tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26600891770977193002024-03-18T02:47:29.439-07:00Writing About Writing (And Occasionally Some Writing)Failing better and falling with style.Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.comBlogger2585125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-32645855753416739842023-11-22T13:24:00.000-08:002023-11-22T15:06:25.568-08:00Hospitalized (Personal Update) Health and Writing<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUAmbcNTZNeFJ5KoJ_W5dkqwKt51NifSSa3tt8Ea4oXmzQZfCr2XUjw2XwrSnKhP1xpX8aat_m4s6KfNvduYVkmU6_xq7EYiiAcizn_1bpXi3B-qjAdIw0jDB7B2Ao2A7FkXyAZFHsfsDgJDEjQLeC1JyqlbwgWNImG-o7zs5ba3clSRkDKzKjSzRG/s1440/Photo%20on%2010-16-23%20at%207.05%20PM.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1440" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUAmbcNTZNeFJ5KoJ_W5dkqwKt51NifSSa3tt8Ea4oXmzQZfCr2XUjw2XwrSnKhP1xpX8aat_m4s6KfNvduYVkmU6_xq7EYiiAcizn_1bpXi3B-qjAdIw0jDB7B2Ao2A7FkXyAZFHsfsDgJDEjQLeC1JyqlbwgWNImG-o7zs5ba3clSRkDKzKjSzRG/s320/Photo%20on%2010-16-23%20at%207.05%20PM.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>A month ago (on a sun-kissed Monday), I went to the emergency room. I wouldn't come out of the hospital for five days. Then I would convalesce at home, get an upper respiratory infection, and it's probably only JUST NOW that I'm starting to feel a little better. <p></p><p>This is that story. I will tell you that there will be medical procedures, emesis, trauma, and an objective discussion of weight gain and loss (not as a goal but simply as a matter of fact). If any of those things sound like they would be upsetting to you or ignite some of your own traumas, then you may just want to read to the bold section heading, and call it a day.<br /></p><p>I'm okay now. My full recovery took about three weeks even though I was discharged after five days. And right when I was feeling better, I picked up an upper respiratory infection that knocked me out for another several days. Doing school on top of everything else was hard enough. Being BEHIND on school has been its own super nightmare. There are a lot of things I'm behind on in my life. I sort of thought that being bedridden was going to give me the time to get to all those things I'm usually too busy running around to do, but as it kind of turns out, that's unicorn rainbow spew. It isn't real. What actually happens is that whatever reason you're bedridden in the first place is going to make it pretty hard to do anything but convalesce. </p><p>So right now I'm behind on…well, everything. Everything. From phone calls to peeps to school to, of course, writing. I had to prioritize the academic classes I'm taking and spend two weeks doing five weeks of work (in five different classes), and it's only been in the last couple of days (since finishing my second midterm on Wednesday…which I did not do that well on) that I've not felt desperately behind. And now I'm moving into the last two weeks, so I'm feeling the pressure from other directions. </p><p>[If you're looking for the writerly wisdom for all this, I try to bring it home below.]<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Okay, but what happened? (Trigger warnings above)</span></b></p><p>I typically have low platelets and have to be careful—very careful—if I'm bleeding more than just a little. For me a bad cut can turn life threatening. I'm not supposed to go skydiving, and my career of juggling chainsaws was cut tragically short.<br /><br /><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVL7Aiuw4fHIkDaFhINvRHCC7p_nIviwUqYr5V7IBxWhyBvzhL9xjF1IIQ1KuagVK4SyDcrEDPyUfvzg9ZY6mbmVdG1M22jaAJuu3GM69q4mWYhvvHiM3sI5Izk0DTZFqbwew_7tXFOdU7xhGZNz__3zcb2VTVLgH5f3Nrz1PSCuXNODDzvMr9EqID/s640/chainsaw-juggle.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="490" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVL7Aiuw4fHIkDaFhINvRHCC7p_nIviwUqYr5V7IBxWhyBvzhL9xjF1IIQ1KuagVK4SyDcrEDPyUfvzg9ZY6mbmVdG1M22jaAJuu3GM69q4mWYhvvHiM3sI5Izk0DTZFqbwew_7tXFOdU7xhGZNz__3zcb2VTVLgH5f3Nrz1PSCuXNODDzvMr9EqID/s320/chainsaw-juggle.png" width="245" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The greatest dream I ever had was torn to shreds like the torso of my <br />friend Aspen (who can't even juggle balls) trying to pull this off one Tuesday afternoon<br />in early March.<br />So tragic.<br />Do not even attempt to contain your tears.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>It's all part of having a jackhole liver. My liver is cirrhotic, and we don't really know why. (I found out that this is true for almost a third of people with cirrhosis.) There are a couple of possibilities, but no solid answers. But one thing is for sure. It spends a lot of time taking drags off of cigarettes and saying in an outrageous French accent, "Ah yez. I remember ze early aughties. Back when ze platelets flowed like wine in a Sex and ze City episode. Oh Miranda! Zoze were ze dayz."</p><p>Well, it turns out that ANOTHER thing that can happen from having a messed-up liver is that veins can start pushing into your stomach—eventually far enough that their lining is eroded, and they start filling the digestive tract with blood. When your stomach is full of blood, the results can be….dramatic. <br /><br />Like exorcist dramatic. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqikLdNEJCL3CceRx1elw1R3fcKW5AtfZahT1gYFtGnOK3edRrPNZlTVkI9A-TR3UiYhF0qWM1cmOOS43G12DVwMQt9GI5yzDuREjTiFOKD-j3DK1FtHBlermoGlcGdf0haSQayvy4qaJzpsBeRNhcXlJY4lfvZKf62K4ySE5_nU2xgNCbLtx-ku0r/s499/80-ynb5ebo_2d4fd7eb58dcca9900d1878e23403efc099e4cd7.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="289" data-original-width="499" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqikLdNEJCL3CceRx1elw1R3fcKW5AtfZahT1gYFtGnOK3edRrPNZlTVkI9A-TR3UiYhF0qWM1cmOOS43G12DVwMQt9GI5yzDuREjTiFOKD-j3DK1FtHBlermoGlcGdf0haSQayvy4qaJzpsBeRNhcXlJY4lfvZKf62K4ySE5_nU2xgNCbLtx-ku0r/s320/80-ynb5ebo_2d4fd7eb58dcca9900d1878e23403efc099e4cd7.webp" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hello. I'm here because there's literally no "throwing up blood"<br />GIF that isn't absolutely awful.<br />Let's just focus on my cuteness.<br />Mew!</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Anyway, I did that in the waiting room of the Emergency Room after being too dizzy to walk, and needless to say, I didn't end up waiting as long as the guy who skinned his thumb "really really bad."</p><p>Five transfused units of blood later, they had me stable enough to do an endoscopy, discover the problem, plan this really cool procedure to like fill my veins with Krazy Glue or some shit, so they'd wither and stop fucking bleeding into my stomach. There were a couple of days of observation before they sent me home with a fistful of diuretics to keep down the fluid in my peritoneal cavity, and home I went to try to recover. I was 20 pounds of fluid over my admission weight when I was discharged. (Which was bananas because I had had about three meals in five days and one of them was a "liquid" meal—which means you get some sugar-free jello and a cup of broth.) Once the diuretics started, over the next four days, I peed out like 30 pounds of liquid. (Like, no seriously—thirty pounds of fluid can make you bloated like you wouldn't believe. It's like four GALLONS and change.) I went from looking like a stuffed sausage to my skin kind of hanging off my bones a little.</p><p>So that was fun. </p><p>And yeah, right when I was almost better, there was an upper respiratory infection. Not a cold—this was the real fucking deal. Fevers of 102 at night and coughing up a lung. I think my white blood cell count was tanked from the hospital, because everyone in two households got this infection but I was the one it absolutely leveled like a papier-mâché reproduction of Tokyo in the final reel of a Godzilla movie. <br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Okay, no more gory details. Back to the touchy feely.</span></b></p><p>Where do I go from here?</p><p>I get back up. <br /><br />I dust myself off. </p><p>I keep writing. </p><p>I've lost a lot of income in the last couple of years as I recover from cancer, then "ha ha, no, REALLY" recover from the trauma of cancer, pivot on my career goals, get buried under school work, and lose weeks of productivity to everything from helping my nesting partner grieve the brutal killing of their boss and friend to being hospitalized. <br /><br />I get it. I haven't been writing the way I used to and the economy has shifted even further away from most working class being able to make ends meet. People I know (including me), who used to have a few hundred dollars of discretionary income every month, are now barely getting by, and several of us trying not to bleed out our entire savings before we learn a new skill set. Even folks who were infinitely patient with my lack of updates through my cancer have noticed that I've fallen way off from then. I would never expect people to hang on ever, but it's been especially understandable lately. </p><p>I'll rebuild that crowdfunding when I'm able to re-establish a regular practice of writing. I'm still determined to keep all my work (other than <a href="https://www.patreon.com/chrisbrecheen">some newsletters</a>) free and pass the hat instead of going traditional publishing or paywalls or anything like that. There may be some compilations made into ebooks, but the source material will always be available. <br /><br />So more than ever, I'm writing because that's what I do. Because I love it. I'm writing because not writing is the real difficulty, and I feel depressed and anxious if I neglect it. Maybe it's not much more than a Facebook post on any given day. Maybe it's for school. Maybe it's one more half-done article. But I sit and I write. It's not for money—that's dwindling. It's not for fame—whatever snippet of online infamy I once has disappeared these last couple of years when I stopped putting out two or three articles a week. <br /><br />Now it's just me and the writing.<br /></p><p>Which is all it ever is for most people.</p><p>And even though THIS isn't the most prolific time in my life and no one is asking me right now how I write like I'm running out of time, the wheel will turn. Life will shift and there will be time and energy (together…in the same room) again. And I will still have the habit and the routine and the discipline. But that will combine with the opportunity. And that's when things get exciting.<br /><br />A lot of people can write (or sing or do their art) as long as everything's pretty smooth sailing. What a dedicated writer (or singer or artist) has to confront is how to handle things when the waters are choppy. Life is going to happen, and at some point, it's going to happen HARD. Someone's going to die. You're going to get very sick. You'll have a kid or two. Your world will turn upside down. That's when it's easy to quit…or maybe take a break that ends up lasting the rest of your life. <br /><br />And I'm not here to tell you what to do in those moments or what makes you "real" or how much you really care about your writing (or art) if you can't find the time or energy. I'm not here to tell you to get back on the horse in X amount of time. I'm not that inspiration-porn problematic for one, and moreso, I'd obviously I'd be a hypocrite if I tried.<br /><br />What I <b>AM</b> going to tell you is that when that absolutely mind-numbing moment of shut down or overwhelm or frenetic chaos or debilitating depression/anxiety/whatever clears, and you have your first lucid thoughts after the upheaval….if those thoughts are of writing (or music, or art), hold onto that. </p><p>There's more there about what makes you tick there than you know.</p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-52736474230939034692023-08-11T08:12:00.002-07:002023-08-11T08:17:04.496-07:00Summer Blues (Personal Update) Part 2<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVqbr-Eg42UzAXQlwJIDjwjkDhL5TlAFItWN_d-KySjZDiG4ukUnTD8n7ZczJrs5bx7GBJ5BnOORQ1gLv8IydsmYwdWcO6Vw502x40wt3Y28Wuh2B72prMfVRvu1WHLJrRmdtpkKIXd5hNIoH6dEPdTrqSvSl59VPkb2o8WjMXhRkf1IMMGp4MYKkn/s2119/636688115183665520-GettyImages-605766122.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1197" data-original-width="2119" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVqbr-Eg42UzAXQlwJIDjwjkDhL5TlAFItWN_d-KySjZDiG4ukUnTD8n7ZczJrs5bx7GBJ5BnOORQ1gLv8IydsmYwdWcO6Vw502x40wt3Y28Wuh2B72prMfVRvu1WHLJrRmdtpkKIXd5hNIoH6dEPdTrqSvSl59VPkb2o8WjMXhRkf1IMMGp4MYKkn/s320/636688115183665520-GettyImages-605766122.webp" width="320" /></a></div><div><a href="https://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2023/07/summer-blues-personal-update-part-1.html">Part 1 is back here</a> if you missed some context.</div><div><br /></div>"But Chris—I hear you say*—You haven't failed. You're a righteous dude."<br /><p></p><p>(*Okay, actually I don't hear you say it. I mostly read it in the comments. Although I did hear it from one friend in person. "Hey, so I read your blog….") <br /></p><p>I get it: You're saying I'm not <i>A FAILURE</i>. You're saying there is hope. You're saying that there were some successes too. You're saying that it wasn't my fault. You're saying that my story isn't over. And you're right, but <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=hand+out+life+lessons+from+your+cloud+of+judgement&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS921US921&oq=hand+out+life+lessons+from+your+cloud+of+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgCECEYqwIyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRirAtIBCDk5OTRqMGo5qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:3ca214db,vid:MiRTjoocRgU">I'm trying to hand out life lessons from my cloud of judgement over here</a>. This world is big enough for both things to be true.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF64nG2NO3sbhfj0Y1ure0EnRgR7pOoOZM6LSsn4KlgZkkzAEOokQc5dUxCnbaGy_2ay5Msnh8XuCLX6v4jOnjDqEpX-Is8EABGG-5xqqXzgjuf1A-CNzoVvzj5CHmDURgsCyiovW4LbB-d6ZD54krlOH-6y9jqtKbKNFLi-AggOjoHqcgZtXhZOtH/s1280/maxresdefault%20(2).jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF64nG2NO3sbhfj0Y1ure0EnRgR7pOoOZM6LSsn4KlgZkkzAEOokQc5dUxCnbaGy_2ay5Msnh8XuCLX6v4jOnjDqEpX-Is8EABGG-5xqqXzgjuf1A-CNzoVvzj5CHmDURgsCyiovW4LbB-d6ZD54krlOH-6y9jqtKbKNFLi-AggOjoHqcgZtXhZOtH/s320/maxresdefault%20(2).jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thanks, giant incorporeal screaming cowboy!<br />That must be the cloud of judgement next to you.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>But I <i>have</i> failed. Oh sure, there's some nuance. But that part shouldn't be in dispute. I set up goals and I didn't meet them. I had secondary goals, and I didn't meet THEM. And even my fallback goals for not losing ground, I didn't meet. I was paying ALL the bills with writing, and now I'm back to sitting pets and working side gigs to cover my car insurance and cell phone plan. And it's okay to acknowledge what that is. It is failure. We don't like failure in this culture—the only place we tolerate it definitively is as "the hero's lowest point" in a broader narrative of ultimate success. ("Get back up, Captain Marvel!") We recoil from the idea of genuinely failing like we've touched a hot stove.</p><p>But hey. Listen. It's okay. Breathe into this bag. It's just failure. If we humans are not failing once in a while (like literally about half the time), we've got goals that are too easy or no goals at all. Which is how most people kind of move through life—vague ambitions maybe, but no real goals. And if we're failing as much as <i>I </i>did in the last two years, we probably have goals that are too ambitious.</p><p>In either case, failure is an important compass in how we move forward. And an important barometer in what matters to us. And an electron microscope of…um…I think I may have overdone this tool metaphor. <br /></p><p>Failure isn't the end. Failure isn't moral or immoral. Failure is patient and kind and failure isn't envious or boastful…oh wait, that's something else.</p><p>Now I'm going to be the first to say that the post-capitalism hellscape we live in with its incessant demand for "productivity" is maybe not the most awesome ever atmosphere to be making goals. Unless you're in the top one percent of income earners (and really the top tenth of THAT percent), you are being exploited and not a little bit. So getting caught up in the hustle usually means your work life balance sucks so that you can make someone ELSE a lot of money. That voice you hear from everywhere around you that slowing down makes you lazy and worthless and means you deserve being lower class comes from a lot of people with a whole lot of interest tied up in you contributing to <i>their</i> lifestyle—which I promise has more more work life balance, leisure time, vacations, and relaxation than anyone making a million times less than them. </p><p>I'm also going to say that understanding that we are stuck in capitalism and it demands more than most of us can give doesn't make NOT GETTING A PAYCHECK any easier. We can be kind and gentle with ourselves and self-care it up, but when the electricity gets shut off because the bill is two months overdue, we're not going to be able to explain to them that our lives have been "really overwhelming" lately, and we just needed a bit more time off.<br /></p><p>Yeah, my goals were too ambitious. I had no business wanting to get back to writing so quickly. My body recovered from cancer in just a couple of months, but my mind and heart took almost a year. I kept thinking that I would be back to writing, saying I was feeling better, and getting absolutely overwhelmed for days by the slightest hiccup. It would have been better if I'd simply said, "Hey, I have cancer. I need a year hiatus. I'll be back, but I understand if your Patreon support goes somewhere else for the next year." Buuuuuut, I didn't want to go on hiatus. I wanted to muscle through and not risk the income I'd spent a decade building up. So instead I dragged things out and fucked them up and caused myself planetoids of anxiety about my productivity and made promises I couldn't keep month after month and kinda screwed myself.</p><p>I did that. I own it. It was the opposite of success. Learn from my mistake. </p><p>Then my partner's friend and boss was violently killed and left her with sudden, agonizing grief to process. Again, I should have simply said, "I need to go be a good partner, and put my energy into caregiving and support. This is going to take all of me for a few months." Instead I spent every week thinking that the next week was going to be a little better, trying to pedal faster, and then it was June. And I had basically been making promises I didn't keep for 18 months instead of just a year. <br /><br />I did that too. I own that too. That was also the opposite of success. Learn from my mistake.