Celebration Chapter Milestone and Looking the 100 Journey: Leaping So Far Not Out
my first collaboration???
[unlocked] Today’s piece is for my paid subscribers but my free post - Receipt from the Bookshop - will be in your inboxes on Friday. Book Club selection for March is this and the discussion thread for paid subscribers will be open later this month. A monthly subscription to Terrible at Titles costs less than a latte - if you enjoy reading my work please consider upgrading your subscription to access everything. You can interview me for that promotion here and celebrate my one year on Substack here.
All Shares, Restacks and Recommendations are really appreciated. Now let’s get to it…
This is my 100th post on Substack. What should I write for my 100th post? I asked the Substack Chatbot, when I realised that Friday’s was 99. Hey Katie, it said, real excited, Congrats on nearing your 100th post milestone! That's a big achievement. Here are a few ideas to make it special: The chatbot had five ideas, straight away, like it was no big thing. I don’t think it was trying to make me feel bad, but I can’t be sure. I’ve managed this 99 times before without your help you know, Chatbot, but I’m interested to hear how you think I should celebrate. I do have my own ideas, but just out of interest, let’s hear yours first…
1. Reflect on the journey: Share the highs and lows, what you've learned, and how you've grown since your first post. Chatbot, honestly, I haven’t grown an inch since I was twelve years old. I was tall then, now I’m just small-to-medium, and small-to-medium is also where I’m situated on Substack; I have just 2000 subscribers in total, but 150 of them pay me ker-ching-cash-money. I’m a small account with a big orange tick. Love that journey for me! I try not let myself have actual highs and lows here, Chatbot, that’s real-world stuff, you wouldn’t know about that - don’t fret your metrics over it. But when I find myself starting to feel too interested in your algorithms, and your obsession with growth seeps into my consciousness, I take a step back. As you’ve brought up my first post, I’m happy to say I still like it! As a piece of writing and as a book recommendation, it’s one I’d be proud to publish today. Is that the wrong answer?
2. Reader highlights: Feature some favorite comments or stories from your subscribers. Now you definitely are trying to make me feel bad. What is this - a memory test? I can’t even remember what I did before the weekend! Luckily, I wrote almost a full account of it, because it was Friday and I was in the bookshop. My favourite comments are when people say nice things, that make me feel like I’m a really good writer – obviously? CB, this is a terrible idea for a 100th post because every comment, every like, every restack and every subscription is a uniquely touching and validating surprise to me. Look at this last one I got, from someone called Dale. It says “It’s official, Katie Clapham and her “Bookshop Receipts” are wonderful! Part P.G. Wodehouse and part pure Katie— these weekly receipts are tallied and delivered in delicious quality. Idea: Katie, bundle your first 50 receipts into novel— and you’ll have a winner. I will purchase it, promise! .. Meanwhile, let these receipts not cease — they are witty, hilarious, pure fun…”
I couldn’t possibly pick a favourite comment from a subscriber, but, why shouldn’t it be this one?
3. Behind-the-scenes: Give readers a peek into your writing process or how you come up with ideas. Ok Chaz, if you’re sure that’s what they want? On Fridays, I write the Receipt from the Bookshop. I have the Substack draft open on my computer, so I have to toggle to another window incase the customers I just wrote about see what I’ve said when they’re paying for their purchases. I’m living in fear because there’s no way that I won’t get caught one day. I feel like a spy, and sometimes the bad kind. I write the entries as they occur and every week I think, it’s definitely a dull one today! During the week, I write another post for my paid subscribers and I am usually wearing an outfit made entirely of fleece. I try and restrict myself to spending just one day writing it and another editing/posting it, so that it does not derail the rest of my working week, where I’m trying to write a novel, but of course I’m not, because I’m lurking on Substack. As for the ideas, I just have them, like nosebleeds, and I can’t tell if they’re any good until I’m struggling/not to write them. The best ones are where I feel like I’m breaking all the rules, and getting away with it too.
4. Future plans: Talk about where you see your Substack publication going and any upcoming projects. Oh you’d like that, wouldn’t you? For me to be the sort of writer with multiple drafts ready to publish, just like the How to Succeed on Substack posts suggest. You want me to say I’m going to collaborate with other Substackers and that I have workshops and projects planned that will entice thousands of people to upgrade their subscriptions. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I don’t have any of those things, I’m just going to keep showing up here with my silly little spur of the moment essays and my creepy little dispatches from the bookshop and when I don’t have anything to say, I just won’t.
