My Substack = Paid Subscriptions Now But for Sporadic Posts

Yeah, you heard me, everyone! 🤠🤘

Dec 14, 2025

For a long time, I’ve written here with tape on my mouth. And increasingly, more quietly every time. What topics could I talk about without everyone twisting things?

1) I’m going to review stuff again.

Movies. Music. Enjoy. Because you won’t all be there to be mean about it.

Sitting down wondering if a topic is safe, is no longer in the cards for me.

2) I’m going to ghost all of the lurkers.

This week, a lurker, someone who years ago had been an interview source in my freelance writing life, immediately unsubscribed as a free user the moment I published a piece about sexism at work for women in any industry, not limited to the entertainment profession. It reminded me of that old Saturday Night Live sketch where people “discover” that Beyoncé is black only when she speaks directly about issues facing the black community.

This person didn’t unsubscribe because the writing lacked quality. He unsubscribed because he realised I am not a mannequin. I am a living, breathing lady with opinions, experience, and a point of view shaped by reality, and that discomfort was apparently the deal breaker for someone who for years, probably thought I was there for free entertainment.

And in that moment, something, FINALLYYYYYYY, finally clicked.

I believe that God sometimes nudges us forward through a partially predestined, part free will life plan. This person served his purpose.

Over the years, I’ve made deliberate choices to reduce exposure: stepping away from personal social media, keeping my presence focused on work with my business online rather than performance. But this was the final adjustment. The one I hadn’t quite made yet. I am no longer interested in being observed for free. You want to support me? Quit treating me like a circus animal.

Before social media, and certainly after it, I’ve noticed a recurring pattern: a certain kind of attention that isn’t curiosity so much as anticipation. People waiting for a misstep. Hoping for a train wreck. When no schadenfreude ever appears out of the mist, they attempt to manufacture the schadenfreude by reading conflict into nothing, making themselves part of something that never happened, picking apart sentences, or policing my taste in films and music.

I’ve found myself hesitating before sharing a film opinion, a music review, or any simple joys of daily life. Because inevitably, someone feels compelled to announce that Lorde sucks, or I can’t dislike a romcom because I’ve never directed a large budget studio motion picture as of 2025. I can’t know anything about the entertainment industry and be quoted about it because having professional music distribution and my stock music on shows doesn’t qualify me, but some male blogger who’s never been quoted can say what he wants and not get a single comment back on social media. These are not conversations. They are acts of small digital cruelty. Pile them up, you want to rip out your hair.

3) I’m going to attract actual grownups who read words.

The people capable of adult, generous discussion about the arts are the ones willing to pay a Substack admission fee to engage with it. I can let loose and not worry anymore because I’m 12 year old me again, chatting movies with the girls I know at my school and schools in other cities, all gathering like we’re Roger Ebert and pals.

At the moment, my writing voice has felt glued shut by those who only show up to be unkind. That ends here.

Some time ago, on a platform you’ve certainly heard of, I ran an art series: digital portraits of women I love from cinema. It thrived, until I moved the membership from free to $4.99 a month. At that point, the enthusiastic “OHHHH I LOVE YOUR WORK!” thousands of commenters vanished. The “support” evaporated into that Addams Family mist of the dark I talked about. Hours of careful work were suddenly no longer worth anything once a price existed. Tipping me tiny crumbs, if at all, was easier. Most sat there for free. Waiting. 10,000+ followers within days. Zero when paid.

They didn’t want the art. Me. My work. Anything. They wanted the circus. A circus that was 100 percent all a projection because they ignored whenever I spoke, did, said, and wrote. What I did.

I am not working for free. And I am not a circus act. I am an entertainment industry professional. I won’t make that mistake twice.

So this Substack is moving to a paid subscription. Free posts will remain sporadic. This is not a content treadmill. It’s a journal. A place for writing about what inspires me and what doesn’t. About the movies and music that shaped me. The goofy moments. The teenage diary I never kept, so I’m going to do it now at age 38 and six months.

It is very possible that, for a while, I will have no paid subscribers at all. I’m genuinely at peace with that. I would rather have a truthful, living archive of my younger self to look back on when I’m the world recorder holder for oldest lady on Earth than continue offering a version of my voice diluted by immense fear, the fear of misinterpretation, the harassment that does come, or deliberate cruelty and picking apart by people who all profit on me for clickbait, laughs, mockery, and whatnot. Yeah, I mean clickbait. I once had a silly drawing without cheating on purpose of an old video game character I never thought about….yeah…as a challenge wind up on a news blog about how I “suck at drawing” as a hit piece without the caption behind the challenge.

Silence is preferable to self censorship. I AM DONE with the free writing. Because unless it’s an IMDb acting credit I could use in a pal’s movie, I am not working for free.

And someday, fingers crossed, if success arrives loudly as I sit atop my couch counting my blessings that I have multi-billion or multi-trillion dollar film franchises to my name, I’m sure someone will ask why I still charge for a subscription. To which my answer is simple. Stephen King gets paid for his books. The out of touch men writing newspaper op-eds from Park Avenue triplexes get paid. Screenwriters get paid. Speechwriters get paid. News writers and newbie bloggers all pretty much get paid to write about technology, culture, or whatever catches their interest. Talented men get paid. And more interestingly, so many untalented men get paid. Talent is an inefficient metric. So why not me?

Words do not lose value because they come from me and whatever fake vision you have as a total stranger who has never and will never meet me in reality, who knows nothing about me.

Unlike many of those men, I plan to reinvest what I earn directly into my own work and into the charitable causes I care about. Independence matters to me. Integrity matters to me.

Thank you to everyone who is going to be a paid subscriber. And if that doesn’t happen, I’m living this all for me from now on.

xoxo,

Nic