</p><p>It's not my fault these things happened. I was absolutely too hard on myself. Capitalism sucks and the proletariat should not have to work 80 hours to survive. All true enough, but these things do not transmute my failure into success.<br /><br />That's okay. Deep breaths. Use that bag from the fifth paragraph. It'll be okay that I failed. We'll get through this….together.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn8yr-_BbXnzUgtANk1U7DUcHr5nyEEmsptgEnQB0GA8PEDiGLhnXoppFb-ZFwZkkSJCMP1RAE2-BojMB-AO12y6DtSTMjS8IbCrmexs6BW5adWIp_QfUBzBvr0Gl4LxV8W7cgxSoZBZte2EXUwdhtgseH3Qe3jJ2MBWtZfr9acAOQFXuYeTmQFlVo/s300/images%20(7).jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn8yr-_BbXnzUgtANk1U7DUcHr5nyEEmsptgEnQB0GA8PEDiGLhnXoppFb-ZFwZkkSJCMP1RAE2-BojMB-AO12y6DtSTMjS8IbCrmexs6BW5adWIp_QfUBzBvr0Gl4LxV8W7cgxSoZBZte2EXUwdhtgseH3Qe3jJ2MBWtZfr9acAOQFXuYeTmQFlVo/s1600/images%20(7).jpeg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We can do anything as long as we have each other.<br />Now get to the choppah!</td></tr></tbody></table><p>See…that's the brilliant thing about failure. When you succeed at something you had no chance of failing at, you learn nothing. When you don't set goals, you learn nothing. But when you fail (or edge out a success), you usually come away with some kind of deep insight. Maybe you know your limitations a little better. Or have an idea how better to accomplish something. The important thing is that you can sit on the porch with a piece of straw in your mouth and say it to the young'uns between your banjo songs. <br /></p><p>So what have I learned? I mean, besides what to do the next time I get cancer?</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>One thing is that I want to be writing about more than just writing. It'll still be a part of my work, but there are a lot of other subjects I want to start to tackle. From ramping back up my social justice activism to my spiritual journeys through paganism to writing about running. </li><li>Another thing I learned is that I'm going to want a more reliable income. I love paying the bills through writing and I felt ten feet tall when I could say I was a working writer without addendum, but a ten-year build to just barely covering the cost of a VERY modest living was only ever possible because of other income streams, and then letting those dry up because "ha ha suckas, now I'm paying the bills with writing…smell you later!" kind of screwed me over. I'm going to keep writing, but I'm also going to start taking on other projects.</li><li>I learned that even the best, hottest, most explosive sex doesn't really help anxiety go away. It just shuts your brain up for a hot second. (Extra hot…if you know what I mean.) You'll have to deal with the thoughts eventually.</li><li>I learned income is more resilient than I think. Oh, I lost a lot. Baby Jesus is over here weeping it up. My income got burninated like a peasant on roof-thatching day. I've lost over half my income at this point from this time two years ago. But…I didn't lose it <i>ALL</i>. And a lot of folks were just kind of quietly cheering my recovery even as I posted three or four things a month. It was going quiet for weeks and months that really hurt me. I probably don't need five updates a week to keep my crowdfunded income stream. That means everything from putting more attention to fiction to all these other side projects I'm working don't have to be overwhelming additions to full-time blogging. </li><li>I learned that "hiatus" is maybe not the dirty word I think it is, even for content creators. It might be better and less stressful to just go ahead and take a full break and come back rather than dribble out content in a miasma of feelings of inadequacy and obligation.</li><li>When you get back to writing, you'll have to fight tooth and cliché to get your writing time back from all the things that have crept in where the writing used to be.</li><li>The things I built over the last decade didn't go away—they just kind of went into a deep freeze. Some people cancelled or lowered their contributions, but I still have the reach I've built. I still have a readership. I still have fans ready to see me return. I still have a ridiculously huge Facebook presence. Rebuilding my income will be easier and faster than building it the first time. Maybe some of those peeps will even come back.</li><li>If it's summer, get the kids into day camp. No seriously. No. SERIOUSLY.</li><li>NO. SERIOUSLY.</li></ul><div>Today the kids started school, and I was able to sit down for four hours and write this post. I am still reluctant to announce this as some kind of huge comeback moment. But despite my failure over the last two years, I seem to be starting to pick up steam on some of my successes. And while it's okay that I failed, I think I'd be pretty okay to put a few in the wins column.</div><p></p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-47852306850077813542023-07-28T17:02:00.002-07:002023-07-29T20:44:35.856-07:00Summer Blues (Personal Update) [Part 1]<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigivDV3xq_r1wRDacY5KFAkLA4gn1lUG5D35xt3K_DTjfmjWUYIG1rpnTOhmX_o1fllS17i4vj1Ap6IVi1UFhUzD0pkq1qss0s5iqOMcbUdKhXefiO5o2Wc6Km9TR1gX3n_-tlszz2GwND9-L6Iy-G8lU0fMDbWmjOc_VSYRJkV63FyIBihaXwsjIU/s2119/636688115183665520-GettyImages-605766122.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1197" data-original-width="2119" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigivDV3xq_r1wRDacY5KFAkLA4gn1lUG5D35xt3K_DTjfmjWUYIG1rpnTOhmX_o1fllS17i4vj1Ap6IVi1UFhUzD0pkq1qss0s5iqOMcbUdKhXefiO5o2Wc6Km9TR1gX3n_-tlszz2GwND9-L6Iy-G8lU0fMDbWmjOc_VSYRJkV63FyIBihaXwsjIU/s320/636688115183665520-GettyImages-605766122.webp" width="320" /></a></div>I want to tell you about my failure. Because I think it's important for you to understand that I fail. Working writers fail. Successful writers fail. And my failure isn't the tidy little fall-down/get-up trope in a broader narrative about success. I fucked up. I failed BIG. Things fell apart. And I'm going to tell you about them. <br /><p></p><p>I want to tell you about failure so that you know you can fail and still be a writer. And I want to tell you about failure because my failure to hold up to my own rubric for success crashed my career, tanked my income, and has left me struggling financially, and is going to take years to recover from.</p><p>So in a way, I'm still proof of what I've been telling you about how to be a writer—about the hours it takes and the consistent (dare I even say "daily"?) effort. I have simply taken up the mantle of "cautionary tale" for a couple of years instead of "behavior-modeling example."</p><p>I need to contextualize this. Some of you have heard this story or have been reading long enough to know what's been going on for the past two years. You can skip ahead. (Maybe somewhere around "Summers have always been hard." Although really you can wait for the next part.) </p><p>For those that don't have the context of the last couple of years, here's a rough timeline.</p><p>I fell in love in April of 2021—oh, our first date was 3/14. I know because it was over Zoom due to the pandemic and Rhapsody had to go make pies for pie day. I fell…HARD. And I am not a person who falls lightly and politely as it is, so I want you to understand what I'm saying when an incurable romantic with ADHD hyperfocus tells you they've fallen hard. I dove so willingly into that blissful feeling and I spent a couple of months being really bad about getting around to writing. I thought I would get through the spinning feeling of the new relationship energy, and get back to it. </p><p>Except in late summer of 2021, we decided to move in together. It was rash. Impulsive. Too soon. We didn't care. We were madly in love—and all the clichés were true. We went from talking about it as an "if" to "when" pretty fast. By early summer, I was staying there multiple nights a week. By August, I was not really going home. By early September, there was a moving truck in my apartment driveway. It wasn't quite "lesbian second date" fast, but it was pretty close. Suddenly I was buried in two hour drives back and forth to load up the car with as much as I could carry and do some cleaning. Packing. Unpacking. Writing stayed on the back burner.</p><p>The day I pulled up the moving van to get the big furniture from my apartment, Rhapsody had to be careful with how much she lifted. </p><p>She had to be careful because she was pregnant. </p><p>We weren't ready. It was bad timing. Our finances were not in a good place. It would have shattered our lives. But if there's a place where I've been sorry I repeatedly picked writing instead of a typical life with typical trappings, it's in not having kids I'm a really good parent. And I mean I'm a REALLY good parent. Kind. Patient. Nurturing. Gentle. But I've always been "Uncle Chris." And I always kind of wanted a kid of my own. Getting pregnant was stressful. It wasn't quite the awful news that was to come, but it put a lot more on our plates. I needed to get writing, but we also had a lot to talk about. Everything from having a third child in a three-bedroom (where one adult absolutely NEEDS their own bedroom) to trying to figure out how we were going to make an extra thousand dollars a month to cover childcare costs. I got <i>some</i> writing done, but there were a lot of doctors appointments and a lot of trying to figure out the next steps and strategizing. </p><p>And then, in September, there was a miscarriage. The kind of loss that is hard to even begin to convey. They tell you—tell you in clinical, biological terms—how statistically common and insignificant the event is and how you ought to cheer up and not take it that hard. They don't tell you how to deal with the fact that you sat up night after night and felt panic shift to fear, but then slowly melt into a kind of glowing acceptance and this sort of giddy excitement that the most incredible journey you had ever undertaken was just a few months away—that a little human was coming, and that they would break everything in your world in the most wonderful way. Grief is hard. Grief is hard to write through. And even when you can write through grief, it's usually a grieving kind of writing that feels like sticking something hot and sharp inside you and letting feelings splatter out on the page, not a funny blog about an unrelated topic.</p><p>And before the ink had dried on a little poem I wrote to mark the passing of that idea, it was clear that I was sick. I needed a new primary care physician when I moved, and they took some tests "for baseline stats." I had anemia. And when they called me in to get some additional data, that anemia had gotten much, MUCH worse. So much worse, that the doctors were calling ME, and asking what I was doing that day…and could I come in. </p><p>There were a lot of tests. </p><p>I look back on it now, and I know they knew—they just wanted to make extra positive sure before they gave me a life-changing diagnosis. But they weren't running batteries of tests and scratching their heads. They were running the NEXT test to get to a cancer diagnosis, telling me they wanted to rule things out and not to worry, and acting like they hoped they were wrong. <br /><br />I tried to keep writing during this time. I did. </p><p>November was tests—so many goddamn tests. By early December, we found the tumor. I was scheduled for surgery right before Christmas. </p><p>I honestly cannot remember Christmas 2021. I asked my loved ones to make sure the kids in my life had gifts with my name on them, and I went into a fugue state. Anxiety. Fear. Panic. And then the haze of schedule II painkillers—only to be replaced by the blinding pain of NOT having schedule II painkillers before I was ready.</p><p>I thought I would pick up the pen before surgery, but surgery was all I could think of. I was scared beyond my ability to be scared. I thought I would start writing while I convalesced from surgery, but I was a mess. I thought I would write when I was physically recovered after six weeks, but I had debilitating anxiety and an involuntary trauma response. I couldn't concentrate on ANYTHING for more than a couple of minutes. I would lose the plot to shows and have to rewind. I would be unable to remember conversations I'd just had. I definitely couldn't write. </p><p>The months wound on. It was shocking to me—truly breathtaking—how long it took my mind and emotions to recover. I was running long distances a mere six weeks after abdominal surgery. But it was almost ten months before I started to sleep through the night and be able to think clearly again. Writing was so sporadic, and any kind of significant article took days and days to finish. I was so sick of every post being about the cancer and about surgery and about how I wanted to get back to writing that I stopped writing them, but they were the only thing my brain would cooperate with me on. I hated it.</p><p>And then the 2022 holidays. I can usually write during tough times, but everything in my world had turned into slider bars instead of switches. I wouldn't have had a problem writing during the holidays if all my medical trauma and post-cancer anxiety were just…gone. I mean I would have, but I've written through busy times before. But anxiety didn't go AWAY—it just got easy enough to deal with provided everything else was going pretty smoothly. But not everything goes "pretty smoothly" during the holidays. So something that normally wouldn't throw me off—like a tough day of childcare or holiday prep—was just wiping me out. </p><p>Early February of this year, Rhapsody dealt with the sudden, traumatic, violent death of her boss and friend. There's so much I have to say about that, and it's coming in future articles, but for the past six months, I've had a different role to play. I was actually starting to recover from having had cancer—the anxiety and PTSD were more and more manageable—and I was basically ready to get back into the writer's chair. But with what happened, it seemed like being a good partner and good person meant it was my turn to support HER. And that might mean I lose some patrons and stop writing for a few months. </p><p>At first it was putting food in front of her. Then it was making sure she took a walk or we did something distracting once a day. I made sure Treble and Clef were getting to appointments and activities and school and getting fed as best I could. Writing languished on the wayside, and when I had the time (rarely), I was usually just wrapped in a towel after a shower, sitting in bed while I drip dried and doing a thousand-yard stare at the wall. </p><p>Months went by. Things got better, but it was two steps forward and one step back in a complicated process of traumatic grief.</p><p>Then summer hit. Summers have always been hard. </p><p>When I started <i>Writing About Writing</i>, I had a summer-school class where I was writing lesson plans (without any training in HOW to write lesson plans) based on a curriculum that was basically, "Try to teach them some study skills….or something. Look it's not that you're JUST a babysitter, but most of these parents just want a few hours off for a couple of days a week during the summer. Good luck, brah!" It took 25 hours a week on top of everything else I was doing, and it made getting regular updates really hard. Since that time, I've quit that job, but I've had kids I take care of, and no matter how many plans and activities you try to line up for them, it's not the same as having them in school. Summers are just kind of a little wild.</p><p>This year has been a perfect storm. Rhapsody is better, but not okay—especially not early in the summer. The kids aren't in school. They can kind of entertain themselves, but they get pretty "Servants! Entertain us!!" if they're not just on screens and that's ever a struggle. The six-year old either needs screens, constant stimulation, or he makes it everyone's problem. My own slider is down (even though I'm better) and I find my resilience to stressors is still just a little bit smaller than it used to be. It creates this vortex where I want to write, but it's just too easy to derail me. I'll start wrangling the kids, turn around, and a whole day will be frittered away. Or I sit down to write and suddenly be swept up in a couple of hours of emotional support.</p><p>And I want to be honest with you. When I've had time to myself, I've gone on dates with loved ones. I took a vacation in June. I just had company in town. Or maybe I just sat down and cried or stared off into space. I'm not out here just writing like the Bruce Almighty Gif with every spare particle that isn't in support mode. I decided to ramp up slowly and not pause everything in my life for writing until I felt sufficiently redeemed. Self care was on my agenda. So there's sometimes this internal monologue of Sopranos characters saying "Hey you human calzone, you have time to watch Supernatural? You have time to take a run? You have time to write." (Followed by a beat down.)</p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqJdNtLueoD-Y2E8wrClq8MXXPpNpIdLvKo8fR3Ee29ehIpZdYw_byQxWROpq7RZTmXZenPEpn2iluOGbq3dNMMEthz5Sxt_4g-0WRlQp6cqlSWmcLraQ78Cpjqj9lkY3rnXIT_oUVWsbfMhMivlqm3HdQVxpNuL_vMdFY2z9mKoxe95LKtI0NOdEZ/s500/jim-carrey-bruce-almighty.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="500" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqJdNtLueoD-Y2E8wrClq8MXXPpNpIdLvKo8fR3Ee29ehIpZdYw_byQxWROpq7RZTmXZenPEpn2iluOGbq3dNMMEthz5Sxt_4g-0WRlQp6cqlSWmcLraQ78Cpjqj9lkY3rnXIT_oUVWsbfMhMivlqm3HdQVxpNuL_vMdFY2z9mKoxe95LKtI0NOdEZ/s320/jim-carrey-bruce-almighty.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What do you mean this pop-culture reference is 20 years old???</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p>But I have definitely failed this summer. And I'll talk more about that in the next post.</p><p><br /></p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-39441423244009976422023-07-13T14:41:00.004-07:002023-07-13T14:41:44.008-07:00Let's Get Chris Some Questions <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGzE7yrND1nC2jGFRZcWrX_U1cJAJ9FSnFLgPX0Q_sZTe3fiwOeSd9CfMYKOvODiGmU3d4HiI7SBP-fYWc4jBHTOORgw36wOLEivJYD2hJtfIMB4R0DIrWczXXnE1VRVupBCmOaNgOWJwGb17kjX3tzx9juDsaUYZljBr6sTOLO_nKGM2k5sFpIdKB/s1440/Photo%20on%207-13-23%20at%2011.01%20AM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1440" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGzE7yrND1nC2jGFRZcWrX_U1cJAJ9FSnFLgPX0Q_sZTe3fiwOeSd9CfMYKOvODiGmU3d4HiI7SBP-fYWc4jBHTOORgw36wOLEivJYD2hJtfIMB4R0DIrWczXXnE1VRVupBCmOaNgOWJwGb17kjX3tzx9juDsaUYZljBr6sTOLO_nKGM2k5sFpIdKB/s320/Photo%20on%207-13-23%20at%2011.01%20AM.