Clean up in aisle 5.

Just a few changes going on I wanted to tell you about.

Dearest pals..

It turns out that my ability to write regular newsies is extremely low.

I have been internalising a very complicated situation in my head.

Write any old bullshit and sending that out so I meet a regular posting target.

Or

Just write when I have something that might be considered useful or entertaining.

The latter won.

I think all of you who subscribe to my nonsense would be pleased about that.

But for my wonderful paid subscribers, it means I can no longer accept your regular payments. It just wouldn’t be right for you to pay for something regular that I can no longer give.

So, I have gone through and refunded payments made by you to me in 2024. I am still working out how to refund people who paid a lump sum last year. If this is you, perhaps you could reply to this email so we can figure out how to get you reimbursed.

The second complicated situation I have been internalising is the idea of paid media.

I firmly in my heart of hearts I am in the camp of normalising paying for media. There are many wonderful writers and artists out there working very hard to entertain, inspire, and inform. And if you read and enjoy their work, and you can afford to, you should support financially.

My situation is different.

I have a full time, paid job outside of my writing.

Extra cash I make from my writing pretty much goes to causes or people having a rough time. Sometimes it goes to subscriptions of things that I forget I have a subscription for. You know how it goes.

So, with all of that, I have decided to shift the option of paying for my writing to Ko-Fi so you can give irregular, one-off, non-specific tips if you feel like it.

There’s no obligation. My writing is still here and free as a bird for those who don’t want to do that, or can’t afford to do that.

But having the option makes sense to me.

And so here is the button to click if you want to do that. (Although this post isn’t anything special, so don’t do that now)

The other thing that is changing slightly is my writing focus.

For a long time I have wanted to extend my topics - not away from the cooked as wellness industry, but in addition to it.

I want to write about things that make me laugh, rage, cry. I want to write about my fitness which is so bad right now but how I’m fixing it. There’s things I want to share with you that made me laugh till I couldn’t breathe, and other newsletters from proper writers that I want you to know about.

Taking out the trash will be an irregular newsy that you can pay for occasionally if you want to, that is about as wild in topic as my neurodiverse brain is.

The domain name is sweatypals.nz but that will also change in the coming weeks as I’m not a personal trainer under that brand anymore and it doesn’t fit for my writing. I just have to work out how to change the links to all the posts so my stuff can still be shared around. If anyone knows a tolerable way to do that, please come at me because it’s all crickets over here where that is concerned.

Phew!

I think that’s all I needed to tell you for now.

Sharing a pic of my George Cat, though. He is 19 years old, and due to a deluge of health issues, we will be saying goodbye to him tomorrow. Isn’t he just the most handsome kitty cat.

xx