Welcome to My Fucking Substack!

What you can expect here and WHY I'm doing this.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited to begin something in my life. Welcome to my Substack!

I have wanted to find a way to give you ‘more’ of me for a while. A space to connect us all together where complex ideas and nuance are free to flourish, outside of social media. A space for me to yap my arse off amongst friends. Articulately, messily, uncensored and for as long as my heart desires. This newsletter and blog is how I plan to do just that (LUCKY YOU!)

Me in LA, by Megan Cullen

The best way to describe this newsletter is that if we were friends, these are all things I would be gushing over or obsessing about to you over strong coffee, while my rings clash chaotically against one another as I gesticulate wildly with my hands. Yes. That’s pretty much how I interact with you all on social media anyway. But over here I feel I can really let myself go, in my little pink room, behind my little paywall.

This is a space for me to share my musings and all of the things that set my fucking soul on fire. I’m a very passionate person and have fought for dear life to protect my spark since I was a young girl. Despite the odds, my enthusiasm and curiosity for life remains intact! I decided a while ago to become the most fierce gatekeeper of my joy, because keeping that spark alive isn’t just about ‘me’. Joy is contagious and I am a woman BURSTING at the seams, aching to pour her whole soul into something so that she can reignite that passion in others, too. I want to make the world a more beautiful place. That’s why I spend so much time writing books. That’s why I create content. But sometimes I don’t want to wait a few years to share my musings with you, printed perfectly into a book between my beautifully illustrated spreads. Or equally, dilute my thoughts into a short Instagram reel designed for our dwindling attention spans. Sometimes I just want to write something, press send and chuck it out into the ether. I need more nuance! Plus, the messy and imperfect middle is a lot more delicious anyway. 

I have no clue how you ended up here. I may have twirled into your life through instagram while dancing to Lou Reed in a slip dress, or you may have stumbled across me in a bookstore through one of my philosophical and feminist books (Yes darling, I have RANGE! And you should expect that range to be reflected in this newsletter!!!). However you’ve found yourself here, I’m deeply grateful that our paths crossed. The driving force behind everything I create is my abundant love for life, women and a desire to create a more beautiful world. I create art as a form of alchemy, turning my pain, observations and experiences into tangible wisdom that can be passed on to help others - and I want a new space to do that work, here.

While this newsletter is indeed a generous offering from me to you, this newsletter is also my medicine. I need to express myself. While I may have managed to recover my spark after burying it beneath shame and fear so many bloody times, it is only through continuing to express myself that I can keep her alive. I’ve discovered that suppression of my self expression leads to depression, and I can no longer afford to pay the mental cost for hoarding my ideas out of fear and storing them inside. I want to die a woman who emptied herself of everything she yearned to express with the world. Even TYPING that empowers me! It also feels a very beautiful and brave intention for me to set for this space. This blog is a loving attempt to playfully slay my perfectionism and become a more courageous writer, one imperfect post at a time. My creative instincts have never lead me astray and it excites me to honour them here, however deep and serious or silly and whimsical they may be.

So, what will I be doing here?

I want to inspire you, delight you, prod your thoughts off their habitual beaten track and set them off into exciting fresh territory. Whether that’s through my illustrations, my book recommendations, motivational essays, advice columns, my musings on feminism, tips on writing a book, spirituality, fashion, solo travel tips, a list of the songs I think SHOULD have been in Twilight, my favourite ways to spend a Sunday, or my curated playlists to accompany you in every occasion, from a melancholy airport drive, to a sexy dry humping session on the sofa. This is my ‘thought dump’ space to share whatever the fuck I want, basically! I might even share some exclusive tattoo designs that you’re free to use. When I told my mum I was creating this page she said ‘FLOSS you should film yourself going SHOPPING, the girls would LOVE THAT!!!’. Who knows what we’ll get up to over here. But one thing’s for sure, I will be having FUN. I am on a curious journey of unlearning toxic beliefs and ideology, to develop and nurture my own philosophy and values that are authentic to me. This is no place for perfection, moral righteousness or judgement because creativity and authenticity cannot flourish in such an environment. Expect only playfulness, exploration and a shit tonne of my unbridled excitement. The freedom of it all honestly feels illegal. I’m excited to start this journey together and see what happens.

Why Substack?

For years, you have only been able to interact with me in two extremes, either on Instagram in the flash that I appear on your feed, or when I publish a book every couple of years. Substack feels like the delicious middle ground I’ve been looking for. I really just want to connect with you all and invite you into a little room on the internet that feels sacred and magical, where so much of it today can feel divisive and hostile.

