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Lilipod's avatar

I've been waiting to read good serialized fiction on substack for a while and I'm so, so happy to have found this! 💛

I really feel for Palmer's dating life (but modern dating's hell so...) and yet, intrigued to see what happens with Hank (a rhyming sock-ventriloquist?! Wait, what? Can't wait...) Did you write it initially as a short story for a publication/contest and then later on decided to share on substack? Been wanting to do something similar with my unpublished short stories, so glad to have found a good place to discuss substack fiction :)

Looking forward to the next chapter! 🙂

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Brendon Holder's avatar

Thank you so much for reading :) I appreciate the kind words! Honestly, I wrote it about a year ago for a live reading. I felt like i was ready to add fiction to LOOSEY and wanted to experiment with serialization. I’ve always been a fan of episodic content!

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Nic Marna's avatar

This was such a great read!!

I love how you managed to integrate group chat shenanigans so effortlessly, and you made it feel empty but necessary (which… yeah). Brilliant.

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Brendon Holder's avatar

thank you so much for reading! its wild because i wrote 90% of this story over a year ago and then a week ago, someone in my group chat had the exact same interaction as the one in the story haha. group chats are a lifeline but can feel so fleeting at the same time :)

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Nic Marna's avatar

You captured it perfectly!!

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simi for breakfast's avatar

i was waiting all week for this and i’m so excited to see this other side of your work!! author question: were you always planning on publishing chapter by chapter on substack or did you write the whole novella then decide?

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Brendon Holder's avatar

I’m delighted! So excited to hear what you think :) I wrote this story over a year ago for a reading and kind of stuck with it. I only decided within the past month or so to put it up on Substack but found that the story split very nicely across four weeks which informed my decision to serialize. From then, I developed each “chapter” so it could stand on its own rather than being read at once. But you’ll be the judge of how well I did :)

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Juliana Casale's avatar

As a fizzy drinks person I have to ask - are you implying LaCroix is intrinsically watered down as it is sold, or that someone watered it down after the fact?

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Brendon Holder's avatar

I’m curious what your interpretation of that line was!

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Juliana Casale's avatar

This is my Libra struggle - it really could go either way. I *guess* it’s supposed to mean someone watered down a LaCroix, but to me a LaCroix already tastes indistinct. So 🤷🏻‍♀️

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Brendon Holder's avatar

Yaya yesssss you’re in the right arena! I also love fizzy drinks and LaCroix so it wasn’t meant in a derogatory sense :)

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