Sluggish is going paid

gather round for an announcement

TLDR; I am obsessed with this newsletter and I want it to be my job now!!

I’ve been using Patreon for subscriber-only content for a while, and I have a lovely group of patrons who support my work, but as a writer, I’ve grown increasingly frustrated with Patreon as a tool.

I can barely embed images in text, the only options for formatting are bold, italic, and one heading type (seriously!), and they don’t host videos, which I’ve started making.

I am feeling a bit like a plant who has outgrown his pot, and I refuse to become rootbound, so I think it’s necessary to make a change so I can keep growing.

This newsletter was an experiment (as all creative endeavors are) but it’s turned out to be better than I expected — I’m writing so much on here that I’ve tapped into a very mythical kind of steady flow, and I want to make a scary leap into the river and see where it takes me.

SO, getting to THE POINT: I’m moving my subscriber-only content from Patreon to Substack (If you are already a patron, please see this post I wrote for you, which includes a patron special discount.)

I’m going to put the Friday round-ups behind a paywall, but the Monday posts will continue to be free for everyone.

For paid subscribers, I’ll be bringing over some stuff I’ve been doing on Patreon that nobody really knows about except for my patrons (because promoting myself feels like scraping my soul with a very pointy rock, so I never, ever do it).

That stuff includes:

• A monthly learning list of media recommendations

• An infodump-style video series on my favorite critical psych papers (as part of my ongoing Critical ADHD Studies project)

• More creative prose and half-formed experiments I’m not ready to send off into the wider abyss

• A discord server for subscribers (henceforth titled: SlugChat)

I also have some new ideas, like audio essays, interviews, maybe some deep-dive special rabbit hole reports, topic-specific sections of the newsletter that you can opt into — there’s so many possibilities! Patreon doesn’t even let you embed tweets!

Okay, I don’t mean to totally bash Patreon, it is very useful for many kinds of artists, just not as great if most of your art is writing. I do run a cute monthly sticker club over there at the $10 tier, and I’ll be keeping that running for now (sticker club members get a subscription here included).

As of this week, over 2,500 of you read this dear e-letter! That is wild! Beyond my wildest dreams! I don’t need much to pay the tax for living (bills), so if you have the means and you value what I’m making, please consider funding this newsletter for $6/mo so I can keep up the slug work.

Thank you all for growing with me through the turn of the year. Creating art is all I’ve ever wanted to do, and it’s really cool that I get to do it every week on this absurd place we call the internet. I’m excited to keep experimenting, wondering, questioning, and sliming around.

<3 Jess