Create Me Free Substack Writers Support Pod

Announcing a new benefit for paid subscribers who are also writers on Substack

Welcome to Create Me Free where I share all of my deep research into and musings about the complex relationship between art and mental health. While I touch on art as therapy and the benefits of creativity, I really dig into the ways that our mental health symptoms can impact our creative process, content, productivity, medium choice, identity and business.

In addition to being here to create a body of work around the complex topic of art and mental health, I’m here to encourage and support other writers and creatives. And I’ve just launched a new way of doing this for paid subscribers here who are also writers on Substack. It’s a new writers support pod, set up in the Chat tool, that works a lot like Instagram pods used to work.

Basically, you're invited to share your work as long as you agree to support and share the work of others who do the same.

It’s only for paid subscribers, though, so subscribe now:

The Goal of the The Create Me Free Support Pod

The more eyes that you’re able to get on your work, the more likely you are to be able to grow that work. I make every effort to support and promote other writers through my weekly digests and other tools. This is another effort towards that end.

The goal is to create a small group of people who will commit to commenting on and sharing each other’s work each week. (Of course, we’re all human; you’re allowed to take time off, but if you’re sharing work then you’re agreeing to support what others share.)

The group has the potential to create accountability (because you’ll want to write something so that you can share it.) It helps encourage one another through positive comments on each other’s work (keep it nice!) And it is a way for each of us to share other people’s writing with our readers and get our writing in front of other people’s readers.

NOTE: There are a lot of “rules” and “guidelines” below but this is really just to remind all of us that the point is to not just share your own work but to support the work of others in the group. If you’re doing that, you’re doing fine.

How The Create Me Free Support Pod Works

Each week, I will start a fresh thread in chat for paid subscribers only. Throughout the week you are invited to drop a link to anything new you've written on Substack. If you don't have anything new, you can alternatively choose one item from your archive.

Pod Requirements

If you have shared a link during the week, then you’re committing to also do the following for each link that someone else shares:

1. Visit that link, read it and like/comment on it. The more thoughtful your comments, obviously the better, but we all have limited time so if you can just say a few words of support then that’s still something.

2. Re-stack that article to Notes on Substack and let others know what you like most about it. You might add your own note or select a portion of the writing to restack. Spread the word that this is great work!

Tip: You can click on each person’s comment in a thread and add an emoji. Choose a unique emoji and when you’ve completed the above two steps for a person’s share that week, add your emoji. This tells them you did it and also reminds you of what you’ve already shared.

Pod Suggestions

Some other things that it's suggested for you to do, although you aren't obligated to do so, include:

- Quote the piece or link to it in one of your own newsletters.

- Use Substack's recommendations to recommend the author to your readers.

- Cross post the article if it's relevant to your readers.

- Share the article on social media other than Substack.

- Find people in the chat group to collaborate with!

- Anything else creative that you can think of to promote and support the other writers.

Think karma. The more you spread the work of the other people in this chat pod, the more good things will come to you as well.

RULES OF THE CREATE ME FREE SUPPORT POD

We’re all adults who are here to create community so I’ll keep the rules short and sweet (and again, this is basically just a reminder that you’re invited to share but also make sure that you comment and support others when you do share; do unto others.)

• This is only open to paid subscribers.

• You can include links to as many new articles from the week that you have created but only one from the archive.

• If you share your link in the chat that week, then you must complete the two pod requirements above (read and comment, restack) for each other person who shared links in the same chat. Obviously, things happen and if you can’t do it that week, just make sure to go back and do it later, but overall, try to keep up the best you can. If the chat group gets too big to keep up with, we'll revisit this rule to make it easier.

• Play nice. This is all about community and support and empowering and uplifting. If someone shares a link that you just really find offensive and can’t support, skip it and we can address it if it’s an ongoing issue (although I don’t expect it will be.) Otherwise, highlight what you love and spread that love to your readers.

Who is in?

Got questions?

HOUSEKEEPING:

• I’ve created my Table of Contents where you can see all of my post types and the posts available in each one.

• I’ve made it so that you can opt out of the types of posts here that you don’t want email notifications for. Learn more here.

•  See other benefits for paid subscribers here.

• On a really tight budget? Learn about my Pay What You Can option here.