Fictionistas Office Hours take place on the last Tuesday of every month, starting at 7am EST and running throughout the day… or night, depending on where you reside on this little globe of ours. Come and go as you please. It’s an opportunity to meet other fiction writers on Substack, ask and answer questions about writing fiction, and share ideas about how to improve the community. Here are a couple discussion starters if you’re feeling shy:
What are your thoughts on the new Notes feature of Substack?
What is your white whale project (a question inspired by Geoffrey Golden)?
I’ve had a couple of ideas floating in my head for stories to write since I was a teenager, but since I haven’t invested the time to write them yet, I’m going to start blogging writing more short stories, while helping my wife make her own novel idea a reality. I figure that’s a great way for us to spend time together!
Yeah, I find I’m okay with Notes too ... as long as I’ve set my notifications correctly. I’ve heard a lot about how much noise it creates, but I feel like I can control that noise.
Notes seems interesting. It looks like it can be a decent alternative to Twitter for those who know how to navigate it and have enough readers/followers to make it worth it. Because I noticed some people introducing themselves and their work, I tried doing the same thing to see if I could have any luck with it, but it didn't really work. Perhaps it needs to be given more time, but hopefully it doesn't become driven solely by popularity or algorithms.
What I like about Fictionistas is how it's given many different writers a chance to both post advice on writing and share their own fiction. It's also great to see how supportive people are of each other's work.
It's been great for me so far. I like it because I post flash fiction satire on my newsletter, and Notes allows me to take a break from posting irony all the time and I can just share photos of my dog and food, and links to whatever I'm listening to.
I'm sure we'll get lots of feedback on Notes (which is great!), so I'm going to talk about my white whale project. Geoffrey brought this up in the monthly zoom meeting, and it was a really interesting question. I think it's a better way to frame the "what would you do, if you could do anything" question because it leaves room for the imagination. It's like, what's not entirely out the realm of possibility, but still far-fetched. I would love to turn one of my short stories into a short film. I don't know any of the really technical aspects of filmmaking, but I could learn the ones I need to direct and communicate my vision. To really make it a white whale, I would need it to be featured on the Dust YouTube channel:
Someone posted about sharing something they’d written on Notes. I really, really hope people don’t start using it that way, or for self-promotion in any way. Notes needs to be place where contributors can chat about the process of writing, its difficulties and solutions, its challenges and rewards, not an endless stream of ‘Please tell me what you think of my writing’ clogging up the discourse about writing and writers. (And, too often, I feel, rather inviting the response that frankly I think your writing is thin, solipsistic and onanistic rubbish. And your grammar stinks. But maybe I’m a really tough critic, and just a terrible person altogether!)
There are lots of places where people can post their work for critique. Please, everyone, let’s keep Notes purely for the high standard of writer-to-writer support and information which is already emerging on Notes.
You've reinforced numerous comments from others, on Notes, expressing that Notes is great for Substack writers to gather with other Substack writers. I don't think that's how it was intended to be used (because that excludes around 20 million readers of Substack), but Notes is already turning into the writer's enclave. Perhaps they should remove visibility of Notes for everyone else. Although i don't know how that will help to increase reader numbers or paid subscriptions, because I don't imagine Substack writers are infinity adding each other or paying each other. Still, it's becoming clear that Substack writers will steer the purpose of Notes now that it's in wild.
Everything seems like a white whale project in the beginning, but I'd love to self-publish my first book this year. There are so many horror stories about self-publishing, and I'd like to learn enough to make a decent run at it instead of just posting something and hoping it works.
Self-publishing involves a lot of steps but none of them are difficult. Just stuff like, write book, edit book, lay book out for ebook (or a bit more complicated, for print), get cover (again, easier for ebook because you don't need the wrap around), get ISBN, write cover/marketing blurb, create Amazon (plus other platforms if desired) account, upload book, promote book. The dance is a bit more difficult if you hire editors/cover designers/interior designers but even that is manageable if you have the budget. So finish your book and don't fear the publication part. And if you need to practice, try publishing a short story on Amazon - it's the same general process but much easier and should give you some confidence for the bigger project!
