#Substack for Writers

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Free December Gift for Freelance Writers

Creating a Plan and Strategy to Boost Your Newsletters A Free Video and Audio Book Presentation of Substack Mastery Book for Your Enjoyment Dear Subscribers, Happy December! I hope this post finds you well. This month is very busy for me as I am helping our editors, updating all submission guidelines, and creating a new onboarding pack for 2025.  I will publish it soon as so many new writers…

[malusokay]

What's the point of a diary if you're not lying in it?

On Anaïs Nin, literary self-mythologizing, and why personal writing should always be slightly dishonest. (from my substack)

If you’re not lying in your diary, you’re just journaling, and journaling is for people who don’t know how to edit.

A diary is not a record of events; it is an act of creation. The best diarists know this instinctively. Anaïs Nin knew it better than anyone. Her diaries were not mere confessions but performances, half-lit mirrors where the truth shimmered, distorted but no less real.

Nin understood that life is not lived in a single register. Her diaries are a study in contradiction—one moment, she is in love; the next, repulsed. She is independent yet wholly consumed by those around her. But contradiction isn’t falsehood; it’s literature. She rewrote and edited her diaries, sculpting herself into the character she wanted to be. And is that really so dishonest?

People love to be outraged by the idea of a diary that is not entirely factual. But fact is not the same as truth. Diaries, at their best, are emotional truths, shaped by mood, by desire, by the need to impose a narrative on the chaos of daily life. Nin was not interested in being objective—she was interested in being immortal. She once wrote, “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.” But why stop at tasting? Why not rewrite, reshape, embellish? If we can curate the lives we present to others, why should we not do the same for the versions of ourselves we leave behind?

Nin herself was a master of this. She edited her diaries before publication, removing, refining, turning herself into a protagonist. She blurred lines, shifted timelines, made herself more alluring. She called it shaping reality. Others call it lying. The truth, of course, is that all personal writing is selective. Even in confession, there is curation.

The danger, of course, is that history will take the performance at face value. That the diary, once private, will harden into biography. But this, too, is a kind of truth. A diary is not a static object. It lives, it breathes, it deceives, but always in service of something larger than the mundane details of existence.

[theoverstimulated]

"You might think that because you’ve had COVID-19 and lived through it that repeat infections will impact you similarly, but “reinfections aren't harmless. As cases continue to rise and more variants arrive on the scene, infectious-disease experts are warning that repeat infections could have cumulative, lasting effects.”

...If you want to maintain your current level of health and avoid potential damage to your body & organs (up to and including your brain & your heart) and/or want to live as long as possible, taking precautions to prevent COVID-19 infections is crucial."

[official-trainwrecks]

HEY, YOU. Are you a fan of Friends, Community, or Heartbreaker? Do you love romance/romantic plotlines? Do enemies-to-lovers and will-they-won't-they scenarios keep you on the edge of your seat? Are you starving for more diversity and mental health rep?

Then you should read Trainwrecks, a FREE online serial following the lives of six Seattle-adjacent best friends from 2004-2015!

Meet the Cast!

Art by mangomangoj on Instagram.

Luna Cruz: (15) A nerdy and artistic girl who's had enough of being bullied about her weight. Her dream is to become a fashion designer. Or an ASL interpreter. Or both!

Dimitri Hale: (20) The most charming genius-turned-bag-boy you'll ever meet. He likes alcohol a little too much, but better booze than heroin, is he right??

Sebastian Velasquez: (17) The only thing keeping Seb from a life of debauchery is his best friend Dimitri, who he happens to have a crush on. Singing, dancing, and playing the guitar are his hobbies.

Jasmine Nolan: (17) Jasmine had the baddest reputation in her high school until she met Jesus. Now He's forgiven her, but she's having an awfully hard time forgiving herself.

Duke Kingston: (15) Duke might be one of the best friends you'll ever have! But if you're a bully, he's going to beat the shit out of you. No questions asked.

Victoria Hale: (15) Victoria's just moved to the U.S. from London, and she has her sights set on Juilliard. Beware her ADHD rage: She can go from 0 to throwing furniture in seconds.

