I’ve always had a way with words. Today, Substack is my way.

You’ll find a great variety of things here. They’re all connected by my generative curiosity, and two short, clear and actionable ways of thinking.

Poets wish either to profit or to delight; or to deliver at once both the pleasures and the necessaries of life.

Horace, Ars Poetica

And one that I think comes from James Joyce, but I can’t find it, or anything like it attributed to him when I google.

A writer’s job is to experience epiphanies, and describe them.

What’s in it for you?

FREE SUBSCRIBERS

You get everything, the minute I’m ready to publish it - sometimes earlier. We’re doing each other a favour. I’m trying to work in a faster, freer, less fussy way. I’m trying to be open to inspiration, and surprise myself - and you. I have to unlearn some ways of writing I picked up for other formats. They caused me to slowly and methodically ‘edit’ over the course of a couple of years. ‘Edit’ basically means undo and redo. Better? Or just different? We’ll never know. Anyhow, not here. Not now. I’m playing with the possibilities of Substack. So that’s our deal. It’s free. It’s a bit more experimental. The publishing schedule is erratic. I have a couple of lists - you can get emails from one or both. Profit & Delight is my artistic one. Substackery is the technical, behind the scenes stuff I’m playing with to have a better reading and publishing experience on Substack. Both of them will be interesting and full of play. The keys words for what you can expect as a free subscriber are experimental, inconsistent and frequent.

PAID SUBSCRIBERS £5 A MONTH/£50 A YEAR

You get LESS. That’s right. It’s a counterintuitive idea, but hear me out. I want to provide you with a less busy experience of my work. Less frequent emails. I’ll say that again. You get LESS. You’ll get one post a week, or more precisely, one a weekend. It’ll be a simple omnibus that beautifully collates what I’ve published on Substack this week - alongside some of the more interesting ideas that I’ve encountered. It’s a more digestible, more considered way of experiencing my writing, and discovering other stuff you might like. I’ll leave out the things that I don’t think are worth your while. You won’t feel anxious to see tons of unopened stuff from me pile up in your inbox or in your app.

PEN PAL £500/year

I don’t expect many people to do this. But those of you who do this are in for a very cool experience. We’ll write to each other by hand. Or rather, I’ll write to you and I guess you can choose whether or not to respond. I’ll send postcards, and longer letters, maybe even a book or two, and play with a form of novella as letter. You can respond as you see fit. There’s nothing mass produced about this, and I have limited time, so we won’t let this group get too big. But it means I can introduce you to each other, too.

If you read me in the app already then great! If you don’t you can try it out now by hitting the button below.

Welcome.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arthurmeek.substack.com