A post about what I'm posting here - new stuff incoming!
How very meta. But here's the deets on what's coming.
Hello play people,
I absolutely bloody love this space!
I’ve been trying out substack for size and seeing how it feels. A bit like when you move in somewhere new - you know when you need to get a sense of the space before you choose your furniture or know what’s going to suit it? And I’m very happy here. I hope you are too. It’s much better suited to where I want to put my energies. Social media is hurting my head (and fingers) and I feel like I’m at a point in my life where I want to slow down, go deeper, get all witchy and creative and share that people who are there too are aspire to be and whilst I find social media a great way to easily reach a lot of people, the energy just doesn’t always match up. I don’t want to put my thoughts into 60 second bursts all the time or be hooked into a cycle of checking and scrolling, I want to spend less time in that space to make more room for play and other forms of creativity.
And creating here feels different.
I get a lot of creative nourishment from hanging out here. I want to keep sharing my thoughts, ideas and divergent ways of thinking, and I think I’ve found a happy happy home to do that. Throughout my life people have described me as inspirational many times, I think I’ve always shrugged it off and felt not able to own it or even think about it in depth but lately I’ve been thinking that is in a way that’s kind of a selfish. If people tap into a positive energy source from me sharing and I want to give it thoughts and ideas then great. Unleash it. Let them have it. So despite feeling the urge to distance myself more from social media, at the same time I also feel a pull to share more professional and personal thoughts. I want to get back into creating more content.
So…I’m putting down my rug, bringing in some plants and putting art on the walls. I’m moving right in here to Substack and starting to increase my activity and cultivate a community. I hope you will settle in with me too. We can put on some 90s tunes, have a little dance, talk deep into the night, put the world to rights and have a good giggle. Think of everytime you visit here as a great play date where imaginations are stimulated and good vibes soaked up. That’s my goal.
I have never promoted my subscription here, actually it was those of you who subscribed early on that made me aware that was even a thing (as I said, it’s takes a while to familiarise!). But I’ve been thinking about it and want to go more proactively down that route. I would love to be able to give up some of the work I currently do to pay my bills to create content here for you. I am aware that it’s getting quite intense in that everything feels like a subscription these days and they all add up. You can’t do them all. Lots of subs are promoted as the ‘same price as a cup of coffee’, but have a had a decent cup of coffee recently?! It’s kind of a lot, and we kind of need those funds for the coffees too right?
So what to do?
I’m going to do something that’s kind of against my usual approach as I’m all about knowing your worth and owing your value, but on this occasion, I’m putting myself in the bargain bin. There’s a big whoopsed sticker on my head, lol. It’s not because I think that’s where I belong, but more that I’m putting faith in myself and that I can amass volume to reach a target that would allow me drop some of my current work and commit dedicated time to this space. It’s also because I want to maintain a lightness to my creativity in this space, if it’s priced too high then I might start to feel excess pressure about delivering a certain amount, but I’m very confident you’ll always get a massive buck for your buck with this offer.
So it’s a £3.50 flat fee sub a month all in (sidenote I wanted to make it £2 but you can’t go lower!) If you’ve already subscribing then you’ll get this reduced rate from here on in and thankyou for joining so early when I wasn’t even thinking about it. You can also gift people a few months of content which I think is a really cool feature - a cute and cheap gift for someone if you know they’re a fan.
The big thing you’ll be getting is the return of the People Who Play podcast with my husband Ben. For anyone who hasn’t listened, Ben and I have a fun chemistry and we chat life, play, parenting and bits of research I’ve ‘stumbled across’. We’ve just recorded a fresh episode which will be out this week. This is weekly podcast where the first one each month will be free and the remaining episodes will be for substack subs only. On top of that I’ll be doing my usual thought pieces and posts, I will chuck in free ones every now and then but more will be for subs only.
So if you too are looking to unplug for socials and fancy hanging out a bit more with me now, sign up my friends. I promise to bring you inspirational stories from my ongoing pursuit of a life of creativity, a playful connection to my family relationships and generally becoming a peri-menopausal woman still figuring out how to grow up! And if you’re not able or up for subscribing please stick around, one of the reasons I love substack is that there is always a free option and I will always share some stuff for free, I was a blogging in the very early days of blogging and whilst I am thrilled there are more ways for people to be paid for their creativity having free access to so many different voices, ideas and energies I think is (generally!) a really good healthy thing for the internet and I remain part of that movement.
Peace and play,
Ems x
*post update. I’ve recieved a couple of messages today from previous members of my patreon. I closed Patreon a while back and haven’t been posting or billing there for a while. I was looking for a new home with some of the features Patreon didn’t allow for so if you’re wondering if this is on top of your membership there, it’s not as that was deactivated some time ago :)
I am HONORED!
I only pay for TWO subscriptions now (not counting Netflix lol)--and you’re one of them! 💕