On Hiatus: Hello from the other side

You’re probably thinking to yourself, "David, didn’t you say last week you were taking a break?"

Well...yeah...I did. And I am. I didn't even send this out as an email, so therefore this isn't an official newsletter.

And to be honest, immediately after sending it, I had an idea of how to do things differently. So here I am, creating an unofficial continuation of my newsletter. Let me know your thoughts.

New look

If you've found this week’s newsletter, then you've probably noticed that I've changed things up around here.

I’m using a new theme—one I’ve avoided for a while because almost every writer on Ghost uses it (including Counios & Gane). But the main reason I embraced it was because of three key features.

The first is that the font is a little smaller, which I find is nicer to read. (If I was better with coding, I could change this on my own within the old site, but I’m not, so I won’t).

The second reason is that at the bottom of the page, you can change it to dark mode—which again makes for a better reading experience:

And third, it allows for a table of contents, something I hope to use in future writing:

So yes, perhaps it is like everyone else's website, but there might be a reason for that.

As you can also tell, I'm playing with changing the form of the newsletter. My two inspirations would be Craig Mod's Roden newsletter and Edith Zimmerman's Drawing Links.

Both communicate something about the authors' lives, but since I can't draw, I lean toward Craig's version more. However, I do like the creative nature of Edith's, something that I might explore more in the weeks to come (see below).

Although I've been a weekly newsletter in the past, I may not commit to that in the future. I may run it bi-monthly or monthly, or focus on short runs focused around a specific project (like a season of a TV show).

Intentions

With these changes, comes a new goal for this website: to focus on sharing my fiction.

If you followed me over the summer, you may remember that I spent a month writing a story a day. I enjoyed the practice, but they needed some cleaning up, so I quit sharing them. However, I want to slowly reintroduce them onto the website.

I also hope to start a new project soon and write a new story each week. It would have a short run—maybe only ten in total—in order to test the waters. Once it's done, I will take stock and see where I am at.

I also am working on larger pieces, something that I would only offer to paid subscribers. I’m testing two ideas at the moment, but nothing has been committed to the page yet.

That's it for now. I plan on revisiting this format each week and tweaking it. If you see anything you like as I go through this process, drop me a message and let me know.