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Hello, everyone!<p></p><p>I know better than to say, "I'm back." (Honestly, this jinxes things, and I fucking refuse to give myself the kiss of death on blogging for the NEXT month.) So I'm NOT back. I'm absolutely not in any way feeling ready to get back to writing. I certainly don't expect to have a post up tomorrow, and under no circumstances can you expect a little more out of me next week. <br /><br />Nope.<br /><br />HOWEVER….One thing I do know is that when I AM transitioning from a period of lower productivity and trying to get back into the routine and habit of writing—which, again, I am certainly NOT trying to do right now—mailbox posts are a lot like rolling the car downhill to pop the clutch. It just gives me a bit of a start to have that question. Trying to do a cold start on a ten-thousand-word dialogue post when I've been procrastinating for three years is WAY too daunting, but putting out a few mailbox questions while I let <i>that</i> percolate and get it outlined…that's a lot more manageable. So if I were hypothetically trying to bring myself back from the throes of miscarriages, cancer, surgery, cancer recovery, medical trauma, helping a loved one through the loss of a friend to sudden violent traumatic death, and too be honest, the brink of an absolute mental health implosion, some mailbox questions would be a good way to kind of get the ball rolling. Hypothetically. Not that I'm doing that. Because I'm not back. </p><p>Nope.</p><p>SO SEND YOUR QUESTIONS to <a href="mailto:chris.brecheen@gmail.com">chris.brecheen@gmail.com</a> and I will answer them on <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2012/09/the-best-of-mailbox.html"><i>The Mailbox</i></a>. Don't forget to label them with the email title, "WAW Mailbox." (Which is not just an arbitrary rule that I made up to make your lives complicated. This is so I can find them in my mailbox archives and I don't have to try to dig through 5898 emails—seventy-four of which are unread as of today at noon—to find them.) Questions about writing—process, craft, grammar, linguistics, creativity, reading, art. Also, I'm still a few questions shy of my latest <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2018/07/twenty-questions.html">20 questions</a> compilation, so you can even send me any burning NON-writing questions you've had. <br /></p><p>Let's not light this candle. Let's not kick these tires or light these fires. Let's not hit the ground running. You will not be seeing some serious shit, even if this baby hits 88 miles an hour…which it won't be. I'm not back.</p><p>Nope.<br /><br />But send me your questions. You know…just in case.</p><p><br /></p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-52733121052571085182023-06-16T13:42:00.002-07:002023-06-16T13:42:16.510-07:00The Shape Of Things to Come<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1vJAljxGAy5XXcSabBVwNcYot5J5hIjbLEBrs6wWhmgyQZp31UfHKGhVfgfhZ8a-GrY-zTj-eovkcI8io941uAndgR17SGfDcbCQPeKx8hRL79TWlfJ-y9cty3GrFaixPPrZeMHfoPs2I6Bua-xN49skNI5y9hy-6_exTnU7LkXHBY2biaCTcwQ/s1200/external-content.duckduckgo-28.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1vJAljxGAy5XXcSabBVwNcYot5J5hIjbLEBrs6wWhmgyQZp31UfHKGhVfgfhZ8a-GrY-zTj-eovkcI8io941uAndgR17SGfDcbCQPeKx8hRL79TWlfJ-y9cty3GrFaixPPrZeMHfoPs2I6Bua-xN49skNI5y9hy-6_exTnU7LkXHBY2biaCTcwQ/s320/external-content.duckduckgo-28.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>My <a href="https://www.patreon.com/chrisbrecheen">Patrons</a> already got this news (because keeping the lights on around here comes with some perks) but there's going to be kind of a diffusion of emphasis in my writing. <i>Writing About Writing</i> is going to remain up and running and an ongoing part of my continuing work, so you don't have to worry about the blog going away, but I'm taking on a lot of new projects as well and committing to actually do some things I've been "meaning to get to" for years. So in the interest of accountability and transparency and some tiny modicum of predictability, I want to tell everyone what's going down and the timelines for each.<p></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">For those of you who have enjoyed my woo woo posts</span></b> about <a href="https://notwritingaboutwriting.chrisbrecheen.com/2022/12/the-journey-begins-woo.html">The Morrigan</a> over on <i><a href="https://notwritingaboutwriting.chrisbrecheen.com/">NOT Writing About Writing</a>, </i>there will be a lot more where those came from. This work and that I'm dedicated to and a spiritual practice that over the last three years, I haven't so much built as has claimed me—sometimes kicking and screaming and definitely with a double heaping scoop of existential "But I'm a fucking atheist!" confusion. I'm also taking an intensive class on Morrigan lore from a native Irish priest for the next six months, so I imagine particularly focused attention for a time. </p><p><b style="font-size: large;">I have joined a martial arts school. </b>Clearly what I need as a middle aged human who never has a moment of free time for myself is to master Krav Maga—because that makes sense and isn't at all ridiculous. I'm not sure exactly when I'll be going to classes, but I have to pay the same amount whether I work in with one class a month or eight classes a week, so I'll probably be trying to get my money's worth. <br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I am returning to school.</span></b> I feel like I'm in a 80's knife commercial. "But wait!!!! There's MORE!!!" I'm going back to school for some certifications (not another degree), that will see me learning to be a fitness coach and eventually a personal trainer. I'm going to go part time since I'll have so much else going on concurrently, so it'll be a year (Spring 2024) before I have my first certificate and two years (Spring 2025) before I have both. </p><p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">I'm doing some research to become a death doula. </span><span>I'm still in the initial research phases of what this even means (I've seen everything from a six week course online to six month course in person to the information that you just go DO it) so I don't know how long this education process is going to be or how intense it will be once I start it, but I've done something in helping Rhapsody deal with the loss of Jen and walking with her through that feels important and like work I want to do. </span></p><p><b style="font-size: large;">I'm (really) going to start focusing on fiction. </b>I've been threatening to pull this trigger for years, and the last two have simply been non stop nightmares with moving, miscarriages, cancer, surgery, major break ups, death, and intense grief.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">I have a number of side projects.</span><span> Before I got sick in 2021 (which turned out to be cancer), I had started the process of a number of compilation ebooks that would bundle a handful of my articles under a particular theme, give them a fresh revision and a new coat of paint and bundle them for a couple of bucks to anyone who wanted. All the articles would still be online—because I've committed to always keeping my writing free and accessible—but it just might be in a slightly easier format.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: bold;">Summer has begun.</span><span> I'm not sure where exactly my writing schedule is going to land, but summer is always a little bit interesting. Treble and Clef are young boys who would love it if we just let them do fifteen hours of screen time a day and their eyeballs could melt into rapturous zombie goo—and they also have a habit of making it everyone's fucking problem if we deign to deny them this experience—so trying to balance their demand for constant stimulation (or screens) will probably be a challenge of its own, vaguely akin to herding cats…on espresso. </span></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Rhapsody is still in the grief.</span></b> Though Rhapsody has moved through some of the largest and most intimidating early feelings of denial and anxiety, there is still a long ways to go. I am not her only person, but I am her main person and often the one who takes up the slack when the feelings are particularly intense. Though things have been getting slowly better, and I want to emphasize that I'm not a victim and have made a choice to be actively supportive, sometimes that has involved hours a day of of simply holding her through deeply intense and uncomfortable emotions. I expect this will continue to improve, but I don't imagine it'll just go away. </p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">We are on a road trip.</span></b> I am so hypersensitive to how my time "off" has come on the heels of a three-week, HARD bout of intense grief support that has required most of my waking attention in either childcare or holding space, and I've barely been writing as it is. But this trip has been in the works for months and I was never going to be particularly on. So I'm writing on the road (literally as Rhapsody drives) right now and will grab moments whenever I can, but I won't have good and solid seat time until the 25th.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is all to say that while <i>Writing About Writing</i> will absolutely continue forth, bringing you articles about craft and process and other facets of writing, there is going to be a lot of other things starting to go on too.<br /><br />Stay tuned!!</p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-87564521985164870812023-05-16T08:26:00.006-07:002023-05-16T08:50:28.495-07:00Transcription Questions from the FAQ<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKo_vG7t_lBmbnlWSHOGF-97k98Gm1-afT0BMOWixajS-rsofh60jjmdsq_dsvHtPeavyV9sHcKNa3hEa1SrdQ7x-CTQYoocU0X-o2vG7Vk_NH02AO7j2GUXtdpH3o65q2o2YZVFuuETylubtWfgYf3JxeA77bIUdniNDFa5VjX0IMI6Z8GezIcA/s959/Image_-_Facebook_job_post_.jpeg.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="539" data-original-width="959" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKo_vG7t_lBmbnlWSHOGF-97k98Gm1-afT0BMOWixajS-rsofh60jjmdsq_dsvHtPeavyV9sHcKNa3hEa1SrdQ7x-CTQYoocU0X-o2vG7Vk_NH02AO7j2GUXtdpH3o65q2o2YZVFuuETylubtWfgYf3JxeA77bIUdniNDFa5VjX0IMI6Z8GezIcA/s320/Image_-_Facebook_job_post_.jpeg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>[The following question has been changed from the standing FAQ. This is <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ChrisBrecheensWritingAboutWriting/posts/pfbid02z1vZVMg1vfYUo7uavTNSXPbFUQgKvhHjchqs5opsYSsYjqkpgyodrM9r8GNfeVqNl">in response to a concern I received through Facebook</a> about our accessibility. This is where my writing time went today, so I figured I would post it. ] <br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><b><i><span style="font-size: medium;">5a- Why are you doing transcriptions of the posts?/Why do you often ask for transcriptions?</span></i></b></p><p>We're at over 1.2 million followers and I've been asked if it might be possible to level up our disability access so more people can enjoy. Many macros and memes are pictures of text or text ON pictures. (Things like screen grabs of Tumblr or Twitter, but even just macros.) This means they can't be read and transcribed with text reading software for folks who are visually impaired. </p><p>Personally I am not going to have time to transcribe some of the longer macros or complicated visual images into text and/or I am often posting from my phone or posting from work where transcribing would be very impractical. So if I put "Transcribe?" (or some variation) with an image, it means that if anyone would be willing to do that, I'll cut and paste that text along with my sincere thanks and a shout out and add it to the text.</p><p>PLEASE CHECK THE COMMENTS OF SUCH POSTS FOR THE TRANSCRIPTIONS-- Eventually I get back to most of them and copy paste the transcription into the OP, but they may sit for hours before I have a chance to.</p><p>You can also send it to me through PM if you'd prefer no attribution and the transcription to be anonymous. I'll probably just use the first transcription I see that does a halfway decent description of the picture and text, so no need to keep going if you see someone else has. I'm not trying to slight anyone if I don't use theirs.</p><p>Feel free to use Google transcriber for the pure text macros (I sometimes do), but if I'm asking for a transcription, I probably am not at a proper computer where I would be able to do that myself.</p><p><br /></p><p><b><i><span style="font-size: medium;">5b- You could have just written the transcription in the time it took you to ask for one.</span></i></b></p><p>Chances are I'm on my phone or busy at work This may mean a couple of things:</p><p>1- I'm unable to see the image and what I'm typing on a single screen and going back and forth to make sure that it's perfect would take more time/energy than I have.</p><p>2- The transcription involves describing an image (not just rewriting the text) and that is what I don't have time to do.</p><p><br /></p><p>Also don't be such a Judgy McJudgikins. I'm a fucking professional writer. Give me some credit. I know damn well what I can handle with speech to text at a stop light and what is too much.</p><p><br /></p><p><i><b><span style="font-size: medium;">5c- Why do you tell us what you're doing that you can't transcribe. Just ask for a transcription.</span></b></i></p><p>At first I did ask for a transcription. Then people got mad about that because (I guess because they thought I was being lazy?) and just asking was too brusque. Then I wrote an extensive explanation, and people either said I could have transcribed it in the time I took to write the explanation (see above) or they just thought I was being too descriptive. So then I offered these weird fake explanations about fighting terrorists or parasailing to Mars or something, and people complained about THAT even though it amused me. Most of the time these complaints were mostly polite, but their frequency and the rare aggression and threats to flounce (which is a one-strike-you're out no-no here and led to tons of drama) made me just want to abandon transcriptions altogether. So today I ask and offer a quick line or two for why I can't, and even though definitely not everyone is happy, I think I've found this tiny fjord of frequency and caliber of request that makes the fewest people complain. Basically someone always complained, this seems to be the thing that makes them do so the least, so I'm sticking to it.</p><p><br /></p><p><i><b><span style="font-size: medium;">5d- Why didn't you transcribe that post or ask for a transcription?/Why don't you transcribe <u>all</u> posts?</span></b></i></p><p>There are a few reasons.</p><p>1- If I'm sharing something from another page, I won't transcribe their meme. Folks can take it up with THAT page's admin if they want to. I'm usually just quickly sharing something I got a tickle out of. It also has to do with which text proliferates in the event of a "share." If that meme gets shared by lots of people, it will be the original post, not my transcription, that gets shared with it. It's not a pride thing, there's just a lot of work that is involved and it would have limited returns. Often with such posts I will ask if anyone wants to do it in the comments.</p><p>2- There are occasionally subject dense pictures (like a mural comic) that can't reasonably be transcribed. If we had UBI and I could find someone to transcribe images, I'd be happy to, but I am pinioned by a capitalist society in which I neither have time to myself or the resources to hire someone to do so. I am also reticent to ask for members of the community to spend what would probably be hours transcribing a single post. This is not a "fuck you" to the visually impaired community, it is simply a recognition that visual art sometimes is more involved than my ability to transcribe. My saying anything even remotely like this on the post itself creates no end of shitty replies in the comments, so I will just post the image to avoid the drama. Of course if anyone wants to try to transcribe the dozens of discrete images, they are welcome/encouraged to—maybe it'll be thought of as good practice.</p><p><br /></p><p><i><b><span style="font-size: medium;">6- Is the free labor of people doing your transcriptions exploitative?</span></b></i></p><p>1) Facebook pages don't actually make money. And the FB throttling algorithm was designed by greedy shitgibbons who literally fiddled with the knobs until they found the sweet spot between "That's a lovely outreach you have there. Be shame if someone.......THROTTLED IT." and "Fuck it. I'll just use Tumblr instead!" While I technically might make some <a href="https://www.patreon.com/chrisbrecheen">Patron</a> money via people from this page, most of them are donating money because they like my blog and my writing, not because I maintain a page that posts memes. (In fact, I often literally say when I post my Patreon something like: "If you're just here for the memes, don't worry about this, but if you like the blog I link to.....") While there is a symbiotic relationship and this page helps me promote my work, there isn't really a mechanic by which this page ITSELF makes me any money.</p><p>2) The particulars of transcribed posts are done for the accessibility benefits of folks who use assistive technology. For years there were no such transcriptions. I have been asked to do this, and I WANT to do so, but doing it all myself would be a tremendous addition of labor to what is already several hours a week on top of one job and a hundred side hustles I already have. I tried to come up with a compromise to saying "No. I'm sorry. I just can't do that."</p><p>3) I'm more than <i>capable</i> of transcribing posts, and often do so. However when I am flinging up a post quickly on my way to work or posting from my phone, I can't describe some involved four panel comic or essentially type out 250 words. I could just leave it without a transcription–possibly for hours–until I can get to it, but that seems to defeat the purpose, and the alternative is blowing some off.....and not in the fun way.</p><p>4) I'm not promising people exposure or ground floor opportunities or some slick ass bullshit to folks who help out. (I'm certainly not approaching professional transcribers and guilting them to think about the children.) If folks help, I assume it is because they want our page to be accessible, not because they think it will benefit them in some way. Everyone is free to help or not help. Sometimes no one steps up and the post just goes un-transcribed until I can get to it. It's not like anyone is being leaned on.