Substack Housewarming Party

From an invent-a-dragon watercolor painting challenge I did with my son one afternoon.

Some decades ago I co-founded a small tech company, but I’m actually hopelessly untechnical. Not like boomer untechnical. More like middle-ages-monastery untechnical. A month ago I didn’t know what Substack was, and the path to this first-ever post was equal parts lovely and self-serving.

Three years back I wrote a 200K word dystopian fantasy novel. Then I started researching how one publishes a novel (I recommend this method—do a thing and then research the thing) and discovered a query letter was needed.

I wrote a query letter, spammed a dozen agents and then researched query letters (you’re probably noticing a pattern), and discovered agents have a special shredder for letters with 200K in the first sentence.

So I’ve spent the last year writing a slimmer, more personal novel and sending off short stories to the occasional lit mag and contest. One of the head judges for a recent contest said in her bio that everyone who was anyone was reading Courtney Maum’s Before and After the Book Deal, and since I want to be someone, I bought it and read it.

Then I discovered Courtney’s Substack—up to that point I’d had the vague impression that Substack was Reddit for people who shower—and discovered a whole publishing education for a few dollars a month.

Substack then recommended Laura McKowen, so I bought and read her sobriety book We Are the Luckiest, which came just as I was desperate for a way to stop drinking and smoking cigarettes (I wish I could blame living in Italy, but I may have made a few choices along the way). So in a way, I have this community to thank for two beautiful recent life changes.

I just wanted to say that I’m loving the new neighborhood. The posts are thoughtful and the writers are generous with one another. I came looking for free publishing advice but now I think I want to belong here.

Speaking of query letters, last night I had the privilege of joining a class by the excellent Courtney Maum on how to write a good one, and if you haven’t checked out her coming workshops, you should do that. “Hook Them on Page One” is next up, and I’ll be there.

So welcome to my housewarming party, come in and say hello. I’ll be the one in the corner drinking an alcohol-free beer and trying to avoid small talk. And if the cheese tray is already empty I didn’t do it.