changing what I share. Content is very important and because I’m going to be fiction first I’m going to discontinue sharing YouTube videos in this email and will move it to my one monthly Editorial email. Consider this email a wrap-up and catch-up on all the fiction you should’ve received from me the previous month and what is coming in the new month. I will divide this email into two sections: Free Subscriber fiction vs Paid Subscriber fiction.

SCALING UP

Fiction Community Activities

Pentober52 [Wednesdays] Every Wednesday, for 52 weeks, there will be a word (and perhaps some challenging prompts) to get your imaginations ripe for storytelling.

A 100 Word Story Collaboration [Fridays] One the first Friday of every month I will write 50 words to go along with the image prompt. You can then write your own 50 words to accompany mine. I will then select my favorite 50 word story and share our 100 word story collaboration on the following Monday in my Substack Notes.

Free Writing Fridays [Fridays] Every Friday there will be an image prompt to get your idea engine going to write and share a small piece of fiction. You can write any length but for an added challenge you can write a 100 word story.

My Fiction

A 100 Word Story [Daily, Free Subscribers] A tradition that started on May 1st, 2023 and I have not stopped doing since. Some days and weeks and even months are continuation stories as you will soon find out. After a month finishes all of the stories go into the Archive for Paid Subscribers only.

A Magicianary Story [Mondays, Paid Subscribers] The first serial that introduces a world filled with magician celebrities and many other colorful characters that can be found there.

Curio Fiction [Monthly, Paid Subscribers] Short stories of suspense and mystery. Think of Alfred Hitchcock trapped in the Twilight Zone

📢 I’d love to heard your thoughts on all of this: Do you ever do a look back on your progress at the end of the year? If so, when do you do it? Have you done it already? Will you share your thoughts on the past year and new year in an email to your subscribers? If you aren’t, I suggest doing it. It’s a great way to just “talk out loud” about what you’re feeling and hoping and excited about.

I want to say, this isn’t actually my “2023 Year in Review” email. That is coming later where I will share more detail and probably boring numbers, charts and graphs about how the year actually went. I wonder if Substack will share one like Spotify and Nintendo does? Anyway, that will come in late December. The last weekly Editorial before it changes to a monthly thing. And then my January 1st, 2024 First Edition will discuss my 2024 Goals (and Resolutions).