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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?

Friday, January 16, 2015

Thanking 2014's Donors



Here at writing about writing our ad revenue accounts for only 10-20% of what we make overall in revenue. A few cents a day, perhaps a dollar or two on an amazing day. It might add up to twenty bucks on a very, very good month.

Perspective.
Most of W.A.W.'s meager income (running at a about two dollars an hour for the work I do) comes from donation from my generous readers.

That's you guys.

So even though I can't ever thank you enough, I wanted to make sure everybody got one last call out before we head into 2015.

2014 saw many fewer small donors than last year (I got a lot of small donations after Creepy Guy) however it has also seen a growth in a few people who are simply blowing me away with their epic generosity. The reason I could actually pay a couple of bills with writing is mostly due to about six people. When I started, I thought for sure I would be dealing with lots of small donations but it turns out that vastly more of what we make here at W.A.W. comes from fewer than a dozen people.

Here's what's happening with this money, just so you don't think it's ALL going to hookers and blow. (Only most of it.) Because of you guys, I have to work fewer hours at both teaching and as a househusband to meet some of my expenses. Last year I was able to go from two classes a week to one. We've been able to hire a professional cleaner to come in once a month and a friend to watch after The Contrarian for a couple of hours on some of my longer days. All of that is going straight into more writing time.

Perhaps the biggest news on that front is that I don't need to teach summer school this year. I love those kids, but those of you who've been with me since last summer (and especially those who remember all the way back to the summer of 2013) know that those six weeks are absolutely hell on my writing schedule. So this summer you can look forward to a rich schedule of "meaty" updates instead of six weeks of jazz hands.

Please don't forget that 10% of every penny Writing About Writing makes goes to my local library earmarked for local Children's Literacy programs*.
*Our current beneficiary.

The long term goals of W.A.W., should things continue to grow, are still basically the same. Eventually I hope to farm out more housekeeping so I can focus more time on writing. That will give me more time for better quality posts, and make my offerings of fiction a much more frequent possibility. After that, I'll look into hiring someone to give my posts a professional editing sweep. Though it may be a long way off, I would eventually like to get rid of the ads on Writing About Writing, and have the monetization structure be strictly donation based.

You may notice that I've abandoned my complicated "tier" system that I used the last couple of years. It made a few people nervous to have even the "range" of their donations visible–even with only first names, so I tried to respect that. If you would like your donation amount (or last name) visible, just let me know.

So without further ado, allow me to thank my wonderful and generous patrons.
Many have donated money, some have donated time and energy to help improve blog. (Editing help, art, guest blogging, and in a couple of "meatspace" friends cases, helping me out with a few hours of housework so that I could get back upstairs and keep writing.)

Adam
Mike
Wayne
Amy
Jasna
Laura
Scott
Brian
Jennifer
Janus
Alicia
Jennifer
Michael
Flitterkitten
Michelle
Joe
Ginger
Jennifer
Hassna
Alex
Ben
Kristine

Special Thanks
For much larger donations, setting up ongoing automatic payments (of any size), large donations of time and energy, or the donation of highly specialized skills.

Epona
Amanda
Robert
LeeAnn
Jennifer
Fatima
Andrew
Ali
Ashly (For donating time and energy to give me free art with only the promise of exposure. Check her out at A Grey Artistry)

Patron Muses
The Patron Muses are the most generous, the most supportive, the most unbelievable. Their generosity actually shocks me in a palpable way. Some have dug deep and donated very large amounts, set up auto-pay donations that make my eyes pop...every month, they have donated hundreds of hours of time and energy helping me to edit, have supported me since the very first days of W.A.W., have helped me proliferate to perhaps tens of thousands on social media by sharing and liking posts, and have even shown up to conventions wearing homemade Writing About Writing T-shirts. (And in at least one case a maybe not totally hypothetical groupie.) In many cases, they've done more than one thing on this list, and every single one of them has, without the slightest hyperbole or poetic license, kept me going when all I wanted to do was put the blog on hiatus and take a fortnight off.

Laura
MaryAnn Stark
Kelly
Terra
Gillian
Tracesea
Lydia


You are all–ALL of you–breathtaking, amazing, and wonderful. And there might be invisible ninjas cutting onions all around me whenever I think of any of you. There is no way I can thank you enough. I shall keep writing and hopefully keep entertaining you.

If your name is missing from this list, please contact me and I'll fix it right away. G-mail sometimes "stacks" multiple donations into a single e-mail notification when Paypal sends me two notifications in a short period of time, and I don't always notice the e-mail "underneath."

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