Creative Liberty in 2023

We're back!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

I’ll post a fuller explanation for subscribers once the site is steadily publishing once more, but suffice it to say that most of the routines for keeping Creative Liberty going fell by the wayside in the chaos of moving house. Alongside improving the art and audio I can provide, I’ve been using the intermediate time to get up to scratch on the second phase of the project: video content.

The reason I didn’t post an update about this is embarrassingly simple - I never intended an 8-month hiatus, and found myself constantly just a little bit behind the next post. Thanks once again to readers of the substack for your continued support, and fulsome apologies for letting you down.

Let’s talk about what you can expect from Creative Liberty this year.

Writing & Art Submissions

There are some activities on Creative Liberty which take up time out of all proportion to the results, and I plan to streamline these going forward. I’ve long felt the need to organise writing and art submissions, perhaps using a Discord group, but haven’t set up the proper systems to enable this to be done smoothly. Editing and the back-and-forth between writer and editor invariably becomes a deeply involved process.

For the time being, I won’t be accepting unsolicited writing and art from readers. This isn’t a commentary on the quality of submissions, which range broadly but include some cracking pieces - rather, it’s a result of streamlining the activities that keep this site going so that I can continue to provide you, the reader, with quality fiction and non-fiction content.

Once a stable upload schedule is restored, I hope to invite writing and art from readers using a competition-like format: inviting submissions based on a theme, with a deadline. Notice of any such competitions will be posted here on the substack.

For those of you who have already submitted art to Creative Liberty, rest assured, it will be published.

The Business Model

Previously, the intention was to provide all articles free to readers, and provide access to audio readings for paying subscribers. In the end, however, I simply ended up providing everything for free. (Oops.)

Going forward, I expect to publish a mix of free and paid articles, with the more community-oriented or personal articles being limited to paying subscribers. This kind of model is quite popular and successful across the internet, and if it turns Creative Liberty into a viable enterprise, then so much the better for everyone.

Unfinished Tales

There are still a couple of stories that are awaiting completion. Gravelanders, by Atropos, and Escape to New Orion, by me.

I’ve reached something of an impasse with Escape to New Orion, and for the time being I think it’s better to focus on new stories. So while I have no immediate plans to finish the series, there’s every chance of a conclusion to the tale towards the end of the year.

As for Gravelanders, I promised that the audio recording of both published parts would be ‘coming soon’ and so that will be the next fiction upload here. The remainder of the story should follow shortly.

New Stories

Those who have sent in art or music will know of some other stories in the works. These will also be arriving on Creative Liberty in the near future.

Creative Essays

One activity I received a lot of positive feedback about, both at my former job and here, was the creative essays concerning aspects of writing and writers (e.g. ‘How To Write Bad Female Characters’).

I would love to continue with this series, going through various writers, books, and tropes and breaking down how I react to them, or how they themselves interact with contemporary culture and politics. So you can expect to see more along these lines.

Videos

The YouTube channel is nearly ready. I’ll publish a link to it on this substack when I think it’s in the proper state.

The New Creative Liberty

As you may have guessed from all this, I’m moving towards a more traditional content-creator model rather than the collaborative storytelling idea at the heart of old Creative Liberty. This is quite simply because I need to make a living. Provided all goes well, I’m moving towards an efficient, productive, and streamlined model that produces content that subscribers will happily pay for (and get something out of).

But the intention of the site remains the same: gathering together a community of like-minded creative people so that we can improve, practice our art, and learn through feedback together.

Thank you so much for reading, and I look forward to embarking on the next phase of this creative journey!