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My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

An Open Letter to the Readers of Writing About Writing

Writing About Writing needs your help. And so do I.

Dear readers of Writing About Writing,

First of all, I hope everyone has had a good three day weekend. (And from the sounds of your Facebooks, no shortage of four day weekends!) I'm about to take one of my own. You'll be reading this on Tuesday, but I'm writing it on Sunday afternoon (though I did make a few edits on Tuesday).

That's right! WAW is going to have four days "off." I won't personally be enjoying it with feet up and a floofy rum-based drink myself because, in truth, there's lots to do, including getting some course outlines for my summer school classes to my boss, novel writing, a backlog of stuff due to patrons and Kickstarters, and some shit that....well....let's just say it might be bad.

Seriously, 2017 just watched 2016 do cancer, breakups, move outs, estrangement from tiny humans, major lifestyle downgrades, and the election of a  completely incompetent would-be dictator, and said "Hold my beer."

Of course when I say "off," I don't even really mean that for the blog. I mean jazz hands. Monday I'm going to really take off (since I can't get any of the Writing About Writing staff to come in on a bank holiday). Tuesday I will post this. Wednesday (though I usually take Wednesday off) I will post the results of the last quarter final. Thursday I will get the first semifinal poll up. Friday...I'll be back....ish. You can expect a little something, but not my usual "meaty" article. I will be taking as an admin day, so you might see a few menus get tightened up. But I'll try to get a short and sweet post up as well. Next week should be back to normal, depending on what that might mean. I may have news about the Very Bad Thing™ by then.


Here's why this matters:

I hope you have all enjoyed the last couple of weeks, and the uptick of "solid" articles. I was able to get some additions to "The Very Basics" menu, answer several mailbox questions, keep up with a fast paced poll, get February's Best up on what would usually be my day off (Wednesday), and even got a contribution by Social Justice Bard. I ran out of time, but I almost even got some fiction up this weekend. (Perhaps this coming weekend.)

This is the kind of pace I would love to give you all the time here at Writing About Writing. It's the sort of writing clip I dream about maintaining, and the minimum level of productivity before I feel vaguely guilty and disquiet. I Unfortunately it's not the kind of pace I can keep up while working two other jobs just to keep the lights on and the rent paid.

This is how it can be. This is how I want it to be!

The last two weeks were a serendipitous happenstance with my other jobs. Normally timing would never work out that well. If anything, my "surprises" usually go the other way–making me more busy, and I have to slap up some "jazz hands" in place of something significant.

But you can help me be able to write at this pace every week (and even more).  You can help this happen instead of me falling back into writing less.

Support my Patreon!

My current ability to update five times a week (instead of three) is due almost exclusively to a half a dozen extremely generous patrons who have given me the financial leeway to stop teaching night classes. And the fact that I can do six updates instead of five is due to all the other patrons and their generosity. With more help, I can have even MORE weeks like the last two.

Even as little as $12 a year (just one single dollar a month) will get you in on backchannel conversations, patron-only polls, insider info, early notice on goings on, and involve you in the decisions I crowdsource. As much as I love all my followers, it is the ones helping me keep myself fed who I will listen to.

And if an ongoing contribution seems like it isn't something you can commit to, a one-time donation is always welcome through Paypal (top left).

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