</p><p>5) If I were making more money, I probably WOULD think about employees rather than volunteers. I pay my guest bloggers, editors, and others who help me unless they insist that their work is a donation, even if it's just a few dollars. However, I am down by half my income since cancer and THEN it was barely paying the bills. Perhaps the fact that I need another other jobs besides writing and innumerable side gigs will be indicative that I'm maybe not making as much off this page as people seem to think.</p><p>The community <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ChrisBrecheensWritingAboutWriting/posts/1576801732429123">seems pretty supportive</a>, but please let me know if you'd like me to revisit the question.</p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-55511321639342918922023-05-10T13:48:00.003-07:002023-05-10T14:07:06.708-07:00Facebook FAQ: Can I Send You a Meme to Repost?/I Sent You a Meme, but You Didn't Repost It!<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJtyr_vAnv5pu93q_WojPtGF5zOr0Qp3d5KeTp9QQ6vewMhP7OcoLEAp1IKN_SJNmRlGnM6PrmzG4sQUeaYof8y1X6DdL_ENe-u-skcuUK7PhF8KdnQUtg8TwCXjbb4bxuLJSnKxi-uUqD-6ITdpFkn51iiPshzr2S2MsZhI3j6GMuZe7WdTj9nw/s600/sharing-is-caring-m76adc.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="600" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJtyr_vAnv5pu93q_WojPtGF5zOr0Qp3d5KeTp9QQ6vewMhP7OcoLEAp1IKN_SJNmRlGnM6PrmzG4sQUeaYof8y1X6DdL_ENe-u-skcuUK7PhF8KdnQUtg8TwCXjbb4bxuLJSnKxi-uUqD-6ITdpFkn51iiPshzr2S2MsZhI3j6GMuZe7WdTj9nw/s320/sharing-is-caring-m76adc.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unretiring the threesome jokes?</td></tr></tbody></table>The following will be added to the Facebook FAQ. <br /><p></p><p><b>Can I send you a meme to repost? When will you post my meme? Why didn't you post my meme?</b></p><p>In general, I love getting memes from y'all. I try to post several a day, and that means going hunting constantly. A meme from one of you that I can post usually represents an hour that I can just post something on the go from my phone and not be "on" all the time. Then I can go back to playing Horizon Zero Dawn without even pausing. But sometimes folks send me a meme and then ask me to post it right away or even get a little cranky if I don't. ("Hey man. I sent that meme to you out of the goodness of my heart. Are you going to post it, or what?")</p><p>There are a few reasons why maybe I didn't post your meme….</p><p>1- <i>Check to see if I really didn't post it. </i></p><p>Facebook has a very complicated algorithm that throttles the content that it shows you. It is threading the needle between so low that pages, desperate to be seen, will pay advertising money to get more engagement and JUUUUUUUST high enough that we don't give up on FB forever and take our content over to Tumblr. (And I'm sure that a small army of behavioral scientists are working every day and snorting lines of spice to find just EXACTLY that sweet spot for maximum profitability.) Even if you are engaging with every Writing About Writing post, you might only see half the memes I post if you don't click through the page, so please check. It's entirely possible that I actually DID post the meme, but Facebook just didn't put it on your feed.</p><p>2- <i>You sent me something that I posted somewhat recently.</i></p><p>The world of writing (and writing-adjacent) memes is prolific, but not endless. I see a lot of repeats. Especially a year later when a viral post starts coming up in people's memories. Now, I'm definitely not above a repost—especially if it's been a while—but it might just be that you sent me something I posted only a few weeks ago.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdgiWBaNHggHfQ0gcc3RynfrBtyrEw9STrNOG7Oo7Cn8V-0lt-98HYD4fOgMMaUH6abvMig6VLKHvKJaF09aDTFsWtce47RXjVTmYo7O7SsRUoP0Gya57IbzXahjUkcPbcd1y24Hjp7SPvh2k3xZ-cFv6Q2sY83DH_A4TfXWU1EhZlMQWDEWWwcQ/s450/4b45bb4a076feca4d7964c517034ba6b--awesome-stuff-sports.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="450" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdgiWBaNHggHfQ0gcc3RynfrBtyrEw9STrNOG7Oo7Cn8V-0lt-98HYD4fOgMMaUH6abvMig6VLKHvKJaF09aDTFsWtce47RXjVTmYo7O7SsRUoP0Gya57IbzXahjUkcPbcd1y24Hjp7SPvh2k3xZ-cFv6Q2sY83DH_A4TfXWU1EhZlMQWDEWWwcQ/s320/4b45bb4a076feca4d7964c517034ba6b--awesome-stuff-sports.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /><br />I don't keep track of a specific expiration date or shelf life. If I see a meme I've seen before, I just kind of try to think if it's been recently or a while since I posted it. Very scientific. Much rigor. Wow.</p><p>3- <i>I might like the meme, but it's possible it's not for this page.</i></p><p>I'm picky about my memes. <br /></p><p>I harvest only the finest artisanal memes from the Memeagne region of France, and perish the thought of subpar memes darkening my pixel stream.</p><p>I don't do the entire genre of memes that makes fun of people for not knowing "proper" English (which is just code for a classist, often racist, and slightly anachronistic elitism about a form of English that is taught in high schools without regard for nuance like linguistics or dialects). I know a lot of writing meme pages get off on that shit, like it actually makes them a better person to know when to use "less" vs. "fewer," but that isn't my jam. Funny signs because of a misspelled word? Sure. Making fun of PEOPLE? Pass. </p><p>If there's a deliberate slur, I probably take a pass. People who are marginalized in our society can reclaim certain words in tweets or memes, and I think that's rad, but they're not my words to use and even hitting "share" can be fraught with some complication. <br /><br />3.5-<i>There might be casual -isms or -phobias.</i> </p><p>Look, I can't make a MILLION people agree with my linguistic understanding that our language both reflects and normalizes deep seated prejudices and institutional oppression, but words like "crazy" or "stupid" or other casually harmful words will generally steer me away from even a pretty dang funny meme. I'm not perfect, and some stuff gets past me—especially when I maybe don't think about how a particular kind of sarcasm is going to land—but I'm definitely not <i>trying</i> to create that kind of environment. Sometimes an otherwise awesome post has an ableist slur in it, and I take a pass.<br /><br />I've tried putting these things up with content notifications so that folks will consider that maybe that wasn't the best choice of words, but then the comments just turn into a cesspool of "I don't see anything wrong with it! You're too sensitive!" And you know if legions of white dudes can't see what the problem is, there certainly couldn't possibly be one….because if anyone knows what marginalization is, it's those who never have to deal with it!</p><p>So…anyway, now I don't bother.</p><p>4-<i> Someone I like just posted it.</i></p><p>There are a few meme pages out there doing essentially the same thing I am with basically the same philosophy about social justice and social harm, and I don't want to compete with them. These are great people and I hope we all succeed. If a page like <a href="https://www.facebook.com/tarawinequeenwrites">Tara Wine Queen Writes</a> or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/talesofakitchenwitch">Tales of a Kitchen Witch</a> have just posted something, I want them to get the clicks and engagement for at LEAST a few days before I come along with my bigger platform and steal their thunder.</p><p>5-<i> Someone I DON'T like is responsible for it.</i></p><p>Sometimes shitty people say funny or poignant things. I'm not here to amplify them or their platforms.</p><p>Sometimes I actually know the source does not like to be scraped because they have announced as much publically. Sometimes my platform size means something I post will get back to the source, and they slide into my DMs. Some people thank me. Some ask me for credit (which I am thrilled to be able to give), some ask me only to share their stuff—not repost it (which again, I'm happy to do), and some ask me to die in a fire and never post their stuff again. </p><p>I tend to remember those people. </p><p>6- <i>It's in the queue.</i></p><p>The search for memes is a feast and famine game. Some days I'm scouring the internet in real time for the next post. Some days I seriously have days and days worth of memes saved up on my phone or laptop and I've got them in sort of a mental queue. There's an art to shitposting. You want the sweet and then the salty. If I drop ten of the same flavor of meme, it'll get old pretty fast. So it could be that I have every intention of getting to your meme in the next few days. So, with all the love in the world….keep your pants on. </p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-51381999223588451932023-05-03T12:46:00.004-07:002023-05-03T12:46:40.522-07:00May Newsletter. Big News. Patrons. And more.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSsbRCt41Btq-e-v3WZ8CwZaNolbuFFyzhsVyO5onIojrOgpQKcQW-yIZxIWZ3oHdjyeYLeyewWHc_lc-z2fWCDlvg3hqlR_6lM9YhK781wC83OZRZ4KskekGkXVI01hiFXyUvRqgK9W1lHP2XI7WlfFKSMGF-8ObmCkKR8D8OXJlzbzDn9GTSUg/s1998/newsboy2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1998" data-original-width="1641" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSsbRCt41Btq-e-v3WZ8CwZaNolbuFFyzhsVyO5onIojrOgpQKcQW-yIZxIWZ3oHdjyeYLeyewWHc_lc-z2fWCDlvg3hqlR_6lM9YhK781wC83OZRZ4KskekGkXVI01hiFXyUvRqgK9W1lHP2XI7WlfFKSMGF-8ObmCkKR8D8OXJlzbzDn9GTSUg/s320/newsboy2.jpg" width="263" /></a></div>So I have big news. <br /><p></p><p>Big enough news that I'm going to shake up the usual <a href="https://www.patreon.com/chrisbrecheen">Patreon</a> rewards. THIS will be my April newsletter, which usually only goes out to my Patrons. However, this month I'm going to be publishing it on the blog to share the big news. All my other rewards will "red shift." The folks who usually get just the newsletters will be seeing some selfies. The folks who are up for early access will get to see <i>The Inside Scoop</i> (a sort of deeper and more personal newsletter).</p><p>April waved as it drove by. I'm not even exactly sure what the hell happened. One minute I was sitting down hoping that I didn't get any unkind pranks and the next, people were wishing me a happy Beltane. It was an entire month of "blink and you'll miss it."</p><p>If you've been following my story, you know that one of my partners, <a href="https://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2022/02/introducing-rhapsody.html">Rhapsody</a>, lost their boss and friend in a violent robbery in early February. She stepped up to run the bakery with the owner gone. That's it's ENTIRE own harrowing story of overwork, stress, and difficulty, but what it meant was that I stepped up in a lot of ways too—with everything from extra childcare to grief support. Three months passed with a strange effect of being both ten years and about a week. <br /><br />And that was just the latest absolute shocking tragedy in a string of huge setbacks and life events.<br /><br />It's been months now—years really—of just one thing after another. A big move complete with massive emotional adjustments on the part of four people—two of them kids, a miscarriage, cancer, surgery and recovery (including PTSD), a huge health scare from my mother, a very impactful breakup and then this. And if I'm going to be perfectly honest, there have been some good moments in there that ALSO distracted me from my writing. I let myself get caught up in some new relationship energy when I met Rhapsody, and I kind of avoided work for a couple of months. And every time I've felt a LITTLE better these past couple of years, I've first tried to reconnect with my personal relationships instead of diving fully into the grind. There have been ups and downs, but it wouldn't be fair to say that my productivity has <i>always</i> been low because of the bad stuff.<br /><br />Still, almost every time I'm feeling ready to get back into the saddle, another round of something awful hits—and it's usually something next level. It's not like a bad day on Facebook kind of stuff. Sometimes I feel ready to write and the schedule goes bananas. Sometimes the schedule is forgiving, but I'm struggling with anxiety and barely able to keep my mind on one thing long enough to write a post a week. It's been unrelenting.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh2NmzL1onUfY-hRF1bHIGvPFzwrBKK9sWUy4NeagK6fqiB55OHKZ_xd4Cwu8s5VJVPYQtaMYNif3BdoRecFVKLYOC6sBajA-fc31Lx9Efkz4p3RNprbsLtQat9QWeNjs8PQPLxyKRu4-klHmAM47jCEVPiu11xgfb6c4YM36HdKkN0tOvJ-ZgZQ/s2048/il_fullxfull.2761100844_n2l4.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh2NmzL1onUfY-hRF1bHIGvPFzwrBKK9sWUy4NeagK6fqiB55OHKZ_xd4Cwu8s5VJVPYQtaMYNif3BdoRecFVKLYOC6sBajA-fc31Lx9Efkz4p3RNprbsLtQat9QWeNjs8PQPLxyKRu4-klHmAM47jCEVPiu11xgfb6c4YM36HdKkN0tOvJ-ZgZQ/s320/il_fullxfull.2761100844_n2l4.webp" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fucking Nandor!</td></tr></tbody></table><p>But there is news. Great news. (<i>No, I don't want to jinx it. I'll just call it BIG news, and we will look nervously at the sky and refuse to get excited.</i>) A great shift is coming to my writing time. I will have SO much more of it. </p><p>Since early February, I've stepped up to help. I held space, cancelled plans when shit fell apart (some of which were writing plans), took on more with the kids, and generally threw most of my time into trying to get through the moment. I don't want that to sound like a victim narrative. I <u style="font-weight: bold;">chose</u> to be there for my partner. I <b><u>chose</u></b> to step back from my writing career for a little longer, even though I had lost so much time from the cancer and all the trials and tribulations before.</p><p>But bakery was hurting her—killing her really, in a non-hyperbolic sense. Our culture has a socially acceptable form of self harm in work and productivity. We let our mental health suffer for "the hustle." And the situation was untenable and unsustanable. So Rhapsody made a decision to step away at least for a while, take some well needed time "off," and then decide if she came back what her role would be. (That's "off" as in full time parent of two kids and a custody schedule that really only gives her one full day off every two weeks.) She is going to be home for at least a couple of months, able to handle so much more of the kid time and not be on the knife's edge of debilitating anxiety, dealing with daily panic attacks, and needing serious drugs just to function.</p><p>The shift should seem almost instantaneous given how much time I suddenly have to write. And there are other plans and schemes afoot (although to get in on <b>those</b> early, you really WILL need to become a patron), but this feels like the <strike>best</strike> (<i>nope, not gonna jinx it</i>) biggest news that's come to my writing schedule in two years.</p><p>And for those of you who didn't know what my writing output was like before two years ago…</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ6qLjvE_9BdC3WORbtE6h4Imttf1ZLNCHJp8CAw09yW691SAbZjnY5ZplsSHpRKG8Kc4Z1SYTt7DRxDg4PgwDHzbPFjGvaGBccEiB3Ae_ahbEFSlZkNeaasMfywbPhHXE5WNmOtagnE2txRq0dotpPX8vxnlYt84I7oH_NXviKP-cRjfi8NFsYQ/s500/tumblr_m8jk20gvKX1rvjt2vo1_500.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="500" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ6qLjvE_9BdC3WORbtE6h4Imttf1ZLNCHJp8CAw09yW691SAbZjnY5ZplsSHpRKG8Kc4Z1SYTt7DRxDg4PgwDHzbPFjGvaGBccEiB3Ae_ahbEFSlZkNeaasMfywbPhHXE5WNmOtagnE2txRq0dotpPX8vxnlYt84I7oH_NXviKP-cRjfi8NFsYQ/s320/tumblr_m8jk20gvKX1rvjt2vo1_500.gif" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-4269097906953264782023-03-29T08:31:00.002-07:002023-03-29T08:31:24.737-07:00Business-Ish Stuff (Updated for 2023)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgebqTTHnUeYUIgdEumlVzRiZOCAsll8UY7h78wC5Con9UsTOiL_gycjFOixFSlyeDysF3Ga-Xzcyf_fFWw0-xKc2dJSbC8ve_GFTC_INnrIYfj-CBDBnwPiupCN6HuLggoNfzfyVfn3V730IsOlfdlbBF0MS9fr8uqJyqoOig-sknVyvODocx44A/s568/Business_presentation_byVectorOpenStock.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="294" data-original-width="568" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgebqTTHnUeYUIgdEumlVzRiZOCAsll8UY7h78wC5Con9UsTOiL_gycjFOixFSlyeDysF3Ga-Xzcyf_fFWw0-xKc2dJSbC8ve_GFTC_INnrIYfj-CBDBnwPiupCN6HuLggoNfzfyVfn3V730IsOlfdlbBF0MS9fr8uqJyqoOig-sknVyvODocx44A/s320/Business_presentation_byVectorOpenStock.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span><div><span><i>I've been updating this for the past week or so and posting parts of it piecemeal, but here is the whole thing. Support Writing about Writing (even if you don't have money)? Our mission statement (yes, we have one)? Disclaimers? Update schedule? The comment policy? It's all here.</i></span></div><div style="font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>First and foremost:</b> All written content on posts on this blog are copyrighted. If you would like to use any of my material, please quote a paragraph or two and link back to the URL, or contact me if you want to use a more extensive quote or cross post something (I'll probably say yes if it's not a brand new post). I consider any more than this a breach of copyright law. </span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2013/05/how-can-i-support-writing-about-writing.html"><b>Pay the Writer</b></a>- </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">Do you want to get some money to the writer? My income is entirely donation based, so it's the only way I keep writing.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/p/mission-statementfinancial-pledge.html" style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Mission Statement</b></a><span style="font-size: x-large;">- </span><span style="font-size: large;">Why is Writing About Writing even here? What am I hoping to accomplish. And why am I so generous about giving all this free advice?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/p/disclaimery-stufffaqs.html">Disclaimery Stuff</a>-</b> Am I using an image that belongs to you? Did you find a grammar mistake? Do you hate my computer-illiterate layout and formatting errors?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2018/10/fall-2018-update-schedule.html">Update Schedule</a>-</b> How often can you expect an update? What gets posted on which days? Why was there no Wednesday post and just Chris doing Jazz fingers?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2013/11/comment-policy.html">Comment Policy</a>-</b> Please check ahead of time what the policy is on comments--both why I may simply delete them and why I may put feature them in a future article. And why mean abusive anonymous comments get mocked more than mean signed ones.