Looking ahead: plans for 2024 and beyond
A reflection
In my time zone, it’s the last day of 2024 when this post goes out. It’s a time when many people look back on the year that’s been, and make plans and resolutions to improve their situation in the year to come.
I’ve never been much of one for New Years’ goal-setting; it’s a bit arbitrary and not an especially effective motivator for forming habits. I am, however, trying to be more intentional about my writing now that I have a Master’s degree in the stuff, so a plan of some sort would do me a bit of good.
This year, I went easy on myself and only set one goal: to finish writing the play I started last summer. Unfortunately, health problems requiring an increase in rest time and a few new and exciting opportunities meant that I did not have the temporal and mental capacity to get very far in my project (it doesn’t help that most of it is in blank verse, either…). I’m not looking at this as a failure—I certainly have no regrets about how I spent my time instead—just a plan made with less-than-complete information.
For next year, I’m going to keep that play at the top of my priority list for creative writing projects, though I haven’t given myself a deadline. I’d also like to write a few more short pieces while I putter away on the blank verse, if feasible. I expect I’ll be able to manage at least a couple of poems if I spend much time at the beach or take a short holiday. And once I finish my play, whether that’s during 2024 or afterwards, I’d like to put my efforts towards the detective series that’s currently living mostly in my head, with a very detailed organisational Google document and a handful of Word files (mostly unfinished) to show for what’s now about 3 years of mulling over it all.
So that’s my very loose, very flexible plan for creative writing. I have plans for Red Pens and Playwriting as well, and those are more concrete. In short:
Write more content
Keep posting regularly
Gain a whole bunch of new subscribers
?????
Profit
In long, my intention with this newsletter is to build up enough of a following that I can introduce paid subscriptions for some of the content and thus garner a bit of income from my writing. I have a bunch of ideas for cool stuff I want to introduce as well, including some themed months and a secondary subscription. The magic number I’ve chosen to trigger the switch is 100 subscribers; I’ve still got quite a ways to go before I hit that, though, so in the meantime I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing now: writing a variety of posts and sharing them online.
How you can help
I can’t keep this up on my own, though—self-promotion has never been my strong suit, and I’ve already more or less reached the limits of my own social media circle. Fortunately, there’s a lot that you, my lovely subscribers, can do to support me in achieving my goal of 100 subscribers. My plan for growth is one that is bound to be shared by many other creatives; it has three main prongs, and you can contribute to any of them:
Getting more eyes on my work
Gaining new subscribers/engagement
Eliciting financial support
The first and easiest thing you can do to support any creative person in your life is to show them off to new people. It’s also particularly helpful, as the most reliable way of breaking into a new audience is by being recommended to that audience by someone they know. Some ways you can expose my work to new eyes include:
Sharing your favourite posts on social media
Forwarding a post to someone specific who you think would appreciate it
Recommending the newsletter wholesale, either to particular friends who would enjoy it or to your social media connections at large
Once there are people looking at my writing, the next step is building engagement with that audience. This has the twofold benefits of a) making shared posts look more interesting to potential new readers, and b) showing me what y’all want to see more of. Writers and other creatives are not always the most self-confident group of people, and it can be really tough to feel motivated to share the things we put hours of work into if we’re sending that work out into an unresponsive void. So do your artistic buddies a favour and don’t just look at their work—tell them what you like about it! It’s a great boost to our confidence when we can see clearly that our audience wants to see more from us, and it’s also really helpful to know what specific things vibe with our audience so that we can do more of that.
Engagement can be shown in a few ways:
If you aren’t already a regular subscriber, sign up!
Add comments to shared posts on social media responding to the work (and if you’re sharing the post yourself, say a little bit about why it resonates with you).
Comment directly on posts when you view them on the Substack website—this may be more useful for subscribers who aren’t directly connected to me anywhere else, and requires a Substack account.
The last method of support is the most direct: financial contributions. It’s not feasible for everyone, and different people will have different thresholds of what they can manage, so none of this is by any means an obligation. Once I kick off paid subscriptions I will put a lot of stuff behind a paywall, but there will still be plenty of freely accessible work as well. That will be the primary inducement for financial support, but that option is firmly in the future at this point. Until then, I’m not focusing as much on this prong of the plan, though there are a couple of things you can do if you are so inclined:
You could pledge a subscription, which means that when I turn on paid subscriptions you’ll be automatically signed up for one (you wouldn’t be charged anything until then, and pledging is going to be a discount from the eventual subscription prices).
You could donate a customisable amount via Ko-fi if you’re really determined to give me money (unlikely to happen, but I can dream).
Whatever level of support you are able to give is greatly appreciated, and I all I ask is for you to do a little something to help me achieve my goals—it’ll lead to better, more exciting thing for you in the end! And please also consider the other creatives you know who are trying to make names for themselves and get projects off the ground. We all have goals, but it’s a whole lot easier to reach them when we have support!
Happy 2024, and may you have success with whatever resolutions (writing-related or otherwise) you might have.
Love your writing, your ideas have clarity and your humour brightens my day.