Creative Approaches #2 - Creative Rebellion on Substack
Consciously doing less + my take on NEW features
"It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then."
Alice in Wonderland
Good afternoon!
Happy leap year - a WHOLE extra day to be FREE in creative action! How are you spending it? I do LOVE a leap year. 🐸 ✨ I’m working this morning and then taking this afternoon off - I feel like I want to rest my brain a little…
The post is long and is meant to be saved and considered… sometimes they shape up like that… ✨
It’s been really interesting to watch Substack shift and change since I joined the platform to write a long form blog in April 2022. I knew it was a platform ‘for writers’ back then and very little else. It was simple (ish) to use although that settings page has always been extraordinarily long! 🫠
Now we are in a discombobulating world of notifications from dms, chat, Notes, recommendations and so much more but here’s the thing; these tools are all here to enhance our experience here. So do they do that? Can we focus on our creativity or are all these fancy tools and ways of being helping comparison creep in or keeping us stuck in overwhelm?
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Let’s rewind; back when I started here on Substack, I was in my own little world writing the things on my heart, playing with format, honing my craft, improving my spelling and grammar. 🤓
I knew
was here because I joined after I saw her enthusiastic tweet about it. I didn’t know another soul here except my husband who is an ‘early adopter’…David and I were laughing this week as I’ve just got into using the planning app ‘Notion’ and I asked if he had it and he said; “yes for ages.” - I was like; “you could have told me my brain needs to close some tabs…” 🤓
Anyway, there was a whole chunk of time back in 2022, where I wrote and created and figured what it was I was ‘here’ to do. My brain wasn’t being pulled into notifications or options; I’m not sure I would have stayed if it was because things being quiet is my medicine.
Experimenting and being playful within a structure has been INCREDIBLE for my creative fire since then. Every new layer Substack add enhances my experience but that’s all been incremental and it’s a huge part of my ‘job’ to be here now.
Telling my story of earning £10,000 through Substack at an event, I read out my very first Substack post to the participants in the workshop.
There’s an innocence and a wonderment that I’ve tried to keep as I’ve developed my focus and grown my profile to hold over 5000 subscribers. I don’t feel embarrassed of who I was then or what I wrote; I see she was making a path for herself, making sense of what was possible…saying hi with a small ‘h’.
My work here is the same as my intention always was;
To stay in the magic, the sweet spot of excitement and creativity, to quiet the noise and focus on my craft.
If we know we are ON a journey it kind of makes it easier to show up, don’t you think?
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5 journal prompts to drop into embodied creativity…
To start at the very beginning is a very good place to start…
I love ___________ on Substack because
Photos I want to use…/ Art I want to share…
Making our world a better place; inspiration, education, revelations…
Favourite inspiring quotes and what they mean to me in my creative practise… 1
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There are lots of ways for us to use this platform.
Lots and lots of ways.
There are also lots of creatives and writers doing wonderful things here and in a space where you consider what you want to do I’d love to invite you in to listen to your intuition on it all. Creative rebellion is a space we can all live. You don’t have to follow a formula here; the pages are blank for you to create your own. We can keep it simple truly (and still grow).
Success feels different to each of us.
We know the internet is noisy endlessly - do we have to make Substack that space too?
What feels GOOD to you, what do you feel excited about, what is in your heart around your identity as a creative and writer? Who do you want to work with and why? What type of work do you want to do?
You could;
Turn off comments
Serialise an audio play
Write a monthly newsletter
Write a weekly love note
Start a daily Note to inspire others…
Start a blog
Start a podcast
Interview guests on zoom
Build a community
Make a creative community challenge
Start a book club, writers group, co-working gang.
Start a random chat about the weather!
Spend a whole month writing a beautiful essay
Commission an illustrator…
Use this guy; ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Play!
So what do you want to do? What is your creativity asking of you RIGHT now?
Here are some creative ways I’ve spotted from folks using the platform in their own beautiful way recently;
- has a post out advertising a raffle in aid of ‘Practical Action’ where you can win 50 annual subscriptions to best selling Substacks including this one.
- and did a wonderful and intimate painting collab. which I adored watching. I learnt so much about their creative process. You can watch it here.
- wrote a piece on ‘How to Survive Substack’ and hosts an online meet up to get right back to the writing and the creative heart of what you want to do here.
- is offering insanely gorgeous meditations here. Funny story - we’ve never met but we figured out we were at the same yoga event years ago now we’re online pals!
