SPAWN Office Hours #126
Pirate hours every Thursday from 6pm-7pm BST or 7-8pm CET onwards. Get over here with your comments, questions and support.
Last week I posted SPAWN to the web only and no one got the email as there was none. After two months of back to back poetry and song title poetry challenges, I thought of releasing pressure of the inboxes you all have. We’re here for our weekly writing community! Here for you to check in and let us know what you’re up to and how you’re doing.
Here’s one of my latest podcast episode:
NaPoWriMo
Greedy winter Greedy winter lingers With snowy winds and thunders Sky greyed a monochrome wonder White diagrams its only decor A rare phenomenon They call you thundersnow Thunder’s gonna wear White wedding snow Your dress that will distract and disappear as you lower the hem When it will melt in front of your eyes To…
Welcome to SPAWN, Substack Pirate After Work Network. We’re here on Thursdays 6pm BST UK, 7pm CET. For those who are unable to join live, post a question out of hours and tick the box to have it on Notes so you get more chances for an answer.
If you’re here for the first time introduce yourself. Ideally, answer questions from others and engage with newcomers and veteran stackers.
I’ll start us off with a few questions/tasks for today’s SPAWN:
1). How can you get to love writing the posts and articles your readers enjoy reading? For example, I love writing poetry. I love writing reviews and articles on writing and poetry but the point is that my poetry gets less readership than my other posts.
2).
3). A few weeks ago I asked how you felt about popping in at any hour that suits your schedule? Most of you while you try to pop in the hour we’re live, find it easier to join at a time that’s more convenient. Is this model working? Should we adapt anything?
SPAWN has its own section on my publication. You can access all previous sessions with a wealth of resources, hands on information, hacks and tips from writers and creatives who’ve been doing what they do for a long while. Posts older than two weeks get archived and are fully accessible to paid members.
SPAWN is Office Hours and hang out with Writer Pilgrim by So Elite and our lovely crew. We’ll talk all things Substack that we love or don’t understand. The floor is always open to your questions and invite your subscribers and followers here too.
Another regular feature on my publication is the monthly Song Title poetry first Friday of the month and the weekly Prompt Station with a writing prompt released every Tuesday. And look at my podcast Writer Pilgrim Sounds that now includes videos too of London’s hidden amazing places, poetry and interviews with some super amazing artists. I hope you join for those too.
We are live for an hour and many stay for longer. Mostly, we chat about writing and Substacking; we celebrate each other’s successes and find new readers and subscribers in the process. Before we go on to this week’s SPAWN here’s what we did last week and make sure you check the comments as there are some useful resources in there:
Naturally comments spill outside the live hour because our community is all over the world. You’re welcome to join pre or after hours. We have novel, short story, poetry, non-fiction and travel writers, podcasters, youtubers and journalists. Between us, we solve most questions.
Comment about what’s been eating you on Substack and what’s been good this week. Share your questions and achievements and socialise with us.
Everyone’s welcome to join the conversation. Politeness and kindness are our rules. Offer advice if you can, no guesswork and no spammers. Our readers and SPAWN are a supportive community and many of us support one another outside this weekly event.
Thank you for turning up each week and for returning to Late Night Spawn to support and reply to writers and creators who turn up after hours to our events.
Here’s how you can support my publication:
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Thank you, I appreciate you!




It's time for another... 'Morning SPAWN'! 🕺😎🕺
Hi everyone!
Happy Thursday to you all!
So this week, over at the 'House of Haiku', we've been talking about 'Radio'. You can find out more about that here: https://chrisjfranklin.substack.com/p/house-of-haiku-prompt-radio
Also, have you seen that new feature at the bottom when you're getting ready to publish a new Post, where it says something like, "Check for AI text?" That could be interesting to press, just out of curiosity, to see what it says, because I've heard those tools are notoriously unreliable and accusing everyone of being AI. Apparently, they ran the Declaration of Independence through an AI checker, for example, and it said it's 99% likely to be AI, which of course, is impossible. Haha! But I think if they can eventually get a tool that's effective, it could be useful to have things verified and labelled as 'AI Free', to reassure readers, and this could well be a step towards implementing a system like that at some point in the future.
Anyway, on to the questions... How can you get to love writing the posts and articles your readers enjoy reading? That's a fascinating one, for sure. It's tricky to hit on things that perform consistently well on here, and I think it's far better to focus on your 'voice' and unique 'style', so that readers connect with that, regardless of what the content is. The most important thing in all cases is that you love what you've written yourself, and that you're showing that passion for what you're doing on the page, and pouring your emotions and the best of what you know about the world into it, and when that shines through it's far more likely that others will love it, too.
Should we adapt anything about SPAWN? It's definitely difficult to find a format that works for everyone when we're all in different time zones. But I think things are fine as they are, and it's nice that people visit at a moment that suits them, and 'Late Night SPAWN' and 'Morning SPAWN' have become a thing. It's made it a bit like the 'Cheers' bar, that's here to welcome you whenever you're ready, where everybody knows your name. Haha... 😎