Odds and Ends

A few quick notes and a little housekeeping

I’ve been amassing a little list of things I want to share with Hoarse Whisperings readers but which aren’t worthy of an entire post. Some are short little snippets, follow-ups on prior posts, etc.. Others are administrative or housekeeping. And finally, some are kind of “inside baseball” (Meaning, topics related to Substack itself. e.g. how the site works on my side, issues with running this feed, etc..).

In the interest of keeping your inboxes uncluttered, I’m going to make a semi-regular feature of posting all of these Odds and Ends in one entry. That way, you can skip them all en masse, if you like.

Today, I have a few quick things…

Short-circuiting the short-circuiting

On Monday, I posted about not being able to get out of my own way. It was one of those days when I woke up with little in the tank and then drove in circles trying to think my way out of that. That didn’t work one damn bit. It never does.

Today, I woke up with the potential for the day to head down that same path. It may well be my ADHD but some mornings, even the get-started tasks of getting up, dressed, and out the door, just seem like damn chores.

Rather than succumb and thus start the same cascade as Monday, I put my Airpods in before even getting out of bed and fired up some music. By an hour later, I had gotten up, dressed, threw some other things in a bag, gone out for coffee, gotten gas, and sat down to write.

I short-circuited the short-circuiting, I guess. I woke up in the same car; knew how it was running; and then just drove it differently so to speak.

Which brings me too…

I am working on a longer-than-usual piece with a part that relates to this in a way.

The way we navigate this life. The breakdowns and repairs. The open road and traffic jams. And learning to better enjoy the ride. Metaphorically speaking.

It is a piece I am increasingly enjoying writing as I work my way through it… but… there’s one small but…

I need to figure out how to best publish longer content

A few days ago, I asked folks via my Substack Chat for thoughts on this. The feedback was super helpful and I think I have an approach that should work.

Basically: publishing the overall piece as a series of short(er) reads which each lead in to the next. So, serialized, if you will. A continuing series. Each will end with a link to the next. If you are binge-reader, you can easily continue on from one to the next. If you prefer to eat your food in bites, you can take it by the forkful.

To accommodate the former (binge-reading it as a single piece), I need to publish the parts in close proximity.

I need to see how that goes and beta test it if you will… I think that is best done with a smaller group than the entire universe.

So…

My initial longer piece will be published first to the folks signed up as ‘paid supporters’.

That isn’t a sign of future pay-walling to come nor is it intended to exclude ‘free subscribers’. It would probably be better for me to gate some things in an attempt to generate more support. But I don’t like that idea and don’t want to. So, I’m not gonna.

Publishing first to the smaller universe this time just gives me a chance to get feedback from a subset of folks on this first attempt at sharing longer material.

From there, I’ll either tweak how I do it, let it fly as is, or kill it altogether if it proves to have been a bad idea.

If you’re keen on seeing this first go hot off the press; are a free subscriber; and are able without hardship; hop on the paid side before it goes to press (hopefully tomorrow).

If you’d like to do that but can’t add more to your bills, just send me a message via Twitter, Post, Instagram, or at hoarsewhisperings@gmail.com and I’ll happily add you as a “paid subscriber” for free. I don’t want to impose any strain on people already strained. If it would add to your strain, please take me up on this.

Which brings me to the first inside-baseball topic of running this feed and trying to eke out a continuing living as a writer…

Being a writer on Substack puts you in the collections business. Or doesn’t.

Substack uses a service called Stripe to handle all of the payment stuff. They’re great TBH. People sign up. They handle the billing and stuff and writers get entirely left out of it… unless something goes wrong.

Every day, Stripe updates writers’ little management dashboards with a box listing more info than you would ever want to know. Subscribers, cancels, growth, and churn, payments, and payouts, and on and on.

One of the little boxes is “Failed Payments”.

And there are more of them than I would have expected. The oldest subscribers here joined on Day 1 and that was only three months ago. While I would have expected some charges to fail as people’s credit cards periodically changed, this seems like more than that.

Through the Stripe system, I have the capacity to try to sort every single one of these out by emailing the person, etc..

I would rather blow my head off.

The very last thing I want in life is to become a collections agent blindly emailing people about why a subscription commitment failed for some reason.

So, I talked to a few other Substackers about what they do and the answers were split. Some try to remedy the failed payments. I fully understand that. It adds up. I could certainly use it.

I just don’t want to be in the collections business though. It would just make me feel icky and would take up time I’d rather use on things that don’t feel icky.

So, I’ve opted to be a dont’er.

I am going to just treat it as part of life and deal with the lost income. As a result, I am going to just purposefully ignore failed subscriber payments and cancellations altogether.

However, if someone ever wants to cancel their subscription as backhanded message to me about hating me, my feed, or something I posted on it, have no fear! You are cordially invited to do that at anytime the old fashioned way: by sending me a mean note. Flame away via any of the channels mentioned above!

On the positive side, with me not scrutinizing folks heading for the exits, if you were ever interested in subscribing but not for all eternity, you will catch no side-eyes from me whatsoever if you sign up as a paid supporter for a while and then go back to free.

You shall escape without needing to feel even a pang of guilt that I might see you sneaking out of the party early. I’ll just be thankful for the support and that’s that.

That’s all I have for you today.

Oh, almost.

<Shameless plug for someone I adore>

I am heading off to see the unbelievably talented and all-around goodhearted Danielle Ponder tonight. It will be the third time I’ve seen here in six months. The first time, I carted my son into the city to hear her be the opener for the opener for the opener for the headliner. She performed four songs. It was worth it. Next, I saw her perform for free at a street festival.

Tonight, she is headlining at a sold-out theater.

I’ll be shooting the show as amateur concert photographer.

I adore Danielle Ponder. She is the rarest of rarities: a good human being who worked for the greater good (as a public defender) before making a belated start at pursuing music. She is a gifted singer who performs from the heart. She emotes effortlessly. You don’t just hear her sing; you feel it. She’s just terrific and deserves her rapidly rising star.

Catch her sometime if you can.

Okay, that’s all… and with that, I’m off to get my shit together so I look like I know what I’m doing behind a camera.