Community and Collaboration on Substack this November?

Workshop incoming...6/11

Hi all,

How’s everything Substack-y for you this week? ✨

It’s the start of the month so I wanted to invite you to tell me about ONE goal you have for your Substack this month?

I’m honestly obsessed with co-creation as a creative process. It doesn’t have a clear box as an art form but who needs to fit in a box anyway?

Back in May, I set my goal for Substack to make MORE time for outreach and collaboration with a view of experimenting with co-creation.

Yes I could have waited to feel more…

…ready…

…spacious

…sure?

I’ve always felt (with my background in LIVE community arts) is that ART that takes your breath away doesn’t ask us to be ready…

It actually doesn’t really ask anything of us…

It’s often spontaneous…unexpected.

Often, it doesn’t happen by folks feeling ready to make it at all.

Sure there are some plans, some agreements, some prompts, some materials, some loose structure, perhaps some expectation but the REAL magic, the shiver inducing creativity and that FEELING alive. That’s all UNPLANNED.

Collaboration meets co-creation is POSSIBLE and encouraged here on Substack and that’s what I’ll focus in on in my next workshop here at

Sparkle on Substack

.

I’ve collaborated with five different writers since I started here but I’ve actually collaborated with 1000s.

It’s been joyous and (of course) brought growth (both personal and numerical!).

Photo by Shelley Pauls on Unsplash

But more than that it’s been SPECIAL.

I work on a goal of one collaboration a month. Usually a guest post but not always.

We don’t have to over complicating anything. There’s often a more simple way…

Steady, embodied growth and the possibility and snowball effect it brings helps us grow here. That’s the real reason we don’t need to wait.

We should/ could be collaborating now!!!

Creatives who also like to write (and collaborate) are rewarded on Substack. It’s a platform for writers who WANT to build community.

Collaborations here just make sense to me.

They set my heart beating in ways I could easily chase forever.

They bring new dimensions to my creative spirit and my way of showing up here (and in the world).

They teach me about the writer/ creative I am (and the one I want to be).

Collaboration, co-creation and art…

From February ‘22-‘23, I partnered with my (now) friend U.S based artist

Sarah Shotts

for a year long digital exchange collaboration.

We wove moments in motherhood as gentle digital letters to each other.

700 photos/videos over 365 and a few more days when our children were one/ two and two/ three. Sarah has written about the process and created a gallery of our work. The project was precious, simple and poignant.

It brought a new dimension to my practise. We called it ‘The Magic Mundane’.

This project, this experience, gosh I still can’t really articulate it the way I want to… for the purpose of this of saying something, in helping you to see why collaboration and co-creation can be transformational to your practise, I will say …in essence, it changed my life. Sharing space with Sarah completely shifted who I am as a creative, friend and a mother.

Collaboration examples right here on Substack…

…in my consciousness this week…

Perhaps you have others to share? Let me know in the comments?

• Keris Stainton
  interviews folks about money, their stories and so much more every single week over on
  The Ladybird Purse • Opening up about money

• Sophie Ingleby
  at Simple and Calm has a regular interview series on simple living that is a BEAUTIFUL read.

• Lindsay at Story and Thread has just launched a new guest post feature exploring our creative ways of being and rituals called ATELIER.

• Erica Perry
  and
  Kat River
  have blown our minds this week with a wonderful invite on ‘world crafting for business’.

• Suzy Walker
  hosts mater classes each month with wonderful guests for her community who often write here too. Heart Leap club member
  Embodied Wellbeing with Eve
  was her most recent guest.

• Rebecca Holden
  who writes the whimsically titled ‘Dear Reader I’m Lost’, writes a public letter regularly to another writer here…often funny in tone they’ve been going for months!

• Sarah at

  Brand Seasons®
  interviews creatives on rich topics for her online communities called ‘This Creative Life’ and shares snippets here on Substack.

• Laura Oldfield
  and I run a podcast and community (we’re very proud of) for mothers here called
  Company of Two
  . Our last collab/ guest post was with photographer
  Hunter Burgtorf

• My podcast with

  Writers at Work with Sarah Fay
  went live the week after I collaborated with
  Russell Nohelty
  on a Substack FAQ post - I’m not afraid to ask to be pals with the people I admire.

  

• Lastly, my collaboration with

  Kat River
  ‘Substack LOVE’ which asks for your recommendations of writing that feels like a gift. It went live 4 days ago over on
  Creatively Conscious
  and has brought us so much joy, new work to read AND 45 new subscribers… ¹

Substack Love

Have you collaborated yet or thought about co-creation, perhaps you have plans to soon or next year?

Let me know in the comments?

I LOVE to hear from you - it shapes my work here.

I don’t have all the answers but adore figuring some them out and hearing what it is you want to make real here.

What’s YOUR truth for this space, your space here on Substack?

✨

Some recent SUPER popular posts here at

Sparkle on Substack

;

Please remember there is nothing to WORK through or tick off here.

The right words, advice and space holding will find you. If you’ve ‘missed them’, pick one of these posts and join in… bookmark another… there is time, we have SO much time. There are 17k writers on Substack and 33million readers…

Substack FAQ Collection (with added Sparkle)

The Sparkle Audit

WORKSHOP REPLAY - Let's talk about going paid on Substack!

Sparkle on Substack Podcast Preview - Sarah Fay

Your next zoom workshop

Mon 6 November, 9.30-10.45am BST

COMMUNITY CONNECTION; Building Community on Substack INCLUDING the difference between chat, thread, Substack Notes, guest posts, cross posts and conversation in the comments. REPLAY AVAILABLE.

All welcome. Hope you can make it!?

So let’s circle back to YOUR goals for YOUR Substack this month? Anyone planning any collabs? Let’s chat!

Claire x

1. I share numbers to help you de-mystify the platform and the possibility. Numbers are just numbers but when we’re talking about growth they help us to understand our work and where it’s landing. I could also talk about my monthly ‘Note from the Sea’ I’ve been writing since 2017 and the growth it’s brought me personally to sit down and tell a personal story from my vantage point of the ocean every single month for 6 years. The growth of (now) knowing that when people unsubscribe that’s actually a good thing. The growth of pushing through vulnerability, of life happening to keep the commitment to myself (spelling mistakes and all) every single month.