About the Series

Trainwrecks: Season 1 (2004-2005) is now complete on Substack, and Trainwrecks: Season 2 (2005-2006) premieres March 3, 2025! Each week, subscribers receive both a narrative chapter and a social media chapter in their email inboxes. This entire story is free to read, but paid subscribers will receive four pieces of bonus content a month!

Curious about the characters? You can browse this blog or follow the link in the bio to the official website for bios, Spotify playlists, and more information!

Thanks for reading!

[notbecauseofvictories]

I would say 98% of the time, I think of a partner as a "nice to have." Like a cleaning service, or takeout, or sending dirty clothes out to get them laundered---you can get through your life without it, and I do think sometimes people use it as a band-aid for deeper problems. That's not to say that things like partners/cleaning services/takeout/laundry aren't wonderful, positive additions to your life! Just that you don't actually need these things to....you know, live.

....but that remaining 2% of the time? My apartment feels very big and empty.

[soulmaking]

from orchid woman summer

[rissareee]

the vibes of my substack in memes … you’re welcome <3

[ieppiq]

COPPER HOME RELEASED

Itch.io Exclusive. Minimum Price: $1.00 | Suggested: $2.00 *All sales will be reinvested both in my University Tax and into my Self-Publishing Fund. Huge thanks in advance for viewing or buying and downloading the Copper Home PDF file!

IF YOU RUN INTO ANY ISSUES, PLEASE NOTIFY ME, PLEASE.

And here's a Funfact on this project:

Only Text Version At My KO-FI Shop, Priced: $0.22

Also! If the price page gives you trouble changing the suggested price to the minimum: delete until it shows $0.00, write $0.001000 and backspace, then enter to move on to the next page /or/:

tagging a bunch of folks (no pressure to interact): @moremysteriesthantragedies , @pluttskutt , @druidx , @cheerfulmelancholies , @talesofsorrowandofruin , @ettawritesnstudies , @faelanvance , @dustylovelyrun ,

@deerwright , @aalinaaaaaa , @chauceryfairytales , @surroundedbypearls , @soupy8lowfish , @misswriteress

[sensualterrors]

✥ SINNERS REVIEW ✥ snippet:

[spoiler free]

✥ “This is a movie about music and the outsized, beautiful, devilish role it can play in your life. Most people center their summary of Sinners on the outlaw twins, Smoke and Stack, who have mysteriously traded life in the big city (Chicago) for their old haunt of Mississippi once more.

✥ I immediately took note of how the events of Sinners occurs in the Delta region — known to many Black people, especially Southern Black folks, as the birthplace of sorts for blues music — think legends such as Muddy Waters and Charley Patton, who is mentioned offhand in Sinners.

✥ As a hoodoo practitioner, I took note of the setting because oldheads, Southern scholars, folklorists and real blues fans also know that the Mississippi Delta is a nexus of paranormal activity.

✥ Legend has it that Blues guitarist Robert Johnson — a contemporary of Son House and Patton and Muddy Waters — sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi.”

🩸 READ MORE HERE 🩸

[the-almighty-gob-john-langley]

#America First, World Last? The Perilous Path of Trade Tariffs, and the potential 'New World Order.'

When "Making America Great Again" Risks Unmaking the Global Economy.

"This scenario is not far-fetched. The seeds of division are already being sown. The United States, under the Trump administration, has pursued a protectionist trade policy that has alienated many of its allies. This policy is based on the belief that America has been treated unfairly by its trading partners and that it needs to put its own interests first."

[prispls]

all because i wanted to see the good in you

i wanted to see you in a different light, and because of that, i find myself always making light of the words that you say and the things that you do. still trying and hoping to understand you a little better, to give you more chances to show me that you can be better and do better.

all because i wanted to see the good in you. but what good did it ever do?

each time i bare my heart out to you, you’d chew it up and spit it out or run from it, leaving me vulnerable and alone, stranded out in the cold once more.

but i guess it’s nothing new. fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me. fool me a hundred times, i’m a goddamned fool, debilitated by my love for you.

