Hello. I’m so sorry. Goodbye, Smutstack.

Apologies, explanations, and farewells.

I am so sorry for disappearing off the face of Smutstack for the last 5ish months. I am especially sorry to my paying subscribers, who I will happily refund on request.

At the time of my ghosting, I was hit with a perfect storm of crises - personal, professional, financial. My plan was to take a week or so off as I managed the deluge, but then a week turned into a month, and now here we are in the 2nd month of a brand new year.

I didn’t just stop posting here. I didn’t even log into the site. And I also wasn’t writing, at least not any smut.

I burned past my self-imposed deadline for publication of Tropical Permission, which had the second-order consequence of getting me sideways with Amazon.

But I finally started writing again recently. I had been stuck with the third act of Tropical Permission. Even though I already knew more or less what was going to happen (as I would hope anyone who’d read the preceding chapters would as well!) I just couldn’t close it out.

And part of the reason I was having trouble was that virtually any way I wanted to end the book would require some not-insignificant reworking of previous chapters - chapters that had already been published and consumed on my Substack. Obviously, that was not a good enough reason to not finish the book, but it was a real concern in my mind as I wrestled with the ending.

Which got me thinking about the virtue of Substack on the whole, in relation to my writing ambitions. And I pretty swiftly came to the conclusion that the way Substack is set up - the social aspects, the gamification, down to the way they display your dashboard and earnings - is simply unhealthy and unproductive for my writing.

Substack is designed for content churn. That’s why news and political does so well on the platform. That’s all well and good but I started posting on Substack to showcase a work of long-form fiction, and by the end of my relatively short tenure as an active participant, I was posting mostly short stories and O.P.S.. Why? Those are the posts that drove views and subscriptions (and the accompanying dopamine hits of internet validation). Period.

I also arrived at Substack right at the time it had been redesigned into more of a social media-like platform. It was pretty clear from the outset that the way to drive views was to engage with the platform like it was Twitter, and so I did, rather successfully. But that becomes a job unto itself. And a job that isn’t writing. And I hate Twitter! I stopped posting on social media years ago - and for good reason.

Essentially, I came to Substack looking for one thing, and got swallowed up by something else entirely. And don’t get me wrong, it was great! (Who am I to complain about getting swallowed by Smutstack?) I connected with other writers, read some great smut, and got some great feedback and validation on my own writing. But I honestly and truly believe that if I am ever to get to where I want to be as a writer, the care and maintenance of a Substack presence is far more hinderance than help.

As I said earlier, I have started writing again. I finished the third act of Tropical Permission. I’ve edited and reedited and proofed the manuscript. I hope to submit it for publication to Amazon/Kindle Unlimited by the end of the week, the rest of my life permitting.

That means I’ll be pulling Tropical Permission down - along with all my other posts and short stores - in the next few days. I will leave all the OPS posts up - because I still want to see those talented writers highlighted.

I feel bad leaving and for ghosting all those months. But I really did love and value my time here, and wish you all only the best. And I hope you find me on your Kindle someday soon.

So long, Smutstack! And thanks for all the fish.

-- L.H. 💋

P.S. For refunds or to otherwise get in touch with me, you can email me at Lydia Haverly at Gee Mail.