Dear Writer Podcast

Plus a new DW logo!

Dear Writer,

I’ve had a wildly busy summer, and now I’m ready to get down to it and start providing bonuses for paid subscribers, starting with the Dear Writer Podcast.

Here’s how (I think) it’ll work… because you never really know until you do it and people tell you it worked…

1. All weekly letters will remain free for all subscribers.

2. Podcast versions of those weekly letters will be available to paid subscribers.

That’s basically it. I think it might work, but I’m not sure of all the details until episodes are published, because there’s no way I can see to test it so… we’ll see. But whatever breaks, I’ll fix.

I’m good at that.

To give you all a sense of how the podcast will work, this coming Tuesday, August 1, I’ll put the first three episodes out to all subscribers, with readings of my posts from July 17, 24 & 31. As of August 7, the podcast will be available only to paid subscribers, and I’ve put my paid tier as low as it’ll go—$5/month—to make this accessible to as many people as I can.

If you enjoy this newsletter and would like to support me with about what it costs to buy me a cup of coffee a month, please consider becoming a paid supporter today.

In addition, I’ve created a new Dear Writer logo, featuring a cartoon sloth at a keyboard because that’s the kind of energy I’m having a the moment.

In the meantime, don’t forget to sign up to be on the mailing list and be the first to find out when applications open for the Year of Writing Magically 2024 cohort. I’m capping enrollment at 25, so be sure to get your application in early. It’s been an incredible experience, and the people in the 2023 cohort are totally bonded by the experience of messily drafting and revising together, which is the whole point.

As a matter of fact, here is one of the stickers we made for our private Discord chat:

B.A.M. stands for “Be A Mess” which is our rallying cry when any of us starts worrying about whether anything is good enough. Alternatively, since bees are part of the YOWM logo and many of us have found ways to work bees into our stories, it’s also Bee A Mess.

And hey—if you’re not subscribed to the totally free How Story Works podcast, you should be. I’m interviewing writers at all stages about their experiences, and some of those writers are coming to me with their writing problems and I’m giving them a free consultation where we talk about what’s going on and how they might approach it. There will also be an episode coming soon with Joshua Unruh, who took the Year of Writing Magically workshop this year and we will talk about the workshop and how awesome it is. So subscribe now to get that episode in your podcast feed the second it’s available.

And last… if you haven’t gotten your copy of How Story Works yet, what are you waiting for? I’m in the part of the Year of Writing Magically workshop where I’m teaching directly from the text, and I have to tell you… it’s good, y’all. It’s truly what I intended it to be; the Elements of Style for fiction.

Okay, that’s it! Three episodes of the Dear Writer podcast will be coming your way via Substack on Tuesday, and I will figure out how it all works from there.

Thanks for all your support and patience.

Everything,

L