[bynataliezubi]

hurt people hurt people.

cycles of abuse are perpetuated by those who are wounded.

everyone has free will,

but many live without seeing the larger context.

they're unable to grasp options beyond what they've been taught

through cultural conditioning and societal programming.

it's a shame, but it doesn't excuse their actions.

your feelings are valid, even if you've contributed to harmful cycles.

you were acting from your level of awareness at the time.

acknowledge this, and use it as a chance to grow.

[malusokay]

The Pomegranate Plague of Gen Z Poets

First, it was the moon. Then cigarettes. Then, girls by windows, ethereal in their ruin. Now? Pomegranates. (from my substack)

If you’ve spent enough time around poetry circles, you’ve seen it before. The doomed love, the Persephone complex, the vaguely sacrificial undertones. And, of course, the fruit.

The Persephone Myth (The Popular Version)

So you think you know the story: Persephone, wreathed in flowers, is stolen by Hades, dragged screaming into the Underworld. Her mother, Demeter, weeps and starves the earth in protest. Zeus, eventually deciding this is a problem, orders Persephone’s return—but oops, she ate six pomegranate seeds, so now she’s doomed forever.

That’s the version that survives in girl poetry, anyway.

What Promegerants Girls won’t tell you? The actual myth is a mess. There is no single, definitive version—just fragments, scraps stitched together across centuries. And the pomegranate seed detail?

It barely even shows up.

What We Actually Have:

• Persephone’s myth wasn’t even originally Greek. The story of a goddess being dragged into the underworld predates Greek mythology entirely.

• In Mesopotamian myth, Ishtar (Inanna) descends into the underworld to confront Ereshkigal, queen of the dead. She is stripped of her power and trapped, only escaping by offering someone else in her place—a theme that later appears in Persephone’s myth. This suggests Persephone’s story wasn’t a Greek invention but an adaptation of older Near Eastern fertility-death-rebirth cycles.

• Despoina (“the Mistress”) was worshipped before Persephone—and before Hades was even relevant. In older, pre-Olympian cult traditions, Despoina was the actual chthonic goddess of the underworld. She was venerated alongside Demeter and was probably a far more powerful, independent figure before later mythology reduced Persephone to “Hades’ wife.” Despoina’s cult was deliberately secretive, meaning much of her lore is lost—but she was deeply tied to the Eleusinian Mysteries, which were about life, death, and rebirth, not tragic romance.

• Hades wasn’t even a major figure in early versions of the myth. Before he was written in as “the husband,” the underworld was associated more with Gaia (Earth) and Nyx (Night). Hades’ later dominance in the story came as Olympian mythology reshaped older chthonic traditions.

• Persephone was originally Kore (“the Maiden”)—not a tragic heroine, but an archetype of the life-death-rebirth cycle tied to agriculture. She wasn’t a person; she was a function. The whole point was that she disappears, then re-emerges—her personality was secondary to the cosmic process she represented. Only much later did people start treating her as an individual.

• Hesiod’s Theogony (~8th century BCE), one of the oldest Greek texts, barely mentions Persephone. To him, she’s just Hades’ wife, no backstory necessary. This matters because it shows that her abduction wasn’t even a central myth at first—it developed later.

• The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (~7th century BCE) is our earliest and most detailed source. But forget romance—it’s a political nightmare. Hades kidnaps Persephone (the Greek verb used, ἁρπάζω, literally means “to snatch away”—no courtship, no tragic longing). Demeter shuts down the harvest, and Zeus steps in not out of fatherly love, but because no crops mean no sacrifices, and no sacrifices mean starving gods.

The pomegranate? One sentence. Persephone eats something in the Underworld, so she has to stay. That’s it. The number of seeds? Not even mentioned. The whole “I bit into a pomegranate and now I am bound to darkness forever ”dramatics? A complete invention.

• Ovid’s Metamorphoses (~8 CE) is where we finally get the six seeds detail—but Ovid was Roman, writing centuries after the Greek versions had already evolved. His retelling heightens the drama, turning Persephone into a tragic, doomed figure rather than a cosmic force tied to ritual.

• Later Orphic traditions tried to clean it up, recasting Persephone as the mother of Zagreus (a god later merged with Dionysus), tying her to death, rebirth, and mystery cults. At this point, the myth had already spiralled into layers of mysticism.

