Change is coming...

I have some changes in mind for Cartoon Gravity, and I hope they are changes for the better.

This was always supposed to be my scrapbook, my commonplace book; the place where I posted things that I found interesting and thought others might also be interested in. So far this year, outside of Wednesday Wonders, there hasn't been very much of that going on. Partly that is because I've been busy building out Pleasant Green and Pure Hokum and administering the Kickstarter, but partly it's because (I have realised) I made a rod for my own back.

At a certain point, a few years ago, I decided to start a Substack called Development Hell, which would be the place where I talked about screenwriting and world-building and all that jazz. I charged a subscription over there and I enjoyed being on Substack, meeting other writers etc. I liked the whole eco-system. I hadn't made much of a mark in terms of subscriber numbers, but I wasn't posting with the kind of regularity that the really determined people do. This site suffered, though, because if I was going to write something, why not write it for the paying audience?

When I realised I was neglecting Cartoon Gravity, I made the decision to shut down the Substack and move the paid subscribers over to here, as part of the Cartoon Gravity Pro paid subscription. The rationale was really to do with ownership, and wanting to keep everything in one place, and that I wanted to keep my focus on this site.

And so that's how things have been for a while now. I write Wednesday Wonders and the newsletter and irregular blog posts for the free members and I write the more in-depth and/or technical pieces for the paid subscribers.

Except the problem is that I don't write enough paid stuff to make a subscription valuable. And I don't write much free stuff because I'm conscious that, if I'm here, I really ought to be writing something for the paying audience. And so no one is happy, least of all me, because I've turned something I enjoyed doing into an obligation. In common with most writers, the thing I least want to write is the thing I'm supposed to be writing.

The solution to this problem has been staring me in the face for a while, I think, but I couldn't see it until I sat down to rigidly plan out a series of paid-for posts about writing, and realised that I was actually dreading having to write them. I need to create and post this stuff when the mood takes me, and the mood doesn't have a schedule and it actively rebels against a sense of obligation. I don't want a schedule, and I don't want to be continually breaking promises. The solution, therefore is to remove the obligation...

Over the next week or so, I am going to begin winding down the Cartoon Gravity Pro subscription, which will end completely on May 13.

• Those paying monthly will not be billed for their next renewal.
• Annual subscribers will get a pro-rata refund, depending on how far through the cycle they are.
• Slowly (because it has to be done post-by-post) the stuff that was behind the paywall will become available to everyone, and I'll arrange some collections so it's easy to navigate from journals to writing pieces to stuff about process.

I'm still going to make the posts that used to be behind the paywall subscription-only, because I don't necessarily want those things to just pop up on a Google search, but the subscription will be free. Everyone will have free access to everything.

I really love this site, and I'm hoping, if I don't feel the need to provide value for money, that it can become fun and curious and a little more scrapbook-y again.