Goals on Substack

(Ideas welcome)

In summer of 2024, I took an Intro to Short Story course at the University of Toronto. I was desperately looking for creative outlets after realizing board game design was fun, but the marketing was not. Granted, I’m sure I just haven’t got to that step yet in writing. Through the course I have been lucky enough to keep in contact with a group of intrepid writers.

My original goal was to publish one short story. To those ends, I threw out a few submissions of the story I wrote in the course called MERP. I was really not expecting much, I told myself I was just getting familiar with the submissions process. Plus, between you and me, I didn’t think MERP was that good.

If you’ve followed the foreshadowing, MERP ended up being accepted by Grain Magazine and published in their Summer 2025 issue. Send me a message if you’re curious to read it and judge it for yourself, I can send a link.

So anyway I achieved my original goal, and I was ecstatic, but also greedy. I wanted more! To write more, read more, learn more. After discussion with a member of my writing group, they suggested I open a Substack, a hub for writers.

Goal 1: Build Community

Perhaps my cold emailing tactics are a tad archaic, but I have not had success reaching out to fellow writers that way.

Through Substack I hope to be able to connect and foster relationships with anyone also looking for community.

Let’s ask each other the important questions. Why do we write? What does writing mean to us? Where do we want to end up?

Goal 2: Improve my Writing

I find I can be prone to perfectionism. Not that anything comes out perfect, but that it irks me that it isn’t.

I see the flaws in my writing and in tow it unravels the belief that writing is something I can be good at.

With the collective mind, I hope to learn from each and every one of you the nuances of writing. Through feedback, reading articles, and general discussion, so we can be a little more perfect each day.

Goal 3: Have Fun

Sounds like a bit of a cop-out. But what am I doing this for if not for fun? I want to write the stories I want to write. I want to enjoy the process but do the work.

I’m not 100% sure what this Substack will be about, but whatever I post I will try to have fun with it.

Looking forward to meeting you all!