Cards On The Table

To keep Writing About Writing going at the pace it is, and keep it improving, we rely on the help of our donors. But to be able to devote more time away from pet sitting, nannying, and freelance content to writing instead, we need YOUR help.

This is the las of our last of six Thursday "pledge drive" posts. And even if you don't have a penny to spare, you can still help us out. (Plus come see what's involved in making pay-the-bills money creatively writing in the internet era.)

Welcome to our final pledge drive post. Thank you all for your patience. We didn't hit our goal, but we did pick up quite a few new donors, and the make or break it, do or die, in like Flynn or out like trout moment of truth can be postponed at least another year.

You survived yet another year!

Tomorrow at noon, I'm going to walk out the door, teach my last day of summer school, stop to get something halfway decent to eat on the way home to celebrate, take a weekend off from this blog (except for a reminder that I need some new questions for the next installment of Twenty Questions), and on Tuesday begin to wind back up into a schedule of full time writing, starting with a few easy posts that are overdue.

At some point in the future, I have to make a big decision. I'm not making enough, and I can't keep dog sitting forever. On the other hand, the progress is decent, one side gig could eliminate the need for all the other travel-intensive ones, and another side gig just got about a five year extension.

But if you want to help decrease the times when I can't post for side-gigging, increase the number of solid posts, see more of my really time intensive work like my fiction, the most supportive thing you can do is earmark a dollar (or five or more) to....

MY PATREON.

This is the best and easiest way to support me as an artist. Set up a payment for as little as a single dollar a month and forget about it.

My current goal is to be ready for when my insurance premium and tax burden goes up under the new administration. (The CBO says the former is basically guaranteed for someone like me who buys medical insurance plans out of pocket, and the latter is a result of no longer being able to claim things like my office space.) Plus I need to a budget for dental work and vision care since all of that comes out of my pocket as what is basically a freelancer.

And don't even get me started on the higher taxes....

A dollar goes a long way. It might not seem like much, but they add up faster than you think. As much as I completely adore my big ticket patrons, I would really love to have a lot of smaller donors forming a thriving "ecosystem" of smaller donors which doesn't put all the pressure on them. When something goes wrong in one of their lives, sometimes it takes me months to recover. (I'm only just now back to my April income. One big donor had to cut back because their contract didn't renew.) I'd rather be able to roll with those punches because I have so many 1 and 5 dollar patrons.

Besides it only costs $5 a month to get biweekly selfies.

I want YOU...to get lots more selfies like this one!

Since this blog's inception, due to the breathtaking generosity of patrons and donations from readers like you, we have been able to:

• Quit teaching night classes during the regular year and write instead
• Bring you more content
• Remove the annoying ads
• Up the number of high quality posts each week. 
• (Not to put too fine a point on it, but we've been able to keep bringing you content through what would otherwise have been some completely devastating life transitions that would have put most bloggers on hiatus.) 
• Gone from five posts a week to six
• Virtually guarantee that––baring emergency––I won't need to find a side gig that takes me away from my writing more than pet sitting does (no need for something like driving Lyft, for example)
• And we've been able to take far fewer random days off

Here are some things I'd like to add if we continue to get more support:

• Even more posts, and more high-quality posts (less jazz hands)
• But also better jazz hands when that's what I'm serving
• A seventh and even eight post each week 
• A greater number of carefully (perhaps even professionally) edited and revised posts
• More fiction!!
• Always and ever-free longer fiction
• An always, forever, ad free experience on Writing About Writing

For the mere cost of twelve dollars a year–just ONE DOLLAR a month–you can get in on backchannel conversations with other patrons, polls, and conversations about future projects including sometimes me trying to get your input about what you'd like to see.

But perhaps, most importantly of all, you'll get that warm and fuzzy feeling that you are supporting an artist to continue making art and entertainment.

So if you like what I do and want to see me do more of it. Or if you don't want to see me have to do less of it. Or if you want to continue to see me do it without ads, please consider a small pledge. We wouldn't have gotten this far without our patrons, and we can't go any further without you.

Again here is that link: https://www.patreon.com/chrisbrecheen

And of course if committing to a monthly amount isn't feasible, you can always make a one-time donation through my Paypal (also at the top left of the screen).

Thank you all so much. No matter what is feasible at this time or what you can spare. I couldn't have made it this far without all of you.

And if you want to help, but don't have a dime, posts like these have a hard time on their own. Just getting the word out to everyone who might have a few bucks to spare could shift the balance. So a like or a comment or a share to help with social media algorithms would be very helpful.