</span></p><p><b><u>Advertise on WAW</u></b>- Technically speaking, I don't do advertisement, and it's going to take a pretty sweet deal to get me to try. I turned ads off as soon as my crowdfunding income could cover the bills (sort of––I still have a nanny side gig too). The sorts of ads Blogger and Google would stick on my page made me feel a little dirty. To date, I've only gotten spam offers, but if you actually have a product that I actually might be willing to endorse and a generous enough offer to make it worth my while, I will "sell out" a little. </p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-43846954986559884162023-03-27T17:00:00.003-07:002023-03-27T17:00:33.675-07:00Guest Appearances (Updated for 2023)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-2arUOy3M6PalGjH3UH_Yy05xPm9Uho4xioC62JsTcZK-Xij5MudZmlQccplAbgn0vQfSsNF0X0cCQQa2yr0mdBGMc9NgcL4j3NLYOOqH3vupK-SI7r6suHOdb2l4PEh19gO1erK5dBeaaLcf86i7vnUfrc7zOlKPuVDtMRUpumxp7kDsZ0u4Pw/s334/Guestblog%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="334" data-original-width="302" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-2arUOy3M6PalGjH3UH_Yy05xPm9Uho4xioC62JsTcZK-Xij5MudZmlQccplAbgn0vQfSsNF0X0cCQQa2yr0mdBGMc9NgcL4j3NLYOOqH3vupK-SI7r6suHOdb2l4PEh19gO1erK5dBeaaLcf86i7vnUfrc7zOlKPuVDtMRUpumxp7kDsZ0u4Pw/s320/Guestblog%20(1).jpg" width="289" /></a></div>There are three links in this post. One is if you want to blog for me. The other is if you want me to blog (or write) for you. Plus one for if you want me to do podcasts/panels/classes/lectures/interviews/etc… <p></p><p><a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2012/10/wanted-guest-bloggers.html"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Guest Bloggers Wanted</b></span></a></p><p>I'm always looking for someone to give me a day off from this accursed job. (Even though the time "off" usually doesn't start until/unless someone has been blogging for me for a while.) Be sure to read the post about guest blogging thoroughly. I don't make enough to pay my guest bloggers more than a few dollars before I see how their article is going to do, but if it does well, I won't keep the fruits of your labor either.</p><p><a href="https://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2021/01/do-you-want-me-as-guest-blogger.html"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">I Would Love to Guest Blog for You</span></b></a></p><p>The same mostly goes for blogging for you, although I have a slightly different set of requirements for that since I'm the one doing the writing.</p><p><a href="https://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2021/01/will-i-do-your-podcastpanelclasslecture.html"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Other stuff (Podcasts/Panels/Classes/Lectures/Interviews)</span></b></a></p><p>I'd probably love to do your thing, but check in on the requirements. </p><div><br /></div>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-41296413936665168682023-03-23T15:05:00.002-07:002023-03-23T15:05:39.934-07:00Mission Statement (Updated for 2023)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVhMedtKulcBe7g2Iu3uiXXsSZf4GutgWvNPlEz6WZaUHxph9u3UxTeQxcMFwQNV3wj12-jm6t-WwmveFdn4sva_8or7jCZhZ1yNiE_eBNTPhA2e-e--ZHhdm0Zqi_1tP8RYEhVeOEiNHGl59FSUJyRCw-sdGBceEN4R1gsuU5Wm0gUukYUmkkEg/s598/inspiring-company-mission-statements-1.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="598" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVhMedtKulcBe7g2Iu3uiXXsSZf4GutgWvNPlEz6WZaUHxph9u3UxTeQxcMFwQNV3wj12-jm6t-WwmveFdn4sva_8or7jCZhZ1yNiE_eBNTPhA2e-e--ZHhdm0Zqi_1tP8RYEhVeOEiNHGl59FSUJyRCw-sdGBceEN4R1gsuU5Wm0gUukYUmkkEg/s320/inspiring-company-mission-statements-1.webp" width="320" /></a></div><p>This was my <b><i><u>original</u></i></b> mission statement: </p><p></p><div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">The Mission of this Blog is to provide a place that will facilitate my ability to:</span><br /><br />1-<i>Be able to say, “I was just writing about that in my blog” in that really pretentious way that only bloggers can do. Preferably while holding a snifter of brandy and looking at someone through a monocle.</i><br /><br />2-<i>Satisfy my writerly exhibitionist need for feedback without the constant irritation of things like letters of rejection.</i><br /><br />3-<i>Be able to say, “I’m published” at cocktail parties as long as they don’t press too hard on how exactly I’m using the word “published.”</i><br /><br />4-<i>Be passive aggressive towards people who have slighted me in an internationally accessible medium. Also preferably while holding a brandy.</i><br /><br />5- <i>Have fans hanging off of me no matter where I go. Bloggers are the new rockstars. That's what the dude at the Moleskine Journal Store assured me.</i><br /><br />But I found this to be just a little bit <i>too</i> honest for most, so I’ll go with my second round of reasons. So here is the new and improved mission statement.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><blockquote>The mission of this Blog is to provide a place where I can (each is its own link):</blockquote></b></span><br /><b><a href="http://chrisbrecheen.blogspot.com/2012/02/control-what-people-see-when-they.html">1-Control What People See When They Search for You on Google</a></b><br /><br /><a href="http://chrisbrecheen.blogspot.com/2012/02/share-my-experience-as-in-real-time.html"><b>2-Share My Experiences in Real Time</b></a><br /><br /><b><a href="http://chrisbrecheen.blogspot.com/2012/03/impart-what-little-wisdom-i-have.html">3- Impart what little wisdom I have gathered over the years</a></b><br /></div>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-54868788307980330552023-03-16T13:48:00.004-07:002023-03-16T13:48:22.497-07:00Writing About Writing Disclaimers (Updated for 2023)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz0t8v26ksH5-UymLdMGgISL2_5GONQ26OJKmrGZPXvRHdHI3EUQoNSyn2YEa7Nq1blonrqkpuZ7HkgLNKIamUyvM9ovjBBduhbRF0H70XjjuBlHuloBd_QA329BNJrjdGwGGisF4Wdu_uYdyW_ksn0Bndhpc05FUaXer5RZnfsXSI4mcC3Gbt7g/s1000/disclaimer-examples.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="1000" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz0t8v26ksH5-UymLdMGgISL2_5GONQ26OJKmrGZPXvRHdHI3EUQoNSyn2YEa7Nq1blonrqkpuZ7HkgLNKIamUyvM9ovjBBduhbRF0H70XjjuBlHuloBd_QA329BNJrjdGwGGisF4Wdu_uYdyW_ksn0Bndhpc05FUaXer5RZnfsXSI4mcC3Gbt7g/s320/disclaimer-examples.png" width="320" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">A few disclaimers <br /><br /></span></b><br /><b><br /></b><b><span style="font-size: large;">1- Variations: they may occur in your mileage.</span></b><p></p><div><br /></div><div>I'll try to hit the nuance when there is some. (Like the tension between <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2016/09/the-privilege-of-daily-writing-and.html">the ableism of prescribing writing daily</a> but the unlikelihood that one could be a working writer without doing exactly that.) But sometimes I'm answering the question that is right in front of me and not accounting for every person's very special (if absolutely legitimate) circumstances. Sometimes people––who maybe had a very legitimate and traumatic high school experience in a cookie cutter public education system in need of systematic and systemic indictment, and maybe even had a shitty teacher or eight––are not the people with the expertise to know HOW to teach or why literature pedagogy is what it is. And for fuck's sake almost everyone ever who insists that writing every day doesn't help have never actually tried it.<br /><br />I'm THRILLED that there are a few MFA programs out there who've incorporated speculative fiction or that someone published their NaNo novel, and don't be afraid to chime in. But please remember that I've been doing this for DECADES, it is my DAY JOB, half my friends are working writers, and the presence of a few outlier cases does not undermine the broader points. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not saying you're wrong, but I usually know what I'm talking about.</div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-size: large;">2- I'm not very careful about images. </span></b></span><br /><br />It's hard to watch every other blog in the universe be cavalier about movie screenshots and copyrighted images (sometimes even going viral with movie gifs) and then use a picture of an old flip flop for your great Avengers quote because that's what Googled turned up as creative commons.<br /><br />I've got a few places I check first, like the Creative Common Licence Flikr page or the "free to use (even commercially)" image search on Google. Some images seem to be allowed to be proliferated if properly cited on a non-profit blog. But I'm not as careful as I would be if I were hosting ads and making millions. Unless they are a picture <i>OF</i> me (or something around me), they are absolutely not mine, and I will never ever claim that they are. I put copyright info when I post commercial images and/or any time I can tell where they're from. I try my best, but the internet is a tangled thicket and not every image is watermarked (WHICH I WILL NEVER USE) and things are stolen and restolen so many times that it is sometimes impossible to know where they're from.<br /><br />So if I'm using an image that is yours (or your client's), please just tell me how you'd like me to handle it. (I'll take it down. Give you credit. Make it a link back to your page. Apologize for my impudence. Write a post about how awesome you are for not making a federal case of it. Whatever*.)<br /><br /><i>Just don't expect me to fall for the licencing scam. This is not my first rodeo. I've got too many blogger friends at this point; I know that it's JUST a scam wearing a suit. (Amazing what you can find out with a quick search of the BBB.) You go ahead and take me to court and have fun trying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a judge how much of my poverty-wage crowdfunded income from writing is due to your ONE image on the ONE post rather than my writing (or conversely that where I got your image from was clearly labeled as requiring a licence fee). I'm absolutely sure that will be worth it for you. Oh and by the way I'll be invoicing every hour I spend dealing with you at my top tier freelance rate for a counter-suit. Won't this be fun!</i><br /><br />I really do try to avoid any image with a big flaming "Don't use my shit without permission" sign on the web page or a clear copyright watermark, or from companies I know don't give a crap if you give them proper credit, but sometimes I end up with such image through an intermediary with less regard. If I've used a image that I didn't know was stolen, I will do what it takes to make amends. And I will never pass off work that isn't mine as my own.<br /><br /><b style="font-size: x-large;">3-There will (probably) never be ads, but I might remind you of the tip jar and my <a href="https://www.patreon.com/user?u=3202389">Patreon</a> once or twice a month-ish.</b><br /><i><br /></i><i>Writing About Writing</i> is and will always be free. And these days we don't even have any ads. (Although technically I might put one up for a product I actually endorse.) But I'm a pretentious artisté and I dream of writing paying for a small space to call my own. Twice every month-ish (once as a blog post and once as a post directly to social media), I'll write a post reminding people that if they want to support us, or if they want to get more and better content, we need to cover the bills without a 20-30 hour-a-week side gig. Through the generosity of readers, I've been able to quit teaching, stop driving all over the Bay Area to pet sit, and have some boundaries about how much I will nanny small children, but I'm still beholden to more hours of side giggery that could be spent making with the clackity clack. And beyond that, I would love to make improvements like professional design and admin help. As little as a single dollar a month (just $12 a year) <a href="https://www.patreon.com/user?u=3202389">through Patreon</a> helps me to write more and gets you in on some private conversations about future projects.<div><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">4-In this blog, I mostly talk about <i>creative</i> writing, specifically fiction.</span></b><br /><br />While the concerns of other genres of creative writing dovetail with fiction somewhat, and all writing in general has a few things in common (like words and periods and stuff), they are also quite different in form, content, style, and execution. Fiction is not journalism, and neither of those is technical writing. So if you are making a pretty goddamned decent living gritting your teeth through the boredom while writing instruction manuals for digital cameras and food processors, and wonder what the hell I'm on about when I talk about the high passion and low pay of a writing career, it's not because I think you're not a "real" writer. (You absolutely are!) It's just because "Blogging about Fiction Writing" isn't as catchy of a title.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">5-I am not very good at computer stuff.</span></b><br /><br />Actually, that's like saying I kind of like pizza a little. I may have links that go nowhere or images that don't load. I can usually fix that stuff if you bring it to my attention. There are sometimes some weird formatting errors where it looks like some of the text is the wrong font or font size, and I can't seem to fix it, no matter what I do. I suppose there are people who know enough HTML that it would be no trouble for them, but I am not one of those people.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some day when I'm making enough that I'm not side gigging to afford brand name peanut butter, I'm going to hire someone to clean things up. <br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>6-There might be some satire in here somewhere. Maybe</b>.</span><br /><br />You should probably take a satire class if you don't know how to recognize it when you see it. <a href="http://www.theonion.com/" target="_blank">The Onion</a> offers some online correspondence courses that are top notch. I highly recommend them.</div><div><span><br /></span><b><span style="font-size: large;">7- I try to keep to my <a href="https://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2018/10/fall-2018-update-schedule.html">update schedule</a> but I also write in real time.</span></b><br /><br />When I'm doing super awesome, I have a couple of articles in the hopper for days where I can't really get in front of the computer for hours. (Just so we're clear, of the crystalline variety, the last time that happened was 2013.) The pandemic has me further behind than normal, and a series of unfortunate events has befallen me in the last 18 months or so, so I'm hanging on by a thread most weeks. Some days there is an emergency or I get sick or I'm just getting my ass kicked by my childcare hours. It's just me here and I still need a second job to pay all the bills. I'm doing the best I can. </div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b>8- The Unforgiving Reality of "Making It" as a Writer</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><div>I write to a broad audience. Certain advice here at Writing About Writing (such as writing every day) is a panacea to all of the most common difficulties for which people often request advice. While questions about how to monetize a blog or publish a short story might have specific answers, general questions like how to "make it" or how to "improve" [which I get multiple times a day] all have the same basic answer. In fact, this question has the same basic answer in any of the arts (or any entertainment): practice. Musicians, sculptors, painters, actors, and writers––they all practice…often for years before they go public. And while gains can be made in any discipline with periodic or even sporadic practice, professional artists almost unswerving try to practice daily (or very nearly so). </div><div><br /></div><div>While I make every effort to acknowledge <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2016/09/the-privilege-of-daily-writing-and.html">the ableism of prescribing daily writing without caveat</a>, the grind of capitalism to make finding time to work on one's art difficult or impossible, or the absurdity of arbitrating the title of "real writer" on anyone, I cannot alter the fundamental realities of how demanding the journey will be to get better at art. Certainly not if the goal is to quit one's day job and survive capitalism by doing art, and absolutely not if one's goal is to be well beloved by, in the case of writing, the reading community. No one in any career––athlete, surgeon, chef, actor, or writer––will achieve the status of renowned in their field without a lot of long hours and probably more than a few weekends. Many household name writers write every day (or six days a week). [Just as many musicians practice every day and many painters sketch constantly.] Call it harsh advice or a hard pill to swallow or just a reality check. I can acknowledge that the obstacles, but I can't change the world in which those are the people who have what many would-be writers want. </div><div><br /></div><div>Please don't assume that I think everyone should or even CAN give this much dedication to their writing. I just don't know of any shortcuts to the things so often cited as goals. (Comfortable careers as working writers or legions of fans.) Also, most writers absolutely need to hear (over and over and over again) that their main problem is that they're NOT applying their asses to a chair and they further need the splash of cold water that they're not going to achieve those career-caliber dreams if they're putting in weekend warrior effort.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;">9- Comments are moderated. </span></b><br /><br />This is not the wild west. You are not entitled to say anything you want. Check my <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2017/01/facebook-commenting-policy.html">comment policy</a> for more info. Even though that's technically for Facebook, it should give you an idea of how to comport yourself here.</div></div>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-71074466355758472472023-02-28T16:09:00.000-08:002023-02-28T16:09:22.919-08:00A (Slow) Return to Posting<p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc1liKVdk1qmHYlU6lxwn2tzzktE8Btcie5Z2-5talN8zigk_P0UFBVc2AsTqVSjuX6pIb_mhgdli1aA3mgxyQQ6banLwXZI0jCjrXtkCQlbj6Aby1GdCtZGrp7CXaVHtXK1Fki4OtOUJbHIpTVEY-S7S3jU1j3k6IuptAjNRDidzzvzC8wzewTQ/s730/images%20(5).jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="730" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc1liKVdk1qmHYlU6lxwn2tzzktE8Btcie5Z2-5talN8zigk_P0UFBVc2AsTqVSjuX6pIb_mhgdli1aA3mgxyQQ6banLwXZI0jCjrXtkCQlbj6Aby1GdCtZGrp7CXaVHtXK1Fki4OtOUJbHIpTVEY-S7S3jU1j3k6IuptAjNRDidzzvzC8wzewTQ/s320/images%20(5).jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jen Angel in Angel Cakes.