Your Friday Email - Substack Tips - A feature, a friend and a recommendation

Slow and conscious growth on Substack with some thoughts on managing your boundaries in a online world where the lights are always on!

Happy Friday all - here’s another Slow Lived Growth on Substack update from me. I’ve called it ‘Substack Tips’ as a tag which felt clearer.

You can read more by clicking through to my section right here on Substack.

There are short podcast/ voice notes and some screen shots, some recommendations and some ‘how tos’. It’s my intention to publish these most Fridays.

I love writing these segments. If you’re ready you can Start your own Substack or sign in to read others. Let me know if you have any questions. I have a masterclass and a 4 week course on making Substack work for you.

---

NB - After my little ‘what’s new round here’ round up below, this post mentions anxiety caused by being online so if you’re looking for sunshine and rainbows today maybe save for another day…

What’s new for me on Substack this week?

I nearly fell off my chair when I got a notification that

Substack Writers

had mentioned me in a post. I clicked into their

Substack Reads

section and there it was a little screen shot of my blossom picture and invitation on Notes. The reason I think this Note got spotted was because it did these things;

• Asked a question (about blossom) - who doesn’t love to chat blossom this time of year ESPECIALLY here in the UK.

• Shared a whimsical picture - this was a total test but why not!? Photos are lovely - people love photos.

• Started something ‘snowbally’ - I’m not planning to talk about algorithims but people started shared their own blossom pictures in reply and people are still pressing the like button and the note is over a week old!

I’ve heard snippets from the team at Substack and they’re saying - use Notes to chat - encourage discussion there - encourage connection, they love connection here and so do we right?

The same day the lovely Molly from

Hippy Highland Living

shared my Substack with her subscribers and I realised something else that felt really really nice;

There is a beautiful generosity of spirit here mixed with a much longer attention span than social media. That’s it, that’s the real magic. That’s why it’s working.

That’s why every one new subscriber is so precious.

Next up - BOOKS! we get to read long form, connect and hopefully support people’s real life beautiful books 📚 📚📚

I love the new feature of sharing your book links on your profile.

If you’ve written, self published or been published by a publishing house add a link. You could also add a link to an ebook/s. I’ve added both of my creativity and wellbeing journals to my links page - you can add any online link there.

We have a saying in the North East of England - “Shy bairn’s get nowt” - in short, it means if you don’t ask you’ll not receive. A bairn is an endearing word for baby or child and it’s usually used by adults as a saying relating to a plucky child asking for sweets or something but not always.

I think this is very true of promoting your book here! Do it now!

You might notice I’ve taken twitter off here as a link. I was chatting in notes with an author who has deleted her twitter and I’m SO tempted to do the same but I do use my follower numbers in funding apps so I’m not sure… Do you have links on your page here?

Update - Substack and Twitter are in dispute so no sharing to twitter at the moment (May 23)

Onto this week’s tool for slow, intentional growth;

• Are you using your recommendations feature? I started using recommendations at the end of last summer. I write a little heart centred blurb about why I recommend individual Substacks and this toggles through 5 different Substacks on my home page. I pop in twice a month and check this space and add more recommendations if I’ve read/ discovered more folks. It feels so wonderful to get an email to say someone is recommending my Substack. Thank-you if you’ve done that for me.

  I like to think of this as a cover to my Substack Magazine! The back office looks like this in your settings.

And this is how it looks on my ‘home’ page.

I recommend way more Substacks than they list in the bottom right corner, but if I check back tomorrow the list will look different again… I have a quiet goal around recommendations here because why not?!

Screenshot from a recent email from Substack updating me on lovely news…

• Substack
  are very transparent and fast in the development of features and responding to what we think. If you don’t know your boost from your notes just yet this is a great article from them;

  Product news for writers: Boost, Subscriber report, Chat on the web, and more

---

I really wanted to address online burnout here today after an experience a few weeks ago gave me some ABSOLUTELY non negotiable light bulb moments and new boundaries as a consumer.

I wrote out this piece in my notebook sat with a coffee in the sun at a little cafe on holiday so it’s a little different to my usual style. It’s more free writing journal style.

I only had Substack on my phone over hols - no emails or social media. My phone was quiet. Well it’s always on silent and I don’t have any notifications on there but it was a different extension of me - more camera than communication device.

