I’ve been hard in the paint, crafting the next batch of stories that will soon be appearing on this website.
But before we get too further down that path, I’d like to thank everyone for the support I’ve received since launching this website. Whether it’s been verbal or electronic or carrier pigeon or smoke signal or Morse code or telepathy, I really do appreciate all the kind words I’ve been getting.
I hope you’re looking forward to what’s next, because I am. Stay tuned!
But if you’ve found yourself thinking “well I’d love to stay tuned, I wish there was a way to keep myself notified,” that’s on the way. I’m currently working on configuring updates (it’ll be email notifications – you’ll have to sign up) so that you don’t have to keep clicking here every day. You’re welcome to if you want, though. Maybe reread a story or send the link to a friend?
If you also happen to think “pretty nice story. I know I can tell him I like these stories, but how can I tell him?” Well, I’ve set up a Ko-Fi account, which allows you to do just that. Ko-Fi is a website that allows people to support the content creators that they enjoy. Kind of like when I was in a newsroom and a newspaper subscription meant that someone thought the local stories and the people who were writing them should keep doing what they’re doing, Ko-Fi does the same for all sorts of other writers, artists, musicians and so on.
But Ko-Fi is not a newspaper subscription and I didn’t want to set up a Patreon account because monthly subscriptions are kind of a hassle and feel bad. But uh, if you want to instead buy me a coffee, well, I’m all for that. It’s very, very awkward to say any of this. But please remember this next important bit:
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO. PLEASE DON’T FEEL PRESSURED TO DO SO.
I will continue to write these stories even if the coffee coffers stay empty. It’s just fun for me. The Ko-Fi account was made just in case anyone is A) feeling incredibly generous and B) is able to offer any support. Supporting content creators because you enjoy their content is a good feeling, I do it myself, and I wanted to afford readers the opportunity to do so for my content. But I know that not everyone can, times are tough. And that’s perfectly fine. It’s A-OK.
Your readership is all I really need.
But if the mood strikes, consider clicking that little blue rectangle down there at the bottom left side of any page on this website. Thanks in advance if you decide to! Coffees are $3 and as far as I can tell, you can buy an almost unlimited amount. Transactions are handled through Paypal. This is almost certainly the only time I’m ever going to mention stuff like this in the blogs and it’ll never appear in a story.
Back to the matter at hand. Right now, there’s several stories in the hopper; some are getting their final touches while others are getting clickety-clacked out almost every day or so. In an effort to not get too far ahead of myself or run myself ragged with “oh no what do I do now?” I’ve been keeping myself to a pretty lenient, but still strict in that I actually have to do it, word count before I start doing other things. A thousand one day here, two thousand another day there, for example.
Not that word counts really matter or denote quality. It’s just the act of putting words to a page. No stress, just typing. Kind of like doodling with a keyboard and all your keystrokes are brushstrokes instead.
All the ideas in the world amount to nothing if they don’t take on a form of some kind. It’s progress when an idea moves from being just three or four words typed out as a reminder and becomes its own thousand-word document. Even if it isn’t finished (and it never is at that stage), it’s at least the vague silhouette of something more.
Just pop some words down and figure out how to place them later. Perfect all that stuff at another time. There’s an editing process, after all. For now, I just gotta get to the clickety-clacks.
See, getting deep into journalism, it’s kind of felt like I’ve sometimes lost my way in the realm of creative writing. Things just work differently in a newsroom. Sometimes I write a story and at first structure it like a news article rather than a non-fiction story. I have to remind myself that it’s OK to “bury the lede” in a creative piece. I want my readers to read. And my readers want to read, I think. It’s not news where only the first two paragraphs matter and the rest are background material in case you missed a previous article. Everything in this story is important. Or it should be. And if it isn’t, delete it. Whole sections if I have to.
While I’ve not ran into writer’s block yet, I do find myself struggling, at times, to figure out what the heck I’m even doing. I know that I’m wanting to experiment with how I write and present stories, but I also am trying to figure out what this or that particular story is trying to say. And if that matters.
I digress.
While the second set of stories will be going up at their appropriate deadlines, May 15 and May 18, probably around noon too, by the way, the third set will, in all likelihood, be hitting a touch earlier than usual. Might have some travel coming on the normal time they’d be going up. The downside is that makes the next set of stories after those have a longer delay in them, but it gets the readers content sooner so – that whole thing about double-edged swords.
Hopefully with that out of the way, we’ll get back to the normal schedule and maintain that. Until something else throws a wrench into the plans. Regardless – the content will remain on its pace. Every other week, there’s gonna be a pair of stories for your eyeballs to enjoy.
Thanks for reading.