I love the idea of posting a short story! I wasn't sure if there'd be any call for it, but I guess if it's just for practice, that doesn't much matter, does it? Much less terrifying to put up something that's not my white whale project - learn how to do it, check the boxes, do the hokey-pokey and when I've got it turned around, I'll know how it works. Excellent idea, thank you!
Also a great idea. I've been toying with a serial, or something similar, but I hadn't thought of making sections of the story itself available. Thank you!
On Notes, I like the idea of a Twitter specifically designed to get people to subscribe to Substacks, but the feed isn’t super compelling to me right now. It feels a bit like LinkedIn for newsletter writers and I already have a Discord for that.
My white whale changes, but currently it’s either an interactive movie along the lines of Bandersnatch or a retro VCR board game like Atmosfear.
That reminds me, you were able to get your hands on that Lilo & Stitch DVD board game right? How did you like playing it? Back on topic I'm curious, would your board game need to involve VCR specifically or would using modern tech in a similar way be enough to haul in the whale?
I bought it, but I haven’t played it yet. Hopefully soon! The joy and curse of every gamer is a long queue.
That’s a great question. I think even if I made an entirely digital board game in that style, or a physical board game with a digital video component, I would probably want to make a version on VHS, even if it was limited edition. But there’s a whole scene around VHS right now, so there might be more of a market for it than I’m imagining?
I'd imagine, I've seen some articles about new games being released for retro consoles. Makes me wonder about trying to make a Gamecube game. If new gameboy games can see a release I imagine it must be possible in some way to make a new VCR release. Though I'd probably go with the fully digital version due to lack of nearby people to play with.
A quick Google search tells me there is a homebrew scene for GameCube, though it might be trickier to develop for than Game Boy.
Oh yeah, VHS duplication and printing is very much a thing. I could probably get short run tapes made for $5-$10 unit and less if I made +1000. There’s no programming or anything to consider, but physical board games with lots of parts are expensive to make and ship in general.
My white whale: first, to write a well-paced, compelling novel that explores the awful power of the unintended consequences of our fascination with technology, and then for that to get made into a film. Why not dream big?
Hey @Fictionistas and friends- hope all is well wherever you may be.
Re. Notes... perhaps a useful feature we could provide would be a sub-note devoted to upcoming literary mag deadlines, contests, awards, writers' retreats and so on, both on and off of the stacks.
I'm sure everyone here has had the experience of getting ready to submit somewhere and missing the deadline by a day... sigh.
I know the goal of Substack is to keep and promote the content on Substack, but the outside world is still going to exist, so we might as well benefit from it. I am sure many of you have also felt countless hours of your lives have been spent not very efficiently checking various writers' boards, fora and Submittable or Moksha lists, etc etc... If a dedicated Fictionistas note on this topic could be maintained by anyone willing to contribute, it could be of great common value to all of us. Maybe someday Substack will even be in a position ot organize fiction writers' retreats. We cannot achieve more than we can wish for. Just my twp cents, happy writing, all.
Fictionistas runs on volunteers. If you would like to start something like this, and help it keep going, I'd be up for that. Are you envisioning a thread like this? Maybe we could do something along these lines on a monthly or quarterly basis? Think on how it might look and we can talk more!
As for a retreat, that's way beyond my scope at the moment, but it's something that I would love to do in the future. If people wanted to come to the center of the US (I'm in St Louis, which is a super literary city believe it or not) we might someday be able to make it happen.
Glad to hear you find the idea of interest, Jackie- I do understand Fictionistas is a volunteer project, I would be happy to help in so far as I can, though I would definitely like to get help and some agreed guidelines on where to bring in the data from others as well. I subscribe to different (non substack) writing lists and randomly check every now and then to various sites where deadlines are published, but usually only when I have a particular story or article I wish to sell. Since having started Substack in January, it has taken so much of my time that I have not really engaged with those sort of sources as I used to, so maybe it would be good to get back to it.
I think if Substack as a company sees value in writers retreats it would be financially possible someday in the future, for example, if there was some kind of deal for first rights of publication on Substack- it could all be decided variously. I am aware of different writers retreats here in Europe that charge different rates depending on the writer's potential social media engagement as it advertises their business. I am just a writer, not so business-minded, so I will not offer any grand strategy except to note that someday something should be possible if people want it.