5. Thank you post: A heartfelt thank you to your readers for their support can go a long way. I like the way you said it should be heartfelt, as if I was in danger of writing something insincere to the only people in the world who value my writing enough to pay me for it. If there’s anyone in the world I want to have my heart felt by, it’s them. Chatbot, you’re right in that I could have written a whole, heartfelt, post about how grateful I am for their support, but maybe we’d all feel weird about it after. How much of my heart they have to feel… how slimy it might be.
Chatbot added, Remember, this is a celebration of your hard work and your community. Whatever you choose to write, make it authentic to you and your Substack publication. Would you like any more tips or help brainstorming?
I said, yes please, because I wanted to make sure I’d heard all of Chattyboy’s best stuff and suddenly, there were more ideas streaming out like those reams of tickets you get at the arcade on the pier. I didn’t want to do any of them! They said things like Ask your readers: Create a poll or ask for comments on what your readers would like to see for the 100th post. This can increase engagement and make them feel part of the celebration.
What? Chatbot, this is the 100th post. When should I have asked them? Like… in advance? Before I just realised today that my last post was number 99? Once again you’re mistaking me for someone with a plan!
And then it casually suggested I made a few 'Top 10' lists related to your publication's theme, like your most popular posts, favorite books or resources, or even predictions for the future. Excuse me? A few top ten lists. Do numbers just mean nothing? I can’t make a top anything of anything for fear of forgetting something that is actually my true favourite and then remembering it, days later when the list is published and having no way of correcting it in the minds of everyone who read it because no one cares about that anymore, and then I have to live with the guilt of it for the rest of my life…. every time that I can’t sleep… thinking about the time I forgot about something that should have been number five. No thank you!
Chatbot said I could write a Special Edition of my newsletter - is every edition not Special?? - or include Interactive Content - I think that means a poll? I’ll give a whirl:
Chatbot’s final suggestion was a Personal Story: Share a personal story or experience that you haven't told yet but has been instrumental in your writing journey.
Here’s one.
When I was six, I had a nosebleed at school. This happened a lot, because of a particularly vulnerable capillary, which was later cauterised and genuinely changed my life, but on this day when I was six, I had a nosebleed during a history lesson. I remember that we were drawing a house with a thatched roof, which is how I know it was history, and I was bleeding into a bunch of blue paper towels again. As I pinched my nose, in the way that actually stops the bleeding (hard squeeze on the fleshy part of the nostril - none of this pinching the bridge and for godssake don’t ever tip your head back unless you want to swallow some clots then have to cough them back up and upset anyone who sees you do it) I thought of a little rhyme for my teacher. When she came to swap over the paper towels I told her about it.
“First you listen,
Then you do.
Then I wouldn’t
Shout at you!”
I told her, nasally.
“I love it”, she said, and gave me more towels. Later that day, she said my rhyme to the class as she walked about the desks, making sure everyone was doing what she had told them when they were listening, and the next day she had written it up on black paper in a gold metallic pen. She had even cut the edges of the paper in a scallop pattern, and drawn a gold line around the border. ‘By Katie Clapham,’ it said on the bottom.
When I moved up to year three, I wasn’t in that classroom anymore and I remember asking someone who was now in year two if my rhyme was still on the wall in Mrs Smith’s classroom. I don’t even remember if they said that it was, or it wasn’t. It didn’t really matter how long it lasted, only that it had been there once, in gold, and with my name on it.
I asked Chatbot ‘what pictures I should put on my 100th post’ , and it gave me a list of four suggestions, that I fed straight back into the image generator on this post editor and included here. They are all, of course, completely nightmarish and hilarious.
Finally, I asked for help with the title (I’m terrible at those) and it offered me these five:
1. "Celebrating 100: A Milestone of Musings" 2. "A Century of Stories: Post 100" 3. "100 Not Out: Reflections and Revelations" 4. "The 100th Chapter: Looking Back, Leaping Forward" 5. "Centennial Celebration: The Journey So Far"
So now, actually, I don’t feel like I am that bad at titles. Thanks, Chatbot!!!! Anyway, as this is really a collaborative text, I squashed some of the suggestions into a title that I think Chatbot would really like, and I hope you do too. Normal service will resume with post 101. See you on Friday, and sincerely, thanks for reading.
I'm so glad you ended with an explanation of that title! I read it , muttering to myself, how you really must read things back to make sure they make sense...I should have know to trust you (but I reserve the right to still point out the odd typo. xxx Congratulations partner
You’re a comedic genius Katie! Love it - appreciate you approaching all of ‘Chaz’s’ suggestions with such honesty! Grateful u did not write a ‘how to’ Substack post that would make me feel like I’m in a pyramid scheme.