</td></tr></tbody></table>Hi folks, </p><p>I mentioned this in my last post before I went a bit silent, but the co-worker and good friend of <a href="https://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2022/02/introducing-rhapsody.html">Rhapsody</a> sustained fatal injuries in a robbery. She died on Feb 9th.</p><p>Rhapsody has returned to the bakery that Jen owned with the intention of carrying on the business with all the employees. She has been stepping up to much greater responsibilities, trying to piece together all the lessons of running a bakery that she hadn't yet been taught, and processing the barely-fathomable grief of the sudden and violent loss of of a very close friend at the same time.</p><p>I live with Rhapsody and her two boys. I knew Jen, but not the way Rhapsody did, and mine has been a support role. I've been watching the kids a LOT more, taking on some extra chores, trying to organize help offers, and just being available and holding space. </p><p>My writing has felt the impact of this month. </p><p>I have a few half done articles, (including one <i>about</i> Jen and Angel Cakes and some terrible behavior on the part of some very scared people that should be showing up this week). I do take my own advice about writing daily through adversity. But clearly I had to put life on pause, and I could not focus—nevermind focus for several hours a day.</p><p>While grief is a fickle monster, and I can't predict a smooth transition, Rhapsody has returned to work and the boys are back in school (after being sick for a while). I've had a few moments here and there to tuck myself away and smith a few words. It will probably be a reduced schedule at first and then ramp up. I would also expect some hiccups along the way.</p><p>I wanted to make sure I have an update for everyone as we head into March. I know it's been quiet. This story was national news, but it touched me in a very personal way.</p><p>Thank you all for your patience.</p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-82034506485942078732023-02-09T09:58:00.002-08:002023-02-09T09:58:12.736-08:00A Pause in Posting<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ8gGXHT_97aU8fn69-LZRpyhZjdRbZuVF6BcaleHRy8MjmpUiak4D_E_QbzyGHNL4835wOvQLBEMg_EE3sn44ud3pDScqRxV8vS_XQk4Rx_fOOAJut77MaT5WQMIu18wlhBi6adjVaZcYzb-xWKzpIheBWatUqNdRgNz37vuMeB3q6CO5HgGKKQ/s1446/Screenshot%202023-02-09%20at%209.35.39%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="814" data-original-width="1446" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ8gGXHT_97aU8fn69-LZRpyhZjdRbZuVF6BcaleHRy8MjmpUiak4D_E_QbzyGHNL4835wOvQLBEMg_EE3sn44ud3pDScqRxV8vS_XQk4Rx_fOOAJut77MaT5WQMIu18wlhBi6adjVaZcYzb-xWKzpIheBWatUqNdRgNz37vuMeB3q6CO5HgGKKQ/s320/Screenshot%202023-02-09%20at%209.35.39%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div>Hi everyone, <br /><p></p><p>The boss and good friend of my nesting partner—who I call "<a href="https://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2022/02/introducing-rhapsody.html">Rhapsody</a>" here in the blog—was the victim of a violent robbery, is in critical condition, on life support, and not expected to recover. Rhapsody is dealing with anger, grief, overwhelm, on top of uncertainty about the future of her job and the state of our household expenses, and I am in full support mode.</p><p>The blog may need a couple of days before it's back up and running.</p><p>For those interested in helping: of course all the usual ways are still wonderful, but also right now, it would be great if we could fund <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/love-and-support-for-jen-angel?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_content=undefined&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer&utm_term=undefined">this Gofundme</a>. The allotment of financial support will help Jen's partner and mom deal with expenses but will also help the business stay open and keep the employes of the bakery employed.</p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-28771659425612502412023-02-03T09:20:00.005-08:002023-02-03T09:29:32.550-08:00Facebook Commenting Policy (Updated for 2023)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAXl-OFXz4argAI_987ZS01xErXvhWbpa510NQ5uwbMr-ztTIx4mYIx-GxLQT1F_0JfF3fbkO8GOnEVBWW7P8agCiVXizdzm5LPGuOx4Nla2exZGcFBLI07JjCh-Vozjz9K6Z_P7pkINsTVAPMFVW4nN4XaaCIoTSYfxN4YbZs2BEGwxXyC6I0fg/s490/00MITCS.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="490" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAXl-OFXz4argAI_987ZS01xErXvhWbpa510NQ5uwbMr-ztTIx4mYIx-GxLQT1F_0JfF3fbkO8GOnEVBWW7P8agCiVXizdzm5LPGuOx4Nla2exZGcFBLI07JjCh-Vozjz9K6Z_P7pkINsTVAPMFVW4nN4XaaCIoTSYfxN4YbZs2BEGwxXyC6I0fg/s320/00MITCS.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Well....it finally happened. <br /><br /><br />My "can't even" about the comments on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ChrisBrecheensWritingAboutWriting/">my Facebook page</a> went from figurative to literal.<br /><br />At over a 1.2 million followers, gentle reminders have stopped working, admin-ing comments has become virtually impossible, delicately explaining is a waste of my time, and my patience for unacceptable behavior is exhausted. Too many people ordering a double helping of savage without even a side order of chill. The laws of large numbers are starting to ensure that even if thousands upon thousands of people understand the spirit in which something is presented, someone will be having a bad day or not read carefully or think they understand a phrase that they don't, or read in maximally bad faith....or even just be a troll in my dungeon.<br /><br />Thus, the time has come for an official commenting policy so that folks won't be making their best I-just-ripped-this-guy's-helmet-off-and-it-turned-out-to-be-Robert-The-Bruce-Mel-Gibson-as-William-Wallace-during-the-battle-of-Falkirk betrayed faces when I ban their asses.<p></p><div><br /><div><b><blockquote><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Here's the TL;DR part for those of you who don't want to have to read very much:</i></span></blockquote></b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">This isn't 4chan. You don't get to say whatever you want because of "free speech." It's my space. Think of it more like you are in my house and I am putting on a show for you. If you are abusive or contemptuous, comport yourself in such a way that any human being with feelings whose hospitality you were under wouldn't invite you to come back, if you use bigoted slurs, if you are dismissive or derisive about posts that would be commonly labeled as "social justice," promise to (or threaten to) flounce from the page, "dare" me to ban you, or post spam links to either your own writing or a commercial site, or do slimy hitting on people in the comments, you may be banned without warning.</span></b><br /><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxpsHrtM6HtRHYYDU9LIIY6YpFlmvccauH8AmORubldrcLz2c5-Mo4LOWwqzdMoWUO216uAPZEeOLCyH-HAULd0YOfYr9dj5m64Eux-zPyYGrkYiePHH6OlMMBy44WiDLXcu_iVAlehw/s1600/2xyink.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxpsHrtM6HtRHYYDU9LIIY6YpFlmvccauH8AmORubldrcLz2c5-Mo4LOWwqzdMoWUO216uAPZEeOLCyH-HAULd0YOfYr9dj5m64Eux-zPyYGrkYiePHH6OlMMBy44WiDLXcu_iVAlehw/s320/2xyink.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><u><span style="font-size: large;">Now here's the nuance if you want to understand it a little better:</span></u><br /><u><br /></u><b>Itty bitty point- </b>If risqué language will make you blush, buckle up or do a tuck and roll dive out the passenger side. This shit's not going to fucking stop and I'll fucking ignore the fucking comments and PM's demanding it fucking does. Golly.<br /><b><br /></b><b>Itty bitty </b><b>teeny tiny </b><b>point </b>- If you block an admin, you're out. If you make some nasty comment on your way out, I will cheerfully delete it. Discuss it like an adult, or leave like an adult. Your tantrum gets you nothing. <br /><br /><b>Smol point- </b>If you slam the door on your way out, it'll lock behind you. And if you dare me to kick you out, I always, always ALWAYS will. If you're joking around ("Blokt!"), please make sure I know it.<br /><br />I care about you and I care about you achieving your goals. What am I if not a supportive, but occasionally firm cheerleader? If you flounce, I'll help you stick to it because I know that's what you would want. If you tell me you're going to flounce, but don't seem to be able to find the door, I'll make sure you know <i>right</i> where it is. If you threaten to flounce in a spectacle, I'll make the decision much, much easier for you. I'm here for you, pal. Plus that's just rude.<br /><br /><b>Tiny point-</b> No, I'm not going to stop posting links to my blog. Ever. At least once a day (sometimes two or three, just to annoy the haters). That's the reason this page is here–to try to drum up a few hits and build an audience. (It's only kind of worth the effort, but it's better than nothing.) You don't ever have to visit the blog if you want to just enjoy the puns and the inspiration memes and whatever I find about writing that tickles my brain, but the snotty emails and whiny tears telling me that my page would be "so great if you just stopped all that self promotion" will be used to fuel my Genesis device.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiCU61BGvHRh_71YB1sBLRkwpRomIZ9PGGF_J5mPyx7vLf5BMm4QT3YuM86NGgggYeA1V_JhAgc_C5YiBYBVntIXZfN0u9kB9RrB2dWNDqNgPfD2GJQsuG0Hgp5OX3h1J1N_38Qei5VyZBGv_Ep_GNfmGpw_sh6iK4TjjW8Zu-4wERZkoOlunEvfQ" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1440" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiCU61BGvHRh_71YB1sBLRkwpRomIZ9PGGF_J5mPyx7vLf5BMm4QT3YuM86NGgggYeA1V_JhAgc_C5YiBYBVntIXZfN0u9kB9RrB2dWNDqNgPfD2GJQsuG0Hgp5OX3h1J1N_38Qei5VyZBGv_Ep_GNfmGpw_sh6iK4TjjW8Zu-4wERZkoOlunEvfQ" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Your tears keep me young.<br />I'm actually 248</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><b><br /></b><b>Reasonably moderate sized point- </b>I'm up to fifty or so PM's a day. (Deplorably, none are million dollar contracts! I mean why did I even want to be a writer again?) Most are spam or asking me for some kind of free editing or beta reading or to share their own page something. So I don't even reply to the majority of them. My freelance/tutoring rate is $60USD/hr and TRUST ME that you don't want me doing copy editing (though I'm pretty good at content/developmental end). If your solicitation for help does not include <i>some</i> indication that you plan to pay me or do me a comparable service, I will simply ignore it. (I get way way way too many of those every day.)<br /><br />Check out my <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2017/04/facebooks-faq.html">Facebook FAQ</a>, and you'll probably find the answer to your question. At least you'll find the answer to 95% of the PM's I get.<br /><br />Also if you PM me, please keep in mind that I'm just a human being. I listen to the <i>Encanto</i> Soundtrack, watch Hawkeye with my family, play Fallout 4 and cuss when I stumble into an Alpha Deathclaw at 12th level, love Robert Asprin books despite myself, can't tell when someone's flirting with me (to. save. my. LIFE.), and try to write every day. I'm self conscious about how gaunt my face looks in some light after I lost a bunch of weight because of cancer, I cry when large swaths of my friends excuse torture so long as it is done to the "right sort of people," and have a really, really bad next-day if I eat too much pizza. Messages demanding I do X immediately or take down Y post because you didn't like it or "HOW COULD YOU..." will be cheerfully ignored. Add in some schoolyard shit talk to this kind of bullshit, and I will do my best Strong Bad "DELETED!" as I ban you.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Id3JLNZSFDI/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Id3JLNZSFDI?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div><br /><br /><b>Kind of slightly large point-</b> As of this writing, I cannot (and in many cases <i>will</i> not) read the comments on this page.<br /><br />There are OVER a million of you and one of me. (Well…sort of two. But usually it's only one of us at a time; my assistant only jumps in when I'm unable to.) I often max out the 99 notifications for this page in less than two or three minutes. I cannot POSSIBLY keep up with all the comments even if maintaining FB were my only job (it's not). Furthermore, what was once a playful community with the occasional legit jerkwad easily dealt with has become more and more like the bottom half of the internet (and all that that implies). I actually avoid the comments unless I suspect it's a post which will attract bigots and I need to do my banning thing. When half a million people are seeing something, the law of large numbers suggests that someone, somewhere read it wrong, is upset about something else, needs lunch and a nap, wants to pick a fight, or just generally is going to be a complete anal seepage dripping asshole about it. I know it's a statistically tiny amount, but the number of people confusing shitposting with clever makes me weep, and when people think that disagreeing with something they see automatically means they can behave in the worst way imaginable. I know you just came here to attack and now you're feeling such a good time, but I like parading through people's rain. Seriously though, enough people are really, really mean that it hurts my soul. It's honestly not good for my mental health to even <i>try</i> to read them all.<br /><br />Which means three things pragmatically:<br /><br /><u><i>ONE</i></u>: if someone is being a complete ass in the comments, send me a link through PM, and I'll decide what to do. (Ban them. Warn them. Rickroll them. Whatever.) But I miss 90+% of what's going on in the comments, so don't <i>count</i> on me to step in if you haven't notified me–I probably don't even know it's happening. <i>Please send me a link so I know WHERE the problem is happening. I post several posts a day and sometimes the comments go on for a week or more, so I'll need help finding where to go.</i><br /><br /><u><i>TWO</i></u>: I won't even see, and certainly won't reply to a lot of comments. I just can't. It hurts me in my tender fee-fees to try. I know some of you definitely are addressing the page admin with your comments, but you'll have to send me a PM if it's in some way urgent.<br /><br />I've also ignored a <i>lot</i> of comments lately that either missed the point or clearly hadn't read the entire piece they were responding to. It's not personal; it's just a time thing. Read what you're responding to if you want me to take a comment seriously.<br /><br /><i>*Protip: demanding to know the answer to a question that is answered in the first paragraph of the post is generally a pretty good hint that you didn't do the reading.</i><br /><br />Over the years, I have learned that (especially on the Internet) if you point out that someone clearly hasn't read something, they are more likely to attack than take the suggestion with some humility. </div><div><br /></div><div>Also, if you really want me to reply, send a PM. Just remember that whole "human" thing if you tread that path or I will make 30-year-old pop culture references at you by saying, "You chose.......poorly."<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicEi91mJKRbNumHhogl8y4KoInT8CVfBgcoIwr9vIEBj1xefOQZyC1TsxYTJ9lGJKDh9zA9dVqDZekYi5FsdgquO-VfAlFxwd-KyZ_UzXVEHOaGajau2epfjsw7FsBvGNIriCLBrX1Eg/s1600/52448640.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicEi91mJKRbNumHhogl8y4KoInT8CVfBgcoIwr9vIEBj1xefOQZyC1TsxYTJ9lGJKDh9zA9dVqDZekYi5FsdgquO-VfAlFxwd-KyZ_UzXVEHOaGajau2epfjsw7FsBvGNIriCLBrX1Eg/s320/52448640.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">No.</td></tr></tbody></table><u><i><br /></i></u><u><i>THREE</i></u>: I don't have time to gently warn everyone. ("Now now. There's a human being with feelings on the other end of your apoplectic abuse.") I'm assuming you already <i>know</i> how to be a decent person and that the internet sometimes helps you to forget. If I see bad faith behavior, I'll just start swinging the ol' Ban Hammer™Mjölnir [I call it M.J. cause we're <i>THAT</i> close.] You should know better than to behave that way (and you WOULD know better in any space that wasn't online). My <i>warnings</i> are reserved for folks who maybe didn't <i>know</i> they were on thin ice.<br /><br />And they get exactly ONE.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBNA2OTog3bkiG2OoQzLFXuY9cLprrBSA2LPYmloHE1YlxSPJ2gaKm11DVbwc3PhlhL3v8sJmcqoMSVQRaFGyksWU6E14Qo2YfbF8QeU8i5AaDiYP4Pnusidn0ApOMmwhn-qbMtGFAmA/s1600/54924783.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBNA2OTog3bkiG2OoQzLFXuY9cLprrBSA2LPYmloHE1YlxSPJ2gaKm11DVbwc3PhlhL3v8sJmcqoMSVQRaFGyksWU6E14Qo2YfbF8QeU8i5AaDiYP4Pnusidn0ApOMmwhn-qbMtGFAmA/s400/54924783.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><b>Large point-</b> This is my page. It's free content for you delivered straight to your computer on an average of 12 times a day (depending on the FB algorithm). This free content you enjoy takes me somewhere between 30 minutes to 90 minutes a day of unpaid labor. I'm going to post what I want. I'm going to post what I find fascinating. What I find interesting. What I find funny. What I find engaging.<br /><br />And I'm going to post my blog. Even though it's sometimes a very thin connection to writing, delves into socio/political issues, or talks about my personal life.<br /><br />I welcome suggestions. I welcome dialogue. I welcome discourse. I welcome concerns. I welcome criticism. (As I said above, you will likely have to PM me to get my attention since there are so many of you, but I still welcome this stuff.) I will be especially receptive to the concerns that something I've posted has inadvertently engaged in some sort of institutional harm.