I did not know that St Louis is a literary town, but then again, I have never been there! Very interesting to know, and I do hope to visit some day. I will be happy to be in touch and discuss the notes concept and to read your work.
Hey there folks, I just started Vision Quest, a serialized story about two brothers who experience the loss of their families and embark on a cross-country motorcycle trip on Harleys searching for meaning.
Readers can choose to read the stories individually or in sequence. It’s like a TV show with episodes. Each story gradually adds details about the main character’s so regular readers will learn more about them and understand why they behave as they do. For more information, see: https://scottocamb.substack.com/p/vision-quest
As far as my white whale project, I've been wanting to write a (mostly) realistic Napoleonic Era zombie story ever since Pride and Prejudice and Zombies came out. The story I have in mind would take at least a full book, if not more. That's really daunting for a slow writer who hasn't even finished the first draft of her other novel yet.
On Notes, I still don't really understand them - they honestly make no sense to me. Then again I run 4 Substacks and my audiences don't really overlap that much, so for me they probably never will make a lot of sense. But if others are finding them useful and fun, that's great.
As for a white whale, I really just want to get my two series moving out the door. I'm actually stuck near the end of two novels and have little time and energy to finish, and that bums me out because I really want to be the person with 7-8 novels published right now. But eventually they will all get written and then a publisher will pick them up and make me a superstar who can pick and choose between showrunners for my own Netflix series (basically, I want the people who made Outlander).
My favorite thing about Fictionistas (a question few people are answering (!!!) is how engaged our community is, and how many people are getting involved to expand and grow our group to the point where we're not a bunch of people reading a Substack but an actual community with people who help and encourage each other and build amazing things. I value each and every one of you!
I'll start off by saying I like Fictionistas because of the community and the opportunity to see various articles of interest. The prompts are fun too, although I can't always get into them too much with such specificity. More general works better for me as it leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Still, fun to connect.
Notes is the wrong direction for Substack and I wish they had stayed true to their core. With each new feature, they are pushing Substack into a more closed community. To some extent that’s inevitable because its is a platform, but as it closes itself off more, it becomes another tool for writers to support writers. That’s not at its core a bad thing, but I fear Substack will eventually become like Twitter’s writing community where the support is just for the sake of support and not for the actual writing.
I think we could all benefit from an influx of outside readers whose principal motive is to read the work. Those folks exist of course, and are present, but if Substack continues to push the social media Ouroboros model, they may find themselves on the outside looking in at a party to which they’re not invited.
I've enjoyed Notes but agree with most of the criticism of it, this is definitely feature creep which is never a good sign and shouldn't have happened ideally. But a social media with a narrow focus is more my style, kind of like Miiverse but for writers instead of Nintendo games. I don't mind that it's mainly for writers rather than readers because the limited audience is a feature to me, not a bug like it is to others.
My white whale project is Battles Beneath the Stars as an actual fighting game. The details of it keep changing in my mind, there are mechanics I've thought of that I've kept out of the guide sections of it for simplicity. And I am getting some fighting game making experience. But it's such a difficult genre to make, especially on your own. I'd have to either get a team somehow or learn 3d modeling + animation myself.
As an aside to that, the other elaborate dream game concept is a massive crossover game, with both fighting and everyone hanging out together in a little town. So basically Smash Bros and Disney Dreamlight Valley fused together. It'd have to be a fan game to match the dream, which makes it doubly impractical.
Writing itself feels within my power, even if it will take a lot of research to do right (hi Dracula sequel idea). So that's why my white whales involve video games, they're a much more difficult medium to work with. Meanwhile the story evading me since Middle School is something I know I'll be able to catch one day.
My favorite thing about Fictionistas is the zoom chats, always sad when I miss them. And I like these threads.
I'm new here to this Substack, so enjoying getting to meet other writers and scroll through comments. I like that you run these threads.
I had to Google what a white whale project is 😂 I'm not in business so that wasn't a term I'd ever come across.