• Persephone wasn’t always tragic—she became terrifying. The helpless waif image is a modern fabrication. The ancient sources tell a different story—one where Persephone is feared, not mourned.

• In Euripides’ Helen (412 BCE), she is invoked as a vengeful queen of the dead.

• In Homer’s Odyssey (Book 10), Odysseus fears Persephone’s wrath during his necromantic ritual—she is powerful enough to control the dead without Hades.

• Hecate was Persephone’s underworld counterpart and guide. In later versions, Hecate leads Persephone back to the upper world, further reinforcing Hecate’s enduring role in the chthonic realm.

• In Roman tradition, Proserpina (Persephone) was linked to Libera, a goddess of wild fertility and ecstatic rites. This completely contradicts the modern image of her as a fragile, tragic figure.

The Pomegranate Wasn’t Inherently Tragic

• In Hippocratic medical texts, pomegranate juice was used for contraception and abortion remedies—a practical, everyday association, not one of doom.

• In Pliny the Elder’s Natural History (1st century CE), pomegranates were used to treat fevers and digestive issues. No poetic suffering, just ancient medicine.

• In Greek funerary practices, pomegranates symbolised rebirth, not entrapment. They weren’t about being bound to darkness forever—they were about the cycle of life continuing.

Why This Completely Destroys the Promegerants Version of Persephone

1. The myth is about agriculture and divine power, not doomed love. The earliest versions barely mention Hades—this was Demeter’s story, a myth about the life cycle, cosmic balance, and the survival of humanity.

2. Persephone wasn’t always Persephone. She was Kore, an agricultural symbol, not a tragic heroine. Her function came first, her personality second. The idea of her as a fully realised, suffering individual came centuries later.

3. She wasn’t even the first queen of the underworld. Despoina was worshipped before her—an older, more powerful chthonic goddess with nothing to do with victimhood or romance.

4. The pomegranate was never central to the original myth. It’s a tiny, passing detail used as an explanation for why Persephone had to stay in the Underworld. The number of seeds? A Roman invention.

5. The whole myth wasn’t even Greek to begin with. It likely evolved from Mesopotamian myths like Ishtar’s descent, meaning the Promegerants version is a distortion of a distortion.

6. Persephone wasn’t a victim—she was a force of nature. The later versions of her myth don’t show her as tragic—they show her as terrifying. She was a queen who ruled the dead, feared even by heroes. If Promegerants Girls really wanted to stay true to the myth, they wouldn’t write about Persephone tragically eating seeds—they’d write about her punishing mortals for disturbing the dead.

From Chthonic Queen to Tragic Girlcore

The Promegerants version of Persephone strips her of her original role and reduces her to an aesthetic prop. In the oldest sources, she isn’t even a person—she’s a cosmic force, an idea before she’s a character.

Persephone was never just a tragic girl in a dark room with red-stained lips. She was a goddess of cycles, a ritual figure whose presence dictated the survival of humanity. The oldest myths barely even cared about her personal emotions—because that wasn’t the point.

And the pomegranate? Once a symbol of fertility and power, now just a moody Tumblr metaphor for doomed relationships. Would the ancient Greeks recognize Promegerants Persephone?

Absolutely not.

They’d probably assume she was some mediocre Roman poet’s overdramatic rewrite.

In other words: the version we cling to is a late, Romanized, overly romanticised distortion of a much darker and weirder myth—one that was never about love, tragedy, or women choosing their suffering.

Why Has This Myth Been Hijacked?

Because it’s too easy. The modern interpretation lets poets turn Persephone into:

• A stolen innocence narrative—without engaging with its actual horror.

• A tragic queen figure—without ever giving her power.

• A martyr for womanhood—as if eating a fruit were some grand metaphor for the inevitability of suffering.

But Persephone’s story was never about being loved and ruined.

It was about bargaining, power, and gods who don’t care about human grief.

The Pomegranate Problem™

At this point, the pomegranate isn’t a symbol—it’s a decorative prop.