<br /><br />However, if you comment (or PM for that matter) like you're entitled to have MY page be whatever you want in the same way you might scream at the Spokane McDonalds night shift manager because there isn't lobster<span face=""helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif" style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; font-size: 12px;"> </span></span>thermidor on the menu, I can promise you that the conversation will go one of two ways: If you're just being boorish and demanding without regard for the fact that I'm not a robot in a skin suit sent from Khyron Beta Prime to please your every whim, I'll ignore while singing old Starship songs. ("And we can BUIIIIIIIIIILD this dream together...") If you're being abusive, I'll ban you. There are OVER A MILLION of you. Even if I had an interest in keeping everyone happy, I couldn't. </div><div><br /></div><div>And, shhhhhh, I <i>don't</i> have any interest in keeping all of you happy. Some of you <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2017/08/social-justice-bard-and-status-quo.html">status quo defenders</a> I very much want to disturb. To say nothing of bigots. <br /><br />So I'll be true to myself, and if that bothers you SO. FUCKING. MUCH. that you can't give the ol' scroll wheel finger a quick workout, then you get to talk to me like I'm a sensitive artist and shit. Because I am a delicate fucking creative flower, goddamnit! FUCK!<br /><br />Add to an above demand a threat to flounce if I keep doing what you don't like, and I will just assume that I should show you the door to save myself future headaches.<br /><br />If, on the other hand, you're just going to feel jilted if this page isn't exactly what you want to see all the time, you should feel absolutely free to spend the next five years posting 10-15 pieces of content every day about once an hour to build up your own audience, and then you can make that page whatever <i>you</i> want. </div><div><br /></div><div>No promises that I won't stop by and complain though. Just for the symmetrical beauty of it all.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhabYr3DThT_p5Gnvh2T-L-lr50TVinkIDo6zo4XV7IYHlCSfflt-XcqaS1D6CDYPJQQ0iyLzhzJ0ln8RvmRC9Kx3V5NV-Mxd3ZY8RfeEM0MXx6CjgtUVYNogsopMZQywfn2V_Ypi5HVQ/s1600/think-of-the-children1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhabYr3DThT_p5Gnvh2T-L-lr50TVinkIDo6zo4XV7IYHlCSfflt-XcqaS1D6CDYPJQQ0iyLzhzJ0ln8RvmRC9Kx3V5NV-Mxd3ZY8RfeEM0MXx6CjgtUVYNogsopMZQywfn2V_Ypi5HVQ/s320/think-of-the-children1.jpg" width="320" /></a>This goes just as well if I post a joke you don't "like." I care (deeply) if I've inadvertently dehumanized a group of people. I <i>don't</i> care that some didn't get the joke or didn't find it funny or it made fun of Christianity or something. If you don't stop to look up what a phrase meant before assuming bad faith, that's not my problem. And trying to guilt me by telling me there are children or second language learners who might take it seriously won't really get much traction either since children shouldn't be here and I'm not billing myself as an educational site. Learning to navigate a world in which some written rhetoric involves satire, irony, or sarcasm is part of the cost of business in English, and my job on this site isn't to act as those filters for others.<br /><br />Again, if something bothers you that much, drop me a PM and let's chat. But remember the "catch." If you want to get a message back: you have to treat me like a human with feelings. Last I checked, the cybernetic brain overlay had yet to take.</div><div><b><br /></b><b><span style="font-size: large;">Beyond Hella Huge Point (about social justice)- </span></b><br /><br />Every <i>goddamned</i> time I post an article or meme or anything that deigns to intersect with how writing and writers affect social issues,<br /><br />...or an interpretation of a work of art or entertainment that challenges the status quo, how language reflects societal prejudice,<br /><br />...or how whitewashed, sexist, and anti-LGBT publishing is,<br /><br />....or the narratives through which we define our world that could use scrutiny,<br /><br />a new gaggle of jerkwads end up being shown the door.<br /><br />Or hell, even just post a little Content Notice on something they think isn't a problem–so much so that it must be mocked.<br /><br />It's not that they disagree. Disagreement I can handle. The comments all over this page are <i>filled</i> with disagreement–we're definitely no echo chamber. The problem is they either decide to react in the most dismissive and derisive way possible ("This is SJW crap!" "Ableism? That's insanely [r-word] you [c-word].") in which case this page is not for them, and I don't particularly want to have to deal with that shit post after post...OR they outright lose their composure and abusively attack other members or me for taking the time and energy to attempt to explain the frame of an issue or share a personal perspective on a topic.<br /><br />If what essentially amounts to free tutoring about how language affects people who aren't exactly like you is going to be shat on because you wanted to "win" an argument, have the last word, condescend to the suggestion that the world is unequal and our print media might play a part in that, or treat people like crap for sharing an opinion that challenges the status quo, <i>Writing About Writing</i> is simply not for you.<br /><br />There is a one-to-one echo that exists within this reaction that I am pretty sensitive to (<i>mild CN for abuse dynamics</i>): abusers gas lighting their victims. Instead of taking a moment to consider why someone is upset, that they are accurately able to assess their own mental state, that they can be trusted to relay when they are feeling hurt, or that their life experience of marginalization may be something worth listening to, often they are told they are being dramatic or ridiculous and dismissed outright. Their feelings and even their actual experiences are invalidated. We see this in a personal relationship and it raises our hackles (hopefully), but when a group in social power (like men) do it to a group they have social power over (like women or gender variant folks) on a massive scale, it is considered perfectly normal behavior. And it can even cause the people who are constantly being dismissed and derided to question their own perceptions of reality.<br /><br /><i>(I think abuse and oppression have a number of shocking parallels, but maybe a post for another time.)</i><br /><br />Let me be blunt about this. (Cause I've been sweetly dancing around the point until now.)<br /><br />Y'all are fucking writers, and this is a page about fucking writing. You fucking ought to know better than anyone that words carry tremendous fucking power...possibly even to invoke fucking harm. Nobody ever silently went to war or committed genocide without fucking <i>words</i> fueling them first. No one ever articulated a justification for racism or sexism that caused people actual PHYSICAL HARM without using fucking words to do so.<br /><br />And nobody ever said "let's fucking commit human atrocities because we're just that evil" either. They always always ALWAYS fucking rationalized it away as necessary for their own protection....and they did so using fucking words. "Just" words.<br /><br />So if you sit on your couch every November 5th watching a dude in a Guy Fawkes mask bloviate between the fight scenes that, "Words offer the means to meaning," and then starts a revolution because the "truth and perspectives" of his words are bulletproof, and then you imagine yourself leading said glorious revolution with your own martial arts skill and throwing stilettos, yet you then turn right around and roll your eyes at "those damned Social Justice Warriors" being all "oversensitive" to some slur you didn't mean "that way," you are DROWNING in the irony of social power dynamics and your own double standards.<br /><br />I'm not going to have a conversation every single time I bring up an issue of social equality with folks whose main conceit seems to be: "writers should be able to write whatever they want." You already CAN write whatever you want. You can write your sausage fest story with no people of color and one woman who constantly needs rescuing, and ignore every bit of advice out there about how to make deep and interesting characters Literally no one will stop you. And if you're in a situation where you can't write whatever you want (politically or socially), it's certainly not upholding the status quo that is what you're not "allowed" to write. Further writers often <i>do</i> write whatever they want no matter how harmful or objectionable. Rarely are their careers even impacted and occasionally that's what launches them. If these writers stay off the pages that criticize them, they don't even have to have their feelings hurt. So if you're going to react with hyperbole and loss of composure to anyone asking you to consider how and what you write....on a blog about writing, <i>Writing About Writing</i> is <b>definitely</b> not for you.<br /><br />But CENSORSHIP, Chris! But FREEZE PEACH!<br /><br />Do you know what I hear Danny? Nothing. No footsteps up the stairs, no hovercraft outside the window, no clickeyty-click of the little spiders. Do you know why I can't hear those things Danny? Because right now, no one is stopping you from saying whatever you want. I'm not a government agent. This page isn't a public park. You have conflated freedom of speech with entitlement of medium.....Danny.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO0oBzkpWQPDGGsuots2R4Fr0ecajKZbX03PadspZxBcSW5ho6GorjugxQAJyAeXEInI1GI6pQDnnutuAgjn7Q34f209s9o8yaR2nrg5R3E0CwWnufKkxgFhv3e_FkOR5qk5XfK7BdPw/s1600/minority-report-farrell.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="520" height="123" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO0oBzkpWQPDGGsuots2R4Fr0ecajKZbX03PadspZxBcSW5ho6GorjugxQAJyAeXEInI1GI6pQDnnutuAgjn7Q34f209s9o8yaR2nrg5R3E0CwWnufKkxgFhv3e_FkOR5qk5XfK7BdPw/s320/minority-report-farrell.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">In case that was too subtle.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />If you've mistaken a governmentally protected freedom with the absence of consequence, feel free to study up on both again. (But for ten bonus points, see if you can identify the irony in trying to silence criticism by invoking your "free speech" ad nauseum.) And your little guilt trip, complete with a high school comprehension of the word "Orwellian," is not going to prevent me from moderating comments in my own space. This isn't even a social justice activism page. I'm going pretty easy on you comparatively. I don't expect you to be fully intersectional (or even to know what "fully intersectional" means). But the cliche that “You are awful and hate free speech if you block or ban people” is regurgitated mostly by the same entitled dillholes who don't like it when people have boundaries....at all....ever....about anything. I have like eighteen jobs and NONE of them are listening to you patiently explain why people shouldn't be allowed to define their own realities and tell their own narratives.<br /><br />If you want to drop some hateful commentary, share my article in your own space with commentary. Otherwise be ready to be shown the door.<br /><br />Frankly, I'd rather have a smaller following where those who normally run screaming from the comments sections on most of the internet feel comfortable participating in the conversation, than a large following where the <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2017/08/social-justice-bard-and-status-quo.html">Status Quo Defenders</a> speak over and run roughshod over anyone who has the temerity to suggest that maybe arts and humanities do something wacky like affect social perceptions, that representation matters, and that once in a while we might ought to think about such things. The whole damned world will let the people in power decide what is ridiculous to care about (spoiler: it's always going to be anything that challenges their power in any way). Here I want an actually diverse conversation, not just more and louder and more hostile dismissiveness reinforcing the status quo and actively silencing such voices.<br /><br />I care about how to question whether narratives are reinforcing institutional harm. I care about how much of the writing that exists (even wildly popular writing) often reinforces harmful status quos like racism, sexism, heteronormativity, transphobia, and more–things are ingrained in many of our narrative tropes or through our lack of or type of representation. If you want me to be vapid about the impact of writing and stick to linguistic prescriptivism that makes fun of legitimate English dialects (often in a vaguely racist and definitely classist way) or those who struggle to get the right homonym, drops the same dozen articles (and their knock offs) over and over on how to publish your novel/find an agent/write a query letter, and never really asks you to think hard thoughts about how powerful writing is in creating the stories shape our culture, <i>Writing About Writing</i> is <b>positively absolutely unequivocally</b> not for you.<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-size: large;">"Because maybe....JUST MAYBE, arts and humanities affect social perceptions and that's worth examining once in a while..."</span></blockquote><br />If we can't at least consider and think about these things, we're just telling the same stories over and over again, not really exploring new ones.<br /><br />In case that little Rantsalot moment was too gentle or esoteric: If your reply is nothing more than "This is PC bullshit!" or "This is crap. You're the real sexist!" or "Shut the fuck up with this pandering crap!" (or any of the thousands of variations on this theme that is intended to silence through dismissal that I've heard over the years) and certainly if you use bigoted slurs or double down on your "right" to be sexist, misogynistic, racist, transphobic, homophobic, ableist, or fatphobic after you've been asked to stop, I will use my admin tools to show you the door*.<br /><br />Don't worry. The other million of us will carry on without you.<br /><br />You don't have to agree with me. You DO have to play nice in my playground.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuTjbm0YByZgQLuUb7cN-C37CcPJBZ400bjOumQAexrpdKIdm1MEBn7fbq1LpfQ7u6ww2l1EYm4WYSHiXjJbF_80DA5btABGr68u0wbWqy-rgARm29Twbu-r5P55G-wJza81bAvylvGA/s1600/tenor.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="258" data-original-width="492" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuTjbm0YByZgQLuUb7cN-C37CcPJBZ400bjOumQAexrpdKIdm1MEBn7fbq1LpfQ7u6ww2l1EYm4WYSHiXjJbF_80DA5btABGr68u0wbWqy-rgARm29Twbu-r5P55G-wJza81bAvylvGA/s400/tenor.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Me and M.J. hitting the town.<br />Get it?<br />"HITTING" the town...never mind.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><i>*Once upon a time when I was getting such comments once a month, and before loved ones had cancer and before I had cancer and before there were kids in the picture and before I needed to write a novel four years ago, I had the time to warn and explain the problem gently with each person in an exhausting choreographed dance (that lead to a banning or a flounce 99% of the time anyway); however, I do not have the time or energy to continue to do this. I will simply protect this community from harm and/or that <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2017/08/social-justice-bard-and-status-quo.html">status quo defender </a>bullshit.</i><br /><i><br /></i><u><span style="font-size: x-large;">ADDITIONAL INFO</span></u><br /><u><br /></u><span style="font-size: large;"><u><b>The Just Not Worth It Clause</b></u> You are in my space. (You are not entitled to be here.) You are generally welcome as long as you refrain from a few choice behaviors (see above). However, I am under no obligation to extend infinitely my hospitality to those who are constant sources of negative energy and make my work unpleasant so long as you technically don't break the rules. It might take a while for me to recognize your name, longer still to watch you for a while, and even longer to decide what to do, but if you are constantly argumentative, unpleasant, bellicose, condescending, and generally negative, I will eventually show you the door. Because this is my space, and it's just not worth it to me to have to put up with that on post after post. </span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">And if you're firmly and often representing yourself as unwilling to understand issues such as systemic inequality, the scripts of oppression, the difference between bigotry and pointing entitlement culture, or things like that, I may eventually decide that my space is not for you.</span><br /><u><br /></u><u>Guest posts</u>:<br />I'll leave up anything (even if I don't fully understand it) unless it is to a commercial site or it is self-promotion. The former will be removed and the poster banned. The latter will be removed (and if it keeps happening the poster will be banned). If you want to promote something on my page, message me. Whether or not I say yes will depend on how much it has to do with writing. Basically I'm not going to let people spam my readers.<br /><br /><u>Pedantry</u>:<br />Knock yourself out, (lord knows I could use the help) but keep in mind the other rules before you decide that what your grammar fix needs is to be slathered in the gravy of bumptious superiority. I'll fix it if I can. The more obnoxious and condescending you get about it, though, the more I'm going to look at that ban button like Sylvester looks at Tweety. And if you are being classist and racist by mocking a legitimate dialect of English or a second language learner or something, Tweety's not long for the world.<br /><u><br /></u><u>Links in comments</u>:<br />If they're not absolutely relevant to the topic or are clearly self promotional, I'll erase the comment. If it keeps happening I'll swing The Ban Hammer™Also, just so you know, I kind of hate people who respond to my writing about a topic with someone else's writing about the same topic. Like I know it's petty, but I'm here to promote my OWN shit, not someone else's. <br /><br /><u>Bot Commenting:</u><br />The engagement is appreciated, but the generic reply-to-anything comment will eventually get you banned.</div><div><br /></div><div><u>Trolling Comments to Hit on Folks</u>:</div><div>I ban anyone who trolls the comments hitting on femme presenting folks. No questions. No appeals. You will be shown the door. This is not the space for that and I want those folks to feel safe commenting here, not as if doing so is going to open them up to being oozed. <br /><br /></div><div><i>(And just to anticipate a possible social script designed to protect this sort of behavior, if you can't tell the difference between genuinely striking up a conversation that MIGHT end up in a "Hey would you be okay with a friend request?" and the behavior I'm talking about [usually appearance based, usually IMMEDIATELY focused on a friend request, almost always cut and pasted to multiple people], then you shouldn't be doing either.)