- is offering a recorded video response to your ‘creative cloud busting’ questions. Having published a collection of fiction books she has a great take on how to write yourself out of a tangle.
PR guru
generously shared her blueprint for her launch for her non fiction book. Lucy offers so much value but isn’t afraid to experiment with more personal pieces here….- is offering regular masterclasses; some great replays including Q&As with agents and brilliant soon to be published authors. Yesterday’s with BLEW my mind! Emma is so bright and generous and I can’t wait for pre orders of her book to open this Autumn.
- is offering ‘slow read alongs’ - my husband has joined in with 2024’s ‘War and Peace’ read along and it’s going well with lots of food for thought about stories and great writing.
- is serialising her BRILLIANT memoir in bite size audio episodes. This is superb storytelling and incredible craft we can all lean into and learn from.
- is inviting people to weave words to accompany the photos she takes. Here’s my creative response. Jenna’s motherhood photos are quite simply stunning; I’m in awe of her online galleries.
- is running a competition to win a coaching package with her if you buy the paperback of ‘The Success Myth. Having just met her IRL and heard her speak about her journey, I think this offer is the HOTTEST ticket in town.
- has a guest section called Atelier which explores our connection to ritual and our creative spaces. With a background in interiors PR, Lyndsay offers a safe and soothing space to land in what can be a noisy space online.
- invited us to record audio for her very first Sound Circle. The theme was transitions and I’m so excited to see how she stitches it all together in the coming weeks.
Finally, a few of us got together to make a creative invite for all International Women’s Day. Read more here. There’s still time to join in…
What’s new on Substack?
Well Dms - Direct messages are new! I quickly edited the settings to make sure I can only receive them from paid subs because I really want to be open to deepening my relationship with paid subscribers and I knew I wouldn’t be able to reply to everyone.
If you do want to use the dm feature as part of your community building here there’s a handy big orange button and you’ll find it in your ‘chat’ too. It’s the second tab along when you have chat open - see screen shot below.
Substack have given us surveys to play with. You can find and edit them in ‘Buttons’ when you start a post.
I’d love to invite you to complete this anonymous survey so I can share the results… It’s focussed on helping Substack beginners to better understand how we are using the platform’s potential. It’s so I can better demonstrate and help folks at the start of their journey. If you’ve been here a couple of months or more, feel free to fill it in. There are eight short questions some of them multiple choice.
🎟️ I’ll be giving away three annual subscriptions at random in a month’s time as a thank-you for your support in helping me with my research. The survey is anonymous so drop a comment below so I know you’ve filled it in? Again, the button to make and insert a survey is in your ‘buttons’ tab here.
Feeling overwhelmed with all the options on Substack?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we have NEVER had a platform like Substack with an inbuilt growth engine like Substack - now is the time to be here. Who knows what the future will bring. Substack have taken care of me and my creative online home for nearly two years so I can’t recommend them enough.
The connection and kindness here is still wild to me after being a lonely freelancer in rural Northumberland and not really ‘getting’ the ‘community’ aspect of IG.
We have our own network of colleagues to chat with in Notes 24/7, huge reader audiences hitting nearly 40million (unofficially) and lots creative tools to use.
I have created a NEW Substack masterclass for 2024 after the success of my last one in March 2023. You can book your spot to come live or watch the replay here. We are going to walk through the entire platform, hone in on what it is YOU want to do here and create a realistic content calendar for you to take away. I’ve kept the masterclass super affordable at the early bird price of just £11 or two payments of £5.50. That’s around US $14 and AU$20 - price will double this time next week!
The masterclass will be fast paced and the replay will also be available for my paid subs/members of Sparkle on Substack for FREE.
Sending sparkles for your leap day ahead!
Claire
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PS - Sparkle Members - I’ll see you on Monday 4 March at 9.30am where we are exploring the ‘audio’ options here on Substack. I’m SO excited! Replays of previous classes are available here. We always have one morning call and one afternoon call every single month to account for all the time zones. Replays are up same day.
A ‘creative practise’ is something that we lean into and hone; we make friends with the way we like to create and work and we choose that way, our way again and again no matter what anyone else is doing… There’s no blue print in a creative practise; it’s the ultimate act of rebellion.
Substack used to be such a lonely place a few years ago so glad it’s turned into a flourishing diverse garden 🌱
Hi Claire. I've filled in the survey. 😊
As others have mentioned I had to do it through substack on a browser not through the app but it worked there.