March Update
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The State of Gibberish
Another month in the books. Does it feel like time is going fast for anyone else, or just me?
If you haven’t noticed yet, each month I point out the stories that are going behind a paywall. If you are reading this, all the stories from May 2023 and earlier are behind a paywall, and you have one month left to read things I wrote in June. June of 2023 is about when I hit my stride for fiction! Going back through this, some of my favorite works started to be published after this point. If a paid subscription is not in the cards for you right now, but you’d like to check out some of the Best Of Gibberish, this would be a good time to pay close attention to what’s on the block for the paywall!
What You Missed
Only just getting off the ground this year, as February was the first month of any real fiction action!
LIVESTREAMS
I did a 2x2 Livestream with
and we’re a dangerous duo to get together because we’ve got VERY SIMILAR energy. It’s a real problem already. Go check out his to see what he’s up to!
FLASH FICTION FRIDAY
The inauguration of Flash Fiction Friday was a great success! Weekly prompts dropped, check them out at the Prompt Index page here! I’ve loved seeing everyone’s stories!
FICTION
The Trials of the Hearken, a mini-series in the Sandbox Earth Universe, dropped in three parts. Check them out here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Monthly Writing Exercises resumed with The Chosen Ones! Check out the paid subscriber chat to talk craft!
What Is Coming?
All my effort for a long time was put into Hearken, so this month I don’t have a long-form project to promise you. You will DEFINITELY get: Flash Fiction Friday as usual every week, and the regularly scheduled writing exercise. I will TRY to give you: another installment for
, my collaboration with . I am WORKING on giving you: a fun background collab, the details of which I can’t disclose yet; and I’m brainstorming my Next Big Project.So, steady as she goes, for March, my friends!
The Paywallening
The inexorable icewall of paid content marches forward through time! Everything from May 2023 and earlier has gone behind a paywall as of publication of this post. Check out the previous update to see the stories that have gone behind the wall!
On April 1st, everything from June 2023 and earlier will go behind a paywall. The next stories to go under are these:
Writing Exercises
Flash Fiction (June ‘23 was a big month for fiction at Gibberish, don’t miss these stories!)
Blood or Flood - The King of Atlantis receives a troubling prophecy. Sometimes, doing what is best is not so clear cut as we would like…
Get Well, Man - a fun, gratuitous little superhero themed short!
Bounty Hunt (garbo draft 1) - I got some live feedback in the comments of this and produced the following:
Bounty Hunt (awesome revised version) - Rymond Jones and his droid PR206 landed the best haul of their smuggling career. Only, they can’t fence it, and what’s more, a deadly bounty hunter is on their trail…
Serials
No serials going behind the paywall this month!
Essays
This is NOT going behind a paywall, but I wanted to highlight it for you since I published it in June of ‘23! The Substack Life Cycle!
called this essay part of my “greatest hits”. If you haven’t read about the Substack Life Cycle or heard me rant about it in the years since then—get you right and learn about the evolution of your substack and the different phases of growth!Note to self, there’s another essay introducing the referral program.
This is your last chance to read these stories for free! Check them out now!
If a paid subscription is not something you can manage right now—never fear! Using the Referral program, you can earn a paid subscription by referring someone else to subscribe using your custom link!
By sharing this link with a friend or family, when they subscribe you will get credit for referring the subscription, and starting at 2 new subscribers, you will earn 6 months or more of paid access!1
Quarterly Business Update
I am an accountant in my day job, as I have mentioned on notes occasionally. And I’m not a very good one—so sometimes I look at my stats on Substack and miss an important story that needs to get told. But now that I’ve seen one, I have to acknowledge it. I have to say THANK YOU!
I was looking at my paid subscribers and realized I have more than I realized! In this chart below, I’ve framed it as “tanks of gas” in my car. Thanks to you, paying subscribers of both Gibberish and my spiritual publication,
, you’ve filled up my gas tank 26 times. Or, you will this year. That would let me drive for 130 hours, or long enough to drive non-stop from my home in South Carolina to visit friends in California and back—TWICE!
If writing on Substack is a journey, you all are keeping me on the road, and for that I am eternally thankful. You’ll note that chart has a goal of “40 tanks of gas”—40 gas tanks would get me about 13,000 miles, which is more than halfway around the circumference of the earth. If you’d like to help me figuratively drive my Substack journey halfway around the world, you can do so with a paid subscription either here or at the PTD. There are other ways to show support, though! You can earn a paid equivalent with the referral program, by helping my newsletters grow. You can like, comment, and share my stories with your friends.
It’s not all about putting gas in the tank—if you let me know you enjoyed a story, that keeps me going just as much.
Thank you everyone who supports this Substack journey of mine! It’s a real honor to write for you!
God bless you all!
- Scoot
If you are interested in this, I just juiced the referral perks to make them a little more worth-while. Referring 2 subscribers gets you a 6 months comp, and that’s the minimum tier!
I reread the Blood or Flood story again just now: oh, that was classic. Honestly, it was more coherent than the Disney movie (I like the movie but it's a mess).
I love that idea of supporters filling both your literal and metaphorical 'gas tank' as they help you on your journey. That's a really lovely way of looking at it. The Flash Fiction Prompts sound great, too. I'll definitely be taking a look... 😎