I'm 50:50 on Notes. I've been really enjoying some of the threads and chats on there, but I'm very conscious that it can become a time-sink (I had a few days where I kept coming back to it, and I've never ever done that with any social media) plus I also worry to what extent it's becomming writer-centric and how many reader-only users are on there and using it and how that aligns with the original purpose, or if it had an original purpose. Enjoying seeing it evolve though, but am going to limit my time because I truly love the slower pace of reading posts when they arrive in my inbox and getting the occasional notification of a response to a comment thread.
Note: well, I've poked around at it a few times. Found a thread that interested me. I really try to limit my time to any social media and the notes feature has that feel. That said, as a person without any writer friends in my inner circle it is nice to just pop in and see other writers talking about writer stuff.
White Whale: I think my current project would certain apply, in the sense that whatever is in front of me is my main focus. I had to actually think about this question this afternoon. I don't think I'm dreaming big enough. So, after some journaling I will say that I would like be eventually seen as a prolific writer, on that is paid for her writing, to me known internationally as a writer of fiction that stirs the creative mind as well as the soul.
My favorite thing about Fictionistas: is the community. I enjoy all the different contributors, the volunteers that make this space possible. It has helped me come out of my writing shell and I hope to some day assist or be a part of something here rather than just a fly on the wall.
I haven't really used notes yet. Haven't figured out what I want to do yet. Share books as I list them in my Etsy shop, photographs, or micro film diaries. Ha!
My white whale project is to complete my book of Micro and Flash stories.
This is my first toe dip into Fictionistas but I am loving what I see so far!
I’ve had a couple of ideas floating in my head for stories to write since I was a teenager, but since I haven’t invested the time to write them yet, I’m going to start blogging writing more short stories, while helping my wife make her own novel idea a reality. I figure that’s a great way for us to spend time together!
I thought Notes would be just more noise, but it's actually a nice way of having off the cuff hats
I mean chats!
But maybe someone will use it to start showing off hats, too!
Chats about hats. Why not?
Excellent idea!😂
I hope so 😂
Yeah, I find I’m okay with Notes too ... as long as I’ve set my notifications correctly. I’ve heard a lot about how much noise it creates, but I feel like I can control that noise.
I wasn't aware you can control Notes notifications. At the moment I am finding it manageable
Creeping featuritis is never a good sign. I'd be happier if they would give us series navigation and then stop.
Of course, I imagine half of us also want them to add one more feature and then stop, and its a different feature every time.
Notes seems interesting. It looks like it can be a decent alternative to Twitter for those who know how to navigate it and have enough readers/followers to make it worth it. Because I noticed some people introducing themselves and their work, I tried doing the same thing to see if I could have any luck with it, but it didn't really work. Perhaps it needs to be given more time, but hopefully it doesn't become driven solely by popularity or algorithms.
What I like about Fictionistas is how it's given many different writers a chance to both post advice on writing and share their own fiction. It's also great to see how supportive people are of each other's work.
It's been great for me so far. I like it because I post flash fiction satire on my newsletter, and Notes allows me to take a break from posting irony all the time and I can just share photos of my dog and food, and links to whatever I'm listening to.
I'm sure we'll get lots of feedback on Notes (which is great!), so I'm going to talk about my white whale project. Geoffrey brought this up in the monthly zoom meeting, and it was a really interesting question. I think it's a better way to frame the "what would you do, if you could do anything" question because it leaves room for the imagination. It's like, what's not entirely out the realm of possibility, but still far-fetched. I would love to turn one of my short stories into a short film. I don't know any of the really technical aspects of filmmaking, but I could learn the ones I need to direct and communicate my vision. To really make it a white whale, I would need it to be featured on the Dust YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@watchdust
That's great to know! Thank you for offering to be a sounding board. My whale just got a little smaller.
Someone posted about sharing something they’d written on Notes. I really, really hope people don’t start using it that way, or for self-promotion in any way. Notes needs to be place where contributors can chat about the process of writing, its difficulties and solutions, its challenges and rewards, not an endless stream of ‘Please tell me what you think of my writing’ clogging up the discourse about writing and writers. (And, too often, I feel, rather inviting the response that frankly I think your writing is thin, solipsistic and onanistic rubbish. And your grammar stinks. But maybe I’m a really tough critic, and just a terrible person altogether!)