I’m sure you’ve seen the tweet about how there was once a time when the internet was only accessible on a computer and it was a ‘place’ we could visit. A magical world we entered when we turned our computers on, and one we could exit once we left our desks. We used to say ‘brb’ when chatting with our friends. But now that we have mobile phones the internet is no longer a ‘place’ - we live here. We are constantly accessible. We don’t use it intentionally anymore, we use it out of habit. On the toilet. Waiting for the bus. In the car. Even from our beds. We pull out our phones in a moment of boredom, or worse, when we’re enraged and want to dump our shitty feelings onto someone else. But that’s why I am creating this Substack. It’s slower here. I love that you have to log into your laptop and intentionally enter our sacred little room! Even if you do use the mobile app to access my musings, I like that Substack is still a ‘room’ that exists outside of the frantic, attention-grabbing, nervous-system hijacking ‘room’ of social media. To be in this space, you have to actually go out of your way and consciously choose to be here.

Instead, this Substack is like being invited to enter a cosy pink den, with incense burning, while I offer to pour you strong coffee from my French press into a floral teacup as we sit together, chat shit, share advice and say all the things we’re too afraid to say on social media. Coming over here feels a lot like leaving the rat-race in a crowded city where everyone’s fighting for space, and fucking off to the country side for a more intentional way of living. There will no doubt be less noise, less comments and less people over here. And that is a very, very beautiful thing. 

It occurred to me this year that something felt deeply out of alignment about only sharing my work on social media, a platform that has no doubt been so instrumental to my success, but also damaging to my mental health. It is so fiercely addictive, that it’s the single thing in my life that I have had to enforce the most boundaries with (I will delve into what those boundaries are in an essay on here soon!). I love social media. It is the only way I have been able to get my work out there as a writer, connect with all of you and publish successful books. But I don’t like the way it hijacks my nervous system. Sometimes before even opening the app. The adrenaline rush of wondering if what you will see is going to inspire you, or keep you up at night in a terror of anxiety. I don’t like the way we’re encouraged to react quickly to things and how it brings out the most egoic and least generous versions of ourselves. I don’t like condensing my long ideas into short-form content, stripping everything of nuance. I’m a woman that loves to yap, for hooooours, and very articulately, GODDAMN IT! My heart yearns for something slower, longer, deeper. I ache for complexity and intentionality. For spaces that allow the most generous and conscious versions of ourselves to respond, to create a more beautiful and conscious world. So I’m creating that cosy pink and sacred room for us all, here.

What can you expect?

As a free subscriber you will be able to receive an occasional free newsletter from me, delivered straight to your inbox.

Paid subscribers (£5.99 a month, £60 annually) will officially become part of my digital inner circle! Your subscription allows me to take the time out to create my content and as a big thank you for your support, you will get the FAT and full of EVERYTHING version of this delicious newsletter. That includes more frequent newsletters (instead of an occasional one), audio versions of newsletters read by me, new illustrations, exclusive video content from me that you can’t view anywhere else online, the ability to leave comments on my posts and engage with other subscribers and MOST excitingly, you will gain access to my exclusive online community and group chat for you to connect with like minded people. Perhaps your dream business partner is lurking in there. Or a group of witches to do full-moon rituals with. Or someone with the perfect restaurant recommendation for your next solo-trip. Two people who once met in my comment section are now engaged, so who the fuck knows!

For my Founding Members (£150 annually) as a big thank you for your generous pledge, you will receive all of the above, plus a free print of my artwork for you to choose from, a personal discount code to use on my store for LIFE and you will get access to tickets for any of my future events BEFORE anyone else. You will also know that you are making a real difference to keeping my blog thriving and running. Your support means everything to me and ensures that I can take the time out to create this content. 

While it feels ridiculous that I didn’t start this sooner, I do believe in divine timing. I have searched far and wide for the right home to connect us all together for years and a lot of things have been conspiring magically in my life lately that have all pointed me towards…here. So I’m going with it. It just feels so right. It’s like my own magazine! Writing without permission? Creating videos as long as I fucking want? Talking about writing, art, books, creativity, philosophy and sharing my most authentic and unshackled-self with you all in my own corner of the internet? Where no one’s yelling and fighting to be heard? On a page that I have ownership over? I almost can’t believe it…

Welcome to my delicious little pink corner of the internet. Please feel free to leave a comment below with anything that you would be interested in seeing me write about here! Let’s see how this goes. I can’t fucking wait to dive in with you.