Authorstrator turns 1! 🎂

And I pull a very me move

A reader friend ( @ kelleynnn) alerted me to the fact that Authorstrator started 1 year ago today! Thanks Kelleynn! Has it been one year already?! I had planned to mark the occasion with a ZSH triple chapter drop and a post about summer creativity but THEN I ended up with a story to tell, as well as an explanation on why my post is a day late. (I’m still going to drop the ZSH chapters today, don’t worry.)

So here it is. About a week ago, someone replied to the Authorstrator Chat with a gross comment that had nothing to do with the discussion at hand or Authorstrator n general and read very much like a bot out to cause mischief, as bots do (and not helpful for the case in favor of AI, I’m just saying). Anyway, DELETE, block, moving on.

And THEN yesterday morning, while I was putting the finishing touches on my creativity post, I started getting A LOT of emails from Substack (well, a lot for me). All new subscribers. This was weird. I hadn’t posted anything in a while and if I get a new subscriber it's one every couple weeks. And I immediately thought of that mischief bot message. Something was going on.

I asked my computer savvy husband what he thought of the situation and he frowned and said that I was right, it was strange.

So then I hit the google and searched to see if I could find an answer to my problem and found that bots can start subscribing people unwittingly to other people’s newsletters! Why would a bot do such a thing? Who knows, but the point is - surely this was the problem Authorstrator was facing. If I sent out my creativity post, all these new, nonconsenting subscribers were going to be hit with my newsletter nonsense and be really upset. No, no. I couldn’t have that.

So I contacted Substack IT and laid out my problem. I decided to hold off on the post until I could free the bot subscribers from the newsletter hell they had found themselves in.

And then I got a message from Substack:

Ta da!

Oh wow! Said I. Authorstrator is a featured publication!?!

And then…..

Oh…..

SO - on that note: Hi new subscribers! I am so happy you are here! 

I suppose there’s a lesson in here somewhere. Perhaps I need to have more confidence in myself, in my writing so that my first instinct is NOT suspicions of bot activity when people sign up for my newsletter. Because the truth is, I deal with crippling imposter syndrome and don’t we all? No matter how many books I publish, I always find myself battling the feeling that I’m an imposter. The idea that anyone besides my mom and my cousin (hi mom! hi cousin!) would be interested in what I’m writing is a hard one to embrace. But I still put myself out there in the hopes that someone will read it. Isn’t that what we all do when we put our words, our art, our ideas out into the internet void? It’s an exercise in hope. Maybe, if I’m going to be hopeful, I need to be less skeptical too.

Or maybe the lesson is just that I need to stop bothering the IT department.

Whatever the case, whether you’re new here or have been here a while, thank you. I’m so glad you found your way to my little corner of the internet. And I want to hear from you! Head to the Authorstrator Chat to introduce yourself, and meet the Authorstrator community. Or reach out in the comments and let me know what you’d like to see in an Authorstrator post - writing, art, tutorials, tips, you name it! I’m always excited to hear from readers and their suggestions so don’t be shy!

Doodle

I thought I’d share a little process of our cupcake birthday girl!

As you can see, I couldn’t quite get the arms working in the original position I had wanted to do. Darn foreshortening.

What I’m working on

Zombie Shark Highway triple chapter post is coming your way!

Chapter 2 is already up and you can read it here!

If you haven’t read the first chapter, you can find it here.

Also, the ebook is ready so if for any reason you wanted to read ahead of the posting schedule, you can join the Goody Tier to access it!

I’m working hard on trying to get as much of my Wizard of Oz project complete before summer’s end and my writing buddy and I are doubling down, putting the pressure on each other to get our respective WIPs done. Which means I’ should do a post about writing buddies and how important they are.

What I’m reading:

I’m reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman and Move Fast and Break Things by Jonathan Taplin.

Substack posts I recommend:

Amazing post by

Jodi Meadows

And this one from Disconnect by

Paris Marx

And lastly, no, I haven’t seen Barbenheimer. Not yet. Have you?!