</i><br /><br /></div><div><u>Post Attribution:</u><br />I get macros from all over the intersphereweboverse. Pinterest. Other pages. Friends share things they find with me. Old posts. Even Tumblr. The internet is like that with people posting and reposting. Original attribution can be <i>incredibly</i> hard to find after things have been through multiple layers of reposting (even with things like reverse search images, which even if they always worked [they don't] add enough annoyance and time sink to an already thankless labor of love to make it not worth it). Plus many artists are happy to see their work proliferated just so long as it has their watermark on it.<br /><br />As a content creator myself though, I know how much it sucks to watch something you made go viral for someone else without so much as a link or even attribution. If I've posted something that belongs to you or someone you know or have posted a webcomic with a watermark that you can't bear to see not linked with a URL, let me know and I'll edit the post.<br /><br />Or if it's yours and you want me to just take it down, repost with attribution, or whatever to handle the situation. Unfortunately, there <i>are</i> some people will try to claim credit for something they didn't make, even editing out an existing watermark, so I'll be looking for some small indication of actual source-age. (Usually that's a trivial matter for a content creator of linking the original post.)<br /><br />I am happy to do this. But please remember a couple of things: First, you need to message me (rather than just comment) if you definitely want me to see it because I don't reliably engage with comments (see above). Second, be kind. There are basically a million of you and one of me and I am putting up 15 posts a day, so what seems like a trivial effort to you on a single post may not be to me, especially over time. If you want to be the attribution police rather than just a friendly "Hey I found a source on that post for you!" feel free to go run your own page and find out what a headache it can be.<br /><br /><u><b>Responding to Posts (Especially Answering Mailbox Questions) Without Reading the Article</b></u><br />Listen....<br /><br />This one gets like four and a half stars.<br /><br />I am a flawed, frail human being.<br /><br />One of my human failings is that even though I understand the FB algorithm and how engagement helps, it <span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>really</u></b></span> annoys me when I post something I spent an hour (or two or three or five or EIGHT or <b>MORE</b>) writing, and people jump into the comments to take it upon themselves to read answer the question CLEARLY without having read the article. It just irritates the fuck out of me.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7HWZNnq2dHQcR9SZZgYW6RCBYAYMp7YnWwShMNB69sTo8ak6IFJ60ceBFfwz-w0J0AV0gJBQhnS-zkqVSnszQ7yFZL-UJ_Dv8f0H3Hz0Uwin1RpYX3YYRJMTKhnfMQ_NgtTPD8e1oVA/s225/download+%25285%2529.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7HWZNnq2dHQcR9SZZgYW6RCBYAYMp7YnWwShMNB69sTo8ak6IFJ60ceBFfwz-w0J0AV0gJBQhnS-zkqVSnszQ7yFZL-UJ_Dv8f0H3Hz0Uwin1RpYX3YYRJMTKhnfMQ_NgtTPD8e1oVA/w200-h200/download+%25285%2529.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><div>It's like reading your own shit at <i>another</i> author's Q&A. It's like using your "question" at a convention to talk for five minutes and then say, "Do you agree?" to a panelist. I'm glad you found the question provocative (I really am!), but <i>JOIN</i> the conversation. Don't start a new one of your own in MY comments. Sometimes these replies don't even realize they're suggesting exactly the same thing I did or have used one or two of the same examples. It's great that we're all on the same page, but how rude! It's like those cartoons where someone suggests something and then another character says the same thing. In the world of comments at the end of posts, you usually at least see people who have engaged with the article (sometimes they clearly didn't get past a certain point before commenting, didn't understand a part, or were reading in bad faith, but you generally don't get replies that disregard the source material whole cloth. Social media means an awful lot of people jump in to tell you what they think of the title and/or preview text. Knock yourself out (I guess), but be ready for your admin to hide or delete your comment.</div><div><br /><u>You need to start your own blog for this shit</u><br />If you want to reply to something, enjoy. If you want to disagree with me, have fun. (Just remember all the other rules.) However, if you want to write some shit that is seriously longer than the post you're replying to, go find your own platform. And if it's just some "take down" shit (especially of the I-didn't-manage-to-finish-reading-this-or-read-it-carefully-before-I-got-angry-and-slammed-out-many-paragraphs) variety, I'm probably just going to hide it. It's an admin power that pages have. You and your friends will be able to see it and give each other high fives, but no one else will.<br /><u><br /></u><u>Arguing with "You should be writing" macros:</u><br />Uh...whatever cooks your churro, boss. You do you.<br /><br />However, let me add a couple of things: as I dig through the depths of the internet for and/or create such memes that <i>aren't</i> a profusion of sparkling hot white guys, keep the bigoted slurs out of your polemics if you don't want to get banned. You can yell at macros reminding you to write (or whatever) like old man yelling at cloud if that's your jam, but bigotry is no more acceptable as a reply to a You Should Be Writing macro than anywhere else in this space.<br /><br />Second, I have a folder full of people thanking me. Literally hundreds, maybe thousands of messages basically saying that the daily reminders were wonderful for their motivation. I'm not going to stop because your complaints get more and more hyperbolic, but I <i>will</i> eventually assume that my page is not for you.<br /><br /><u>Arguing with other macros or posts:</u><br />If you have a significant ideological problem with a quote or an idea or post, I first invite you to sit with it and think about what <i>insight</i> it might offer. Not everything is about you. It might not be saying what you think it is. Have you read it in the best faith or are you running it through an ideological lens and assuming that I'm saying something maybe I'm not? I post things regularly that are mutually exclusive because sometimes they're for beginners, sometimes for veterans, sometimes for people who are prescriptive about language, sometimes about people who think they don't actually need to learn grammar, sometimes for cocksure folks who won't suffer an editor, and sometimes for those who need a little pick me up to their confidence. Some things are for people who want to be capital W writers and need to stop making excuses. Some are for people with executive dysfunction who need to be kinder to themselves about what they can and can't do. If you can glean a point, a conceit, or a thesis that might be valuable to some writer SOMEWHERE, maybe it isn't quite so important that you kick in the doors, knock over a vase, and make sure everyone upstairs can hear you screaming that you don't absolutely love it. <br /><br />Far be it from me to suggest that a single 280 character tweet is going to contain all the nuance or that a prescriptive tumblr post has advice that you won't be able to imagine an exception to, but if you can find something interesting, useful, or edifying to your writing, that's probably why I posted it.<br /><br />Okay, you've had a deep breath or three and you still don't like it? It's okay to let people know you're doing the opposite of endorsing the message or that you see a glaring gap in context, bring the nuance! I welcome it. However, reading clinging to a worst faith read, assuming that any advice is panacea and that you are entitled to tear into it, the poster, anyone who agrees, or ME using the most hostile and hyperbolic language you can come up with because that's how the internet works will not go well for you. Not here. Save that shit for Reddit.<br /><u><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>I posted a thing you REALLY disagree with:</u><br />I post things I don't even agree with <i>myself</i>. (Not harmful things, but stuff about craft or process.) Not every writer is going to agree on every way to be a writer--beyond reading and writing a lot. Go ahead and disagree, but if you get into that "How ever could you POST shit like this?" territory, it might be a short conversation.<br /><u><br /></u><u>Poll Nominations:</u><br />If you don't go to the blog webpage and make your nomination a comment, it won't end up on the poll. <b>If you don't go to the blog webpage and make your nomination a comment, it won't end up on the poll.</b> <span style="font-size: large;"><b>IF YOU DON'T GO TO THE BLOG WEBPAGE AND MAKE YOUR NOMINATION A COMMENT, IT WON'T END UP ON THE POLL!</b></span><br /><br /><u>How can your poll possibly not have [thing I like]?</u><br />Because no one nominated it? Or no one gave it a second? Or they did and it did not survive an earlier round? Everything is reader based. If you want to see your titles make it, get involved sooner.<br /><br /><u>J.A.Q.ing off</u><br />You might think I can't tell the difference between asking questions and "<a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2018/02/jaqing-off-in-comments-social-justice.html" target="_blank">just asking questions</a>" about something but it's actually breathtakingly easy. (Particularly when combined with "It's really obvious that you haven't actually read that.") So understand that after thirty years of being online and 15 years of teaching, I know the difference between a sincere question and bait when I see it.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGC95BeCCL5Dm3ah6khRyQ2RCVqN-S2HiOmScFFvVGE5edPCNjHxqfSYa86MTn0UPg51Aob-mxXjLxcIMOZnoeIlJFY6MJPrIMZ878p5jAzLOwG0G7w3hCkURzltE7Iyfh_-c1G87WIg/s1600/3VwfviR.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="207" data-original-width="500" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGC95BeCCL5Dm3ah6khRyQ2RCVqN-S2HiOmScFFvVGE5edPCNjHxqfSYa86MTn0UPg51Aob-mxXjLxcIMOZnoeIlJFY6MJPrIMZ878p5jAzLOwG0G7w3hCkURzltE7Iyfh_-c1G87WIg/s400/3VwfviR.gif" width="400" /></a></div><br /><u><br /></u><u>You're <b>so</b> Clever:</u><br />One of the double edged swords of a community this large is that there is often a "race" to be the first to make a clever quip with almost every post. No problem when they're funny, but sometimes people mistake clever and <i>mean</i>. If the timber of these quips seems always to be discouraging or elitist (or some other variant of shitty), you may eventually find MJ thirsts to revoke your commenting privileges.</div><div><u><br /></u><u>Shitty comments:</u><br />One of my admin powers as a page runner is to hide a comment so that only the person who made it and their friends can see it. I use this liberally when people are just being general jerkwads. You can cry your maudlin tears about free speech or whatever, but I make no bones about moderating the comments in my own space. If you don't have the decorum to treat your unpaid host with a tiny bit of decency, he doesn't have to suffer giving you a platform by proxy.<br /><br />I only ban people if they're being bigots or extremely harmful. (It's always particularly funny to watch people who say "Watch, now we'll get banned because we disagreed," go right on commenting about how I censor them.) If you imagine that you are seated around a table with everyone you're talking sipping a tasty beverage of your choice and being watched by a group of students taking a class on how to discuss issues like adults, you will probably do just fine.<br /><br />Please also see my <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2017/04/facebooks-faq.html">Facebook FAQ</a> if you have more questions.<br /><br /><br /><i><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><i style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;">If you're enjoying this blog, and would like to see more, the writer is a guy with a rent and insurance to pay who would love to spend more time writing. Please consider contributing to <a href="https://www.patreon.com/chrisbrecheen">My Patreon</a>. As little as $36 a year (about the price of a fancy coffee per month) will get you in on backchannel conversations, patron-only polls, and my special ear when I ask for advice about future projects or blog changes.</span></i></div></span></i></div></div></div></div>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-9367838052168369152023-02-02T19:14:00.004-08:002023-02-03T07:57:54.938-08:00How Can I Support Writing About Writing?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfy8QYUCXgeF6qrqTTxnTadoD_8FpYDgDZhzGFLY_1I4nYy3toIE0OpuXRdMpoGDVP_iRHzrpOrshme4T81G9lThuupn6yA_pk4xkepUTWjKb7dlsr47crvAv-AkYrKELcQ-dipnQQ2j3mKxsjyoa6jbRSPaDd4qevSkrmRPWPwlaWa2ku-324dA/s450/3-Ways-to-Support-Business-Development-by-Your-Field-Service-Team.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfy8QYUCXgeF6qrqTTxnTadoD_8FpYDgDZhzGFLY_1I4nYy3toIE0OpuXRdMpoGDVP_iRHzrpOrshme4T81G9lThuupn6yA_pk4xkepUTWjKb7dlsr47crvAv-AkYrKELcQ-dipnQQ2j3mKxsjyoa6jbRSPaDd4qevSkrmRPWPwlaWa2ku-324dA/s320/3-Ways-to-Support-Business-Development-by-Your-Field-Service-Team.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"><b>Short answer: </b>Pay the artist! </span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"><b>Long answer:</b></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">Well, there's the obvious. Flowers. Chocolates. Promises you don't intend to keep.... </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">I often get this question with caveat of "in ways that don't involve spending any money" so let me assure you that I do have an answer to this below. However, I can't stress enough how helpful money is. (2022 edit—and with medical bills for surgery all the cancer stuff approaching five figures even WITH insurance, I could absolutely use a hand.) So let me put this list in roughly the order of how useful/helpful/supportive each method is.</span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif; font-size: large;"><b>1- Sign up for an ongoing, monthly financial contribution (even just ONE dollar) through <a href="https://www.patreon.com/chrisbrecheen">Patreon</a>.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">Simply put, nothing will contribute more to the ongoing survival of Writing About Writing, support the site more, or ensure future offerings of fiction and timely articles than will a few dollars that I can reliably count on month after month and use to budget. Also, <u><b>nothing</b></u> fuels an artists' or entertainers' sense of duty more than feeling like they have a patron's generosity to live up to. (There are days my patrons were the only reason I wrote a word.) Whether it is scaling back hours at my other job or being able to give this blog full-time energy, none of it will happen if I need to make ends meet from other revenue streams. I know not everyone has a budget for flinging money at online content creators, especially in today's economy, and I don't want this to come across like I'm besmirching the very methods of assistance that I mention below, but "Support your local artist," isn't just a slogan about pats on the back and encouraging emails. If you want any artist or entertainer to be able to go on creating and giving you the content you like, the very best way to do that is to make sure their rent stays paid and their electricity stays on, so that they aren't out selling Bluetooth smart bidets on commission when they could be making more of what you enjoy.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">The easiest way to get me a regular financial contribution is through my Patreon. As little as a dollar a month helps me and will get you in on backchannel chats and polls. There are more rewards for higher commitments, but some really good rewards even at the lower tiers. I love my large donors, of course, but if one of them experiences a life hiccup, I could be down 5% of my income; so a hearty "ecosystem" of one, three, five, and maaaaaybe ten dollar donors is also beloved and incredibly valuable in the long run.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif; font-size: large;"><b>2- Make a one-time donation through <a href="https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/WritingAboutWriting">Paypal</a>.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">Not everyone can give a set amount month after month, but yeeting money at the artist will still absolutely be the most supportive thing a supporting supporter can do to support. I hate to sound like a materialist, but writing is so much easier to do when the power isn't turned off.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">A one time donation is easy through Paypal. Just look over to the left side for the conspicuously placed tip jar. I also have Venmo. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">Rarer, but not unheard of, are folks who want to set up an ongoing donation, but have no interest in Patreon or the reward tier system (for whatever reason); you can just click a box that says "Make this an ongoing donation."</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">I'm about to start a fundraiser for my medical expenses. (If you're catching up, I was diagnosed with cancer in November 2021, had surgery in December, and am currently in ongoing treatment.) Right now bills are pushing into the "low-five-figures" range. I'm starting to realize that on top of lost income, housing caregivers, and driving expenses, it's going to cap out pretty close to ten thousand. I'd like to do this independently of starting a separate Gofundme, but we'll see how it does. So far I've made about 20% of that in donations.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif; font-size: large;"><b>3- Exchanges/Creative Gifts</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">Of course money is the Swiss Army Knife of surviving capitalism. And with a normal, adult amount of bills (2022 Edit- And an abnormal amount of medical bills), it is the most useful support. However, people have "paid" me in all kinds of weird ways. They've given me gift cards. They've sent me complimentary tickets to events. They've sent me some of THEIR art (which I wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise). I even got someone's boudoir photoshoot once because they wanted to contribute, but couldn't afford to make a cash donation—