Its original meanings—fertility, power, the tension between life and death—have been stripped away, replaced with moody girlhood aesthetics.

Poets don’t use it because they understand its history. They use it because it sounds expensive—like a fruit for people who romanticise heartbreak in foreign cities.

But if your poem still works after swapping “pomegranate” for “grapes”, then what are we even doing here?

Read This Before You Write Another Pomegranate Poem

• Homer’s Odyssey → Pomegranates appear in King Alcinous’ eternal orchard, a symbol of wealth, abundance, and divine favour. Not doom.

• Euripides’ Ion → Associated with Aphrodite, symbolising fertility, passion, and desire. Again—not doom.

• Aristophanes’ Lysistrata → Used as an innuendo for female sexuality (which, frankly, would make for a far more interesting poem).

• Dionysian Mysteries → Linked to ecstatic rites, resurrection cults, and the cycle of life and death. If you want to write about pomegranates and darkness, this would actually make sense.

• Roman Religion → Sacred to Juno, particularly in marriage and childbirth rituals, reinforcing their connection to fertility and renewal, not suffering.

• Theophrastus’ Enquiry into Plants → Describes pomegranates as a cultivated luxury fruit, prized for its sweetness, medicinal properties, and status.

• Herodotus’ Histories → Mentions Persian warriors decorating their spears with pomegranates, symbolising strength, fertility, and victory.

• Pausanias’ Description of Greece → Describes pomegranate offerings at Demeter’s sanctuaries, representing fertility, rebirth, and ritual purification—never suffering.

• Plutarch’s Moralia → Links pomegranates to beauty, sensuality, and indulgence in Greek and Roman culture—so, more hedonistic pleasure, less tragic metaphor.

Next time someone writes about a pomegranate-stained mouth, ask them if they mean Persephone or Aristophanes’ sex jokes.

How to Write a Pomegranate Poem That Survives Scrutiny

If you must use it, at least be rigorous. If you’re going full Persephone-core, then be specific. Make it about something real.

Tell us if the juice stains the sheets, if the seeds taste like metal, if they stick between your teeth like regret.

Don’t just drop in “pomegranate” and expect us to do the heavy lifting.

Or consider letting the myth go.

There are so many other symbols, so many richer, underused classical references.

And If You’re Tired of the Pomegranate, Try These Instead

there’s a whole world of classical symbols that carry just as much weight—without the overuse. Here are a few:

Chthonic & Underworld Imagery:

• Asphodel – The ghostly, liminal flowers of the underworld in Greek myth, growing where souls linger. Less overdone than pomegranates, just as eerie.

• Lethe – The river of forgetfulness. Its waters erase memory, a far more unsettling metaphor for loss than a single piece of fruit.

• Orphic Gold Leaves – Real funeral tablets placed with the dead, inscribed with guidance for navigating the afterlife. The ultimate memento mori.

• Owls – Athena’s symbol, but also a nocturnal watcher associated with wisdom, death, and the unknown.

Fertility, Desire & Ruin:

• Fig Trees – Symbolizing sensuality, abundance, and decay (the Greeks also had fig-wood coffins).

• Laurel Wreaths – Victory and poetic ambition, but also a crown of temporary glory—since laurel leaves wither fast.

• Myrrh – A resin used for perfume and burial rites, evoking both seduction and decay. (Also linked to Myrrha, who was cursed to fall in love with her own father. Greek myths were wild.)

Dionysian Madness & Ecstasy:

• Thyrsus – A staff tipped with ivy and pinecones, wielded by Dionysus and his followers. Represents intoxication, divine frenzy, and the thin line between revelry and destruction.

• Ivy – Unlike flowers, it never dies in winter. Clings, suffocates, overtakes. A more interesting metaphor for entanglement than Persephone’s six seeds.

If you must use a pomegranate, at least make it bleed. But if you’re ready for something richer—there are so many other symbols waiting.

[schuylerpeck]

snippet from today’s newsletter — figuring out how to create in a virtual world of catching up.

schuylerpeck / instagram: hiitssky

[echoesoftheinfinite]

Echoes, Under the Starry Night

Read the full poem on Substack 🌙✨

[sleepforeverbabe]