Better Metaphors Studio

A little place for writers to finish (& sell) small things!

I finally wrote a blog post for Better Metaphors Studio to begin to explain what this store is even about:

Yes, it's a little online shop, but its also a place for writers to finish small things.

Sometimes writers create hermit crab essays, where the essay borrows the form of another type of writing.

Maybe Better Metaphors Studio is its own sort of hermit crab essay, borrowing the forms of on online shop and email list to explore and expand on questions about how we as writers can share our work today.

I made Better Metaphors Studio because I felt like writers deserved to have the experience of completed physical work more often. So often, we either share our work online, perhaps in a blog or newsletter, where we're never "done." We're always thinking about next week's post, there's never an opportunity to regard our own work as complete and hold it in our hands. It was a revelation for me when I learned from Robin Sloan that a newsletter can have seasons, just like a TV show!

Other than blogs or newsletters, many of us are looking to publish a book, or more specifically, to get a book deal. While I feel like each of us can and should be our own best publishers (more on this soon!) I also feel that we don't need to have a whole book to experience the joy of holding a finished work in our hands. A little zine is all you need! Here's one of mine.

Here are some more posts about rethinking how we complete and share our work:

Substack Really, Really Scares Me

Many people say that writers can make more money elsewhere, or even that Substack is actually bad at paid newsletters. But I’ll leave that aside because I’m actually concerned about something else. The Substack writers no one talks to for this kind of article.

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Knowing What You Really Want - Why I Left Substack

In response to a prompt in The Wayward Writer, I drew this: You can take up more space than you think. When people don’t know what you’re really about, that can be its own form of protection. I might say, “When you know what you’re really about, that can be

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What would a different container for online writing look like?

Let’s think about the inherent characteristics of the blog format, which I would also see as including most online newsletters with a website archive. These generally have: * Work that is finished, or mostly finished * Presented in a linear, time-based format (typically reverse chronological order) * A sense of permanence of the

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Or see all posts about publishing.