There are lots of places where people can post their work for critique. Please, everyone, let’s keep Notes purely for the high standard of writer-to-writer support and information which is already emerging on Notes.
You've reinforced numerous comments from others, on Notes, expressing that Notes is great for Substack writers to gather with other Substack writers. I don't think that's how it was intended to be used (because that excludes around 20 million readers of Substack), but Notes is already turning into the writer's enclave. Perhaps they should remove visibility of Notes for everyone else. Although i don't know how that will help to increase reader numbers or paid subscriptions, because I don't imagine Substack writers are infinity adding each other or paying each other. Still, it's becoming clear that Substack writers will steer the purpose of Notes now that it's in wild.
Everything seems like a white whale project in the beginning, but I'd love to self-publish my first book this year. There are so many horror stories about self-publishing, and I'd like to learn enough to make a decent run at it instead of just posting something and hoping it works.
You're in the right place to do that, Olivia!
Self-publishing involves a lot of steps but none of them are difficult. Just stuff like, write book, edit book, lay book out for ebook (or a bit more complicated, for print), get cover (again, easier for ebook because you don't need the wrap around), get ISBN, write cover/marketing blurb, create Amazon (plus other platforms if desired) account, upload book, promote book. The dance is a bit more difficult if you hire editors/cover designers/interior designers but even that is manageable if you have the budget. So finish your book and don't fear the publication part. And if you need to practice, try publishing a short story on Amazon - it's the same general process but much easier and should give you some confidence for the bigger project!
I love the idea of posting a short story! I wasn't sure if there'd be any call for it, but I guess if it's just for practice, that doesn't much matter, does it? Much less terrifying to put up something that's not my white whale project - learn how to do it, check the boxes, do the hokey-pokey and when I've got it turned around, I'll know how it works. Excellent idea, thank you!
there are a lot of steps. I like to say it's not Rocket Science, but it is Airplane Science.
I would publish some excerpts of your book here on substack. I did that for my book this fall. Have a look at what I did here: https://scottocamb.substack.com/p/motorcycle-stories
Also a great idea. I've been toying with a serial, or something similar, but I hadn't thought of making sections of the story itself available. Thank you!
good luck
On Notes, I like the idea of a Twitter specifically designed to get people to subscribe to Substacks, but the feed isn’t super compelling to me right now. It feels a bit like LinkedIn for newsletter writers and I already have a Discord for that.
My white whale changes, but currently it’s either an interactive movie along the lines of Bandersnatch or a retro VCR board game like Atmosfear.
Retro VCR board game!!! I love that idea.
It’d be fun to design, but probably very expensive to produce. I’d need to do very well on Kickstarter.
That reminds me, you were able to get your hands on that Lilo & Stitch DVD board game right? How did you like playing it? Back on topic I'm curious, would your board game need to involve VCR specifically or would using modern tech in a similar way be enough to haul in the whale?
I bought it, but I haven’t played it yet. Hopefully soon! The joy and curse of every gamer is a long queue.
That’s a great question. I think even if I made an entirely digital board game in that style, or a physical board game with a digital video component, I would probably want to make a version on VHS, even if it was limited edition. But there’s a whole scene around VHS right now, so there might be more of a market for it than I’m imagining?
I'd imagine, I've seen some articles about new games being released for retro consoles. Makes me wonder about trying to make a Gamecube game. If new gameboy games can see a release I imagine it must be possible in some way to make a new VCR release. Though I'd probably go with the fully digital version due to lack of nearby people to play with.
A quick Google search tells me there is a homebrew scene for GameCube, though it might be trickier to develop for than Game Boy.
Oh yeah, VHS duplication and printing is very much a thing. I could probably get short run tapes made for $5-$10 unit and less if I made +1000. There’s no programming or anything to consider, but physical board games with lots of parts are expensive to make and ship in general.
My white whale: first, to write a well-paced, compelling novel that explores the awful power of the unintended consequences of our fascination with technology, and then for that to get made into a film. Why not dream big?
That's right, Tom, dream big! I look forward to you having a cameo in the film. 😁
Hey @Fictionistas and friends- hope all is well wherever you may be.
