Why I've returned to Substack
(And how I learned some tough creative lessons along the way)
This isn’t my first time on here. Back in April 2023, I launched a Substack called Real Time Crime which saw me commit to writing and publishing a full-length crime fiction novel one chapter at a time, once a week. I’d already written seven novels, so this would be number eight. I had a rough idea for a plot, an eye-catching logo thanks to my talented brother-in-law, and bags of enthusiasm. The response to the idea from my fellow authors and publishing professionals was encouraging and so, with much excitement, I launched.
Subscribers quickly got on board. I kept writing week after week and the story started to take shape. I got to know my characters. I found my stride. Readers were enjoying it and messaged me to say so.
I was five months, 20 chapters and 40k words in when I pulled the plug on it.
I’ll get to the reasons why in a second.
What I want to pick over first is what drove me to launch Real Time Crime in the first place, and why I’m giving Substack another shot because of it.
On reflection, I realise the serialisation was me throwing myself a creative lifeline at a time when I desperately needed one. I’d been writing professionally since straight after A-levels, first on my local paper and then on national magazines. I then established myself as freelancer writer and editor while writing crime fiction.
In 2023 I turned 51, which meant I’d been writing non-stop for more than three decades. The only lengthy break I’d had in that time was when I took maternity leave for ten months – and even then I used my daughter’s nap time to start writing my debut novel.
I must have written billions of words throughout my 35-year career, which is frankly mind-blowing to contemplate. But I was happy to work non-stop because I love to write. It’s so deeply embedded in my DNA that I can’t ever imagine a day when I won’t do it. I feel so lucky to have had the career I’ve had. It’s been a dream.
Yet even the best dreams can get derailed by the odd nightmare.
As I mentioned, by 2023 I’d written seven novels, with six published. Each novel reviewed better than the last but I wasn’t earning anywhere enough in royalties and advances to rely on that income alone. So while my seventh thriller went out on submission to publishers, I had to keep working and earning as a freelancer.
The trouble was, after three decades, I was writing on fumes. My creative tank had run dry. I was stumped for ideas and skint because of it, and it quickly became a vicious cycle. The more I worried about money, the less creative I felt.
I did some copyediting that summer for a major high street retailer that was a godsend both mentally and financially, but the monthly panic of wondering if I’d earn enough or get paid within a decent timeframe soon returned. (In light of the news that Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has appointed a Freelancers’ Champion to support the creative industries, I’m planning to write a piece about the way freelance pay is handled in this country. Clue: abysmally.)
That’s when the idea for Real Time Crime came to me. I thought shaking up the way I wrote my next book might reinvigorate me and have a positive knock-on effect on my other work. A few authors were already doing serialisations on Substack and going great guns (almost certainly inspired like I was by the original serialiser, Charles Dickens). Because I was only writing one chapter a week instead of the usual six or seven I’d churn out usually, it should’ve been a breeze, right?
And so to the reasons why I pulled the plug.
There were three in all. Firstly, I began to hate the process. I mean, seriously hate it. It got to the point where I dreaded having to write the next instalment. The words just wouldn’t come. I’d prise them out of my head then dump them on the page as quickly as possible so I could forget about it until the following week. In retrospect, I struggled because I didn’t plot the story beforehand. The whole ethos of Real Time Crime was to make it up as I went along, which was an insane idea looking back because I’ve always been a plotter. It’s how I’ve written all my other novels. I guess I thought it would give me more freedom if I just went with the flow. It did the opposite.
The second reason for quitting was that it eventually became apparent a weekly serialisation doesn’t align with how readers want to consume novels. Subscribers confessed to saving up three or four chapters to read in one go, in the same way they’d binge-watch a TV show, for fear that they’d lose the thread of the story and forget what had happened previously. Of course I saw the wisdom in that, but it was disheartening. If my readers didn’t want a new chapter every week, why was I tying myself in knots to produce one?
Reason number three was that I was offered a publishing contract for my seventh book. The deal was for two thrillers – the one I’d already completed and one I had yet to write. I knew I couldn’t do that and the serialisation, so the latter had to give. I wish I could say I was sad to give it up but the sheer relief of stopping outweighed any feelings of loss. I don’t feel like I failed though, even though it might look that way – I have 40k of a story that has legs and which I can return to at some point. Just not every week.
Now, eighteen months on, I’m in another creative holding pattern. The second thriller in that two-book deal is out in August (published under my pen name, Robyn Delvey) and for the first time in fifteen years I haven’t rushed to write another. Instead, I’m filling my time mentoring new writers, which I’ve been doing for years already, as an independent tutor and also as a Reader/Editor with Curtis Brown Creative, editing non-fiction for a Big 5 publisher, developing an online course for new and established authors (more of that to come), coming up with ideas for TV, and seeing my now-teenager through her GCSEs. I’ve also been hunting for a permanent part-time position that involves writing in some form, to give me the monthly financial security I’ve been craving. (I could write an essay on the horrors of job hunting in your fifties but frankly it’s too depressing. Seriously though, recruiters, enough with the ghosting! Applicants deserve the respect of a reply, even if it’s just one line.)
Now I’ve decided to put Substack back in my portfolio. After writing eight books of roughly 90k words each, I want to write more essay-length pieces and this is such a brilliant platform for that. I learned a lot from my last foray and I won’t be as prescriptive with my content this time! I’ll be sharing writing tips and insights – a piece I posted last time on the seven most common mistakes new writers make went viral thanks to Richard Osman re-tweeting it! – giving my take on the reality of making a creative living in testing times (yes, I have thoughts about AI, but not the ones you might imagine) and celebrating others’ creative endeavours, especially television dramas based on true stories, which I am addicted to watching. On repeat.
It's why I’m naming this Substack The Space Between Chapters. It perfectly sums up where I am right now. I’m filling the space that’s appeared in my working life while I’m not writing books and in doing so my creative tank is getting topped up to a healthy level again.
It feels good to be back.