On hols, there were two instances I felt anxiety rise up that I couldn’t shake quickly - one when a well meaning Dad from a family we were chatting poolside with tried to talk to me about Brexit and the other I’ve written about here.

The holiday was a HARD reset for my nervous system and it couldn’t have come soon enough. It really struck me as I unfurled from pregnancy in a pandemic and all that followed in the heat of the sun on a beautifully designed sun-lounger we’ve all just been through so so much. We’ve shifted the way we communicate and quickly and that’s only half of everyone’s pandemic story.

I’m boundaried around work and social media but those places are often like a sneaky racoon living under your porch isn’t aren't they…? ¹

The Island of Near Nighttime Insanity

Coming back to centre, always back to centre. Underneath the fight or flight and sheer shock at the ridiculousness of the internet there is always a sea of calm, of possibility, of freedom.

Trusting a body to protect a soul, honouring a body to make space and time - we have time, there is so much time.

Why I’m not subscribing but in not subscribing, I’m still subscribing.

A hop, skip and a jump into the unknown. A brilliant writer shares a round up of things we can look at on the internet. A popular style that’s been landing in my inbox for years. The writer is brilliant and I trust them so I click one, two, three. The point of no return. I trust them but I don’t know them - Gosh - I REALLY don’t know them at all.

How do I get off the island I didn’t sign up for this? I feel sick. I need to sleep, Luna will be up early. Why can’t I sleep?

Before we know it we’re catapulted into worlds that are not ours, reading and seeing people’s lives we don’t know talking about things we don’t care about.

If this is escapism, if this is entertainment I need my money back.

Oh wait I didn’t pay - it’s free and recommended and suggested I would like to read this. I’m here of my own free will. How did this happen?

Things I personally would never google or seek out or want to know filtering through my eyes to my brain to my senses to my sense of sense? Empathy, compassion, sadness at the world of celebrity striving and consumerism.

It’s late now, the sun is well down and there’s a creep of darkness in this place, in my space - my nervous system is clinging on by a mere thread. Show me the light! Cortisol races through my body it’s too late. I can’t sleep now.

But, we tell ourselves this writer is ‘brilliant’, has 5 stars, thousands of subscribers probably straight As and a first degree from a top university. Oh!

We could have backed away abruptly, there was no one to make apology too. Snook out the back door while everyone was partying long into the night - we should have done that, we’ll do that next time.

They’ll see we clicked the links, 1 then 2 then 3 - looking for a resolve but falling deeper, deeper down into the thicket. Staring up looking for stars through brambles.

They’ll think people want more of this - do people want more of this? I don’t.

What’s wrong with us? Are we so devoid of connection we search for it in endless clicking of links? Is this what it means to be human in 2023?

On Brilliance

The time to realise brilliance doesn’t mean we need to consume everything suggested is upon us.

Brilliant writers are not gurus they are brilliant writers (sometimes).

We don’t need to subscribe to anything outside of ourselves to BE brilliant ourselves.

Brilliance comes from being not from consuming.

We have free will to travel around the internet and read and click and scroll but sometimes just sometimes we stumble into space not good for us and it’s just all ok to practise getting the hell out of there.

My experiences are my experiences, I’m a real sensitive soul so I hope you know there’s no judgement here however you travel round the online world.

I just have a little question for you, an invitation if you like - what’s getting in the way of you being brilliant?

If you zoom out and look down on little beautiful you going about your day. If you peer down from the moon can you see it? Is it something you want to share with others?

Let’s chat in the comments,

Claire x

PS - Please know everything I write here on Substack is written from a place of creative curiosity and building community and trust with you.

I will never share left field links and if I write about ‘difficult topics’ or things that might be difficult to read, I’ll say that from the off.

Photo by Albert Stoynov on Unsplash

1. I don’t have racoons living under my porch. In fact I don’t think they live here in the UK and I don’t have a porch. If I did have a raccoon and a porch, I’d imagine I wouldn’t notice him at first, then I’d see him on the way somewhere but think to myself; “oh cute but small, probably won’t be a bother. I’ll deal with you later or maybe you’ll leave soon”.

Months might pass and and then I’d remember I saw the raccoon and right here and realise there was a full family of racoons inviting all their racoon mates round to chew away at the foundations of my home. Then I’d be in trouble. Here’s to spotting the racoon early on and asking what exactly what he needs!