Re. Notes... perhaps a useful feature we could provide would be a sub-note devoted to upcoming literary mag deadlines, contests, awards, writers' retreats and so on, both on and off of the stacks.
I'm sure everyone here has had the experience of getting ready to submit somewhere and missing the deadline by a day... sigh.
I know the goal of Substack is to keep and promote the content on Substack, but the outside world is still going to exist, so we might as well benefit from it. I am sure many of you have also felt countless hours of your lives have been spent not very efficiently checking various writers' boards, fora and Submittable or Moksha lists, etc etc... If a dedicated Fictionistas note on this topic could be maintained by anyone willing to contribute, it could be of great common value to all of us. Maybe someday Substack will even be in a position ot organize fiction writers' retreats. We cannot achieve more than we can wish for. Just my twp cents, happy writing, all.
Fictionistas runs on volunteers. If you would like to start something like this, and help it keep going, I'd be up for that. Are you envisioning a thread like this? Maybe we could do something along these lines on a monthly or quarterly basis? Think on how it might look and we can talk more!
As for a retreat, that's way beyond my scope at the moment, but it's something that I would love to do in the future. If people wanted to come to the center of the US (I'm in St Louis, which is a super literary city believe it or not) we might someday be able to make it happen.
Glad to hear you find the idea of interest, Jackie- I do understand Fictionistas is a volunteer project, I would be happy to help in so far as I can, though I would definitely like to get help and some agreed guidelines on where to bring in the data from others as well. I subscribe to different (non substack) writing lists and randomly check every now and then to various sites where deadlines are published, but usually only when I have a particular story or article I wish to sell. Since having started Substack in January, it has taken so much of my time that I have not really engaged with those sort of sources as I used to, so maybe it would be good to get back to it.
I think if Substack as a company sees value in writers retreats it would be financially possible someday in the future, for example, if there was some kind of deal for first rights of publication on Substack- it could all be decided variously. I am aware of different writers retreats here in Europe that charge different rates depending on the writer's potential social media engagement as it advertises their business. I am just a writer, not so business-minded, so I will not offer any grand strategy except to note that someday something should be possible if people want it.
I did not know that St Louis is a literary town, but then again, I have never been there! Very interesting to know, and I do hope to visit some day. I will be happy to be in touch and discuss the notes concept and to read your work.
Best,
Chris
I've written an article detailing my thoughts regarding Substack Notes, both praises and concerns.
https://germanicuscaesar117.substack.com/p/substack-notes-two-weeks-together
Hey there folks, I just started Vision Quest, a serialized story about two brothers who experience the loss of their families and embark on a cross-country motorcycle trip on Harleys searching for meaning.
Readers can choose to read the stories individually or in sequence. It’s like a TV show with episodes. Each story gradually adds details about the main character’s so regular readers will learn more about them and understand why they behave as they do. For more information, see: https://scottocamb.substack.com/p/vision-quest
Very cool, I will be happy to answer your questionnaire. And thanks for subscribing.
So far, Notes seems to be mostly civil. I saw one person trying to stir up drama Twitter style, but nobody else was having it.
As far as my white whale project, I've been wanting to write a (mostly) realistic Napoleonic Era zombie story ever since Pride and Prejudice and Zombies came out. The story I have in mind would take at least a full book, if not more. That's really daunting for a slow writer who hasn't even finished the first draft of her other novel yet.
I am hanging out observing Notes for now before I dive in. It looks promising so far.
On Notes, I still don't really understand them - they honestly make no sense to me. Then again I run 4 Substacks and my audiences don't really overlap that much, so for me they probably never will make a lot of sense. But if others are finding them useful and fun, that's great.
As for a white whale, I really just want to get my two series moving out the door. I'm actually stuck near the end of two novels and have little time and energy to finish, and that bums me out because I really want to be the person with 7-8 novels published right now. But eventually they will all get written and then a publisher will pick them up and make me a superstar who can pick and choose between showrunners for my own Netflix series (basically, I want the people who made Outlander).
My favorite thing about Fictionistas (a question few people are answering (!!!) is how engaged our community is, and how many people are getting involved to expand and grow our group to the point where we're not a bunch of people reading a Substack but an actual community with people who help and encourage each other and build amazing things. I value each and every one of you!
The community loves and values you, too, Jackie! You built a great scene here.
If you ever need help working through what you’re stuck on, DM me.
I'll start off by saying I like Fictionistas because of the community and the opportunity to see various articles of interest. The prompts are fun too, although I can't always get into them too much with such specificity. More general works better for me as it leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Still, fun to connect.
Notes is the wrong direction for Substack and I wish they had stayed true to their core. With each new feature, they are pushing Substack into a more closed community. To some extent that’s inevitable because its is a platform, but as it closes itself off more, it becomes another tool for writers to support writers. That’s not at its core a bad thing, but I fear Substack will eventually become like Twitter’s writing community where the support is just for the sake of support and not for the actual writing.
I think we could all benefit from an influx of outside readers whose principal motive is to read the work. Those folks exist of course, and are present, but if Substack continues to push the social media Ouroboros model, they may find themselves on the outside looking in at a party to which they’re not invited.
My favorite thing about Fictionistas is finding new writers.
I've enjoyed Notes but agree with most of the criticism of it, this is definitely feature creep which is never a good sign and shouldn't have happened ideally. But a social media with a narrow focus is more my style, kind of like Miiverse but for writers instead of Nintendo games. I don't mind that it's mainly for writers rather than readers because the limited audience is a feature to me, not a bug like it is to others.
My white whale project is Battles Beneath the Stars as an actual fighting game. The details of it keep changing in my mind, there are mechanics I've thought of that I've kept out of the guide sections of it for simplicity. And I am getting some fighting game making experience. But it's such a difficult genre to make, especially on your own. I'd have to either get a team somehow or learn 3d modeling + animation myself.
As an aside to that, the other elaborate dream game concept is a massive crossover game, with both fighting and everyone hanging out together in a little town. So basically Smash Bros and Disney Dreamlight Valley fused together. It'd have to be a fan game to match the dream, which makes it doubly impractical.
Writing itself feels within my power, even if it will take a lot of research to do right (hi Dracula sequel idea). So that's why my white whales involve video games, they're a much more difficult medium to work with. Meanwhile the story evading me since Middle School is something I know I'll be able to catch one day.
My favorite thing about Fictionistas is the zoom chats, always sad when I miss them. And I like these threads.
I'm new here to this Substack, so enjoying getting to meet other writers and scroll through comments. I like that you run these threads.
I had to Google what a white whale project is 😂 I'm not in business so that wasn't a term I'd ever come across.
I'm 50:50 on Notes. I've been really enjoying some of the threads and chats on there, but I'm very conscious that it can become a time-sink (I had a few days where I kept coming back to it, and I've never ever done that with any social media) plus I also worry to what extent it's becomming writer-centric and how many reader-only users are on there and using it and how that aligns with the original purpose, or if it had an original purpose. Enjoying seeing it evolve though, but am going to limit my time because I truly love the slower pace of reading posts when they arrive in my inbox and getting the occasional notification of a response to a comment thread.
Note: well, I've poked around at it a few times. Found a thread that interested me. I really try to limit my time to any social media and the notes feature has that feel. That said, as a person without any writer friends in my inner circle it is nice to just pop in and see other writers talking about writer stuff.
White Whale: I think my current project would certain apply, in the sense that whatever is in front of me is my main focus. I had to actually think about this question this afternoon. I don't think I'm dreaming big enough. So, after some journaling I will say that I would like be eventually seen as a prolific writer, on that is paid for her writing, to me known internationally as a writer of fiction that stirs the creative mind as well as the soul.
My favorite thing about Fictionistas: is the community. I enjoy all the different contributors, the volunteers that make this space possible. It has helped me come out of my writing shell and I hope to some day assist or be a part of something here rather than just a fly on the wall.
I haven't really used notes yet. Haven't figured out what I want to do yet. Share books as I list them in my Etsy shop, photographs, or micro film diaries. Ha!
My white whale project is to complete my book of Micro and Flash stories.
This is my first toe dip into Fictionistas but I am loving what I see so far!