I've Hit a Century of Substack Content

Yet generated zero income. All one hundred of my newsletters remain free - and I remain happy.

The number 100 is only significant because we have 5 digits on each hand.

This newsletter is a bit of a celebration for me as it’s my 100th newsletter! The 99 previous missives contained 86,383 words¹ – that’s the same as an average-length novel. (Hmm, maybe I could publish them as a collection?) Not only can you still read every one of them for free, I also guarantee none of them will tell you how to make money on Substack😜.

For those into statistics, my centenary of content breaks down as follows:

• 5 short stories

• 35 flash fiction pieces

• 29 poems

• 27 blog posts (incl. novel extracts, writerly thoughts and musings on the future, with an emphasis on technology.)

• 3 miscellaneous posts (incl. an interim Substack summary + a subscriber survey).

The What of the Where, Seasoned with How and Why

I write for fun, for amusement, to make my thoughts and opinions known (and sometimes to show off). But a muse lies within me – the first of several, I suspect – which means I most often write because she tells me to; using the words she provides; to show others how our future might be.

Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash

Yet, this effort comprises less than a quarter of the content I’ve bashed out in total on a keyboard. There are another ~240,000 words I’ve written over the last few years which most of you haven’t read. And I remain wholly unapologetic when I tell you those words won’t be read for free, unless you’re very fortunate.

Other doings…

I’ve registered this newsletter for a

SmallStack

listing. This is a wonderful idea dreamt up by

Robin Taylor (he/him)

to celebrate the ‘little guys’ of Substack - i.e. those with under a thousand subscribers. I’d be very happy with only a tenth of that number, one for each of my newsletters to date!

I bought four books this week: a poetry collection by a wonderful, generous local poet, who very sadly passed away recently after a long illness; a debut speculative fiction novel that’s received lots of national press (intriguing); a local author’s second book, whose wonderful talk recounted her inspirations and methods; and a writer’s guide to getting published, which has lots of no-punches-pulled advice laced with the author’s characteristic dry wit. I sourced them from a variety of places: two local independent bookstores, an online used-books store and a high street bookseller chain. This is the way.

Two new movies have attracted my attention: The first is Coppola’s Megalopolis. What’s not to love about a good Roman sci-fi fable with a Greek title? It’s been 40 years in the making and is self-financed by the director (who had to sell a vineyard or two – feel his pain). Rumour is the film-making techniques used are decades-old, but let’s see how it plays out. The iconic ‘Bladerunner’ was also panned by critics in 1982.

The second film, ‘Furiosa - A Mad Max Saga’, is obviously closer to my heart, as it involves a “one-armed badass”. Always a good feeling when a short story you’ve written (and whose inspirations are acknowledged) foretells the commercial zeitgeist!

'Bandita' – A Prompted Writing Adventure

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That’s all for this week. Roll on the next hundred newsletters, which will continue to offer an eclectic mix of prose, poetry and creative speculation. Let me know if you want more of one than the others, and thank you so much for supporting me in my endeavours.

Until next time…

1. I know this because all of my newsletters are also held in Scrivener, my go-to writing tool, and exported text-based documents. Never assume a writing platform (or disc drive, or USB stick or even a cloud storage service) will last for ever. The torn pages of those who do are damp with anguished, ignorant tears.