Digital Dirty Laundry— Author's Notes #1
My first writing update, with a couple short stories for your to sample
Hey, Cole here. This is my first installment of “Author’s Notes.”
First off, if you’re a subscriber who found me through my other publication, Cole’s Climb, and decided to give my fiction writing a chance too: thank you for your support! It’s great to have you.
Some of you may have discovered my work more recently, and decided to follow for more. Great to have you here!
I have a few updates to share.
(this pic will make sense in a minute)
Extra Short Story
Before I launched Cole’s Chapters, I put out a tentative publishing schedule. Turns out I have more ideas than I thought. While away on vacation in the far-away lake country of Minnesota, I was struck with inspiration for a fun short story, which I’ve spent the last week-or-so writing.
Micro-Fiction
You may notice a new tab at the top of the page when you visit my site online. “Notes” is the social side of Substack where readers can interact with writers, and each other. It’s a really nice little ecosystem. I like that it’s less follower-driven than sites like Twitter or Instagram.
You don’t have to do anything over there. But I’ve been using Notes to share little snippets of micro-fiction on a pretty consistent basis. (Two days in a row now!)
I just added the tab so that if you’d like some more short stories, you can see them for yourself. Yesterday I shared this little ditty called “Am I the A-hole?” — which I had a blast writing.
If you didn’t know, “Am I the A-hole,” or AITA, is a popular online forum where posters air their digital dirty laundry, asking the community at large whether they are in the wrong — usually in a controversial situation.
I love the idea of using our online interactions as a fun way to tell a story. Because in a situation like the one I envision, I do believe our online presence would play a huge role.
These short stories stem from a new strategy of mine. And here, I feel the need to be totally transparent with you about something:
I am not here to sell you stuff
I love writing. And I want very much to make a living off my writing. Both can be true at once.
(In that spirit, if you feel my work is good enough to merit your financial support, you can do so at any time. I lay out the perks of a paid subscription over here.)
Most writers are terrible marketers, blowing up your feed with repetitive “buy my book” posts without actually adding any value to the ecosystem.
Most of us can tolerate a fair bit of shilling, as long as most of the content entertains. Even better if we don’t even have to break our stride scrolling.
In that spirit, I’ve decided to make my Instagram a place where I share shorter stories, in a format native to the platform. If you follow me over there, I’ll break up your feed with bite-sized bits of speculative fiction.
Here’s a little taste of the kinds of things you can expect to see:
Still, I don’t really want that kind of promotion to distract from my actual big book writing. I want to be very intentional with my time. So let me know if this kind of stuff is actually enjoyable to you. And if you do like it, please consider sharing with a friend.
It seems to me that Instagram posts require lower social capital to send to a friend. It’s a big ask, sharing a 3,000 word short story with someone. But a 40 second reel? You probably send dozens of those a day.
Hopefully this helps get my work in front of more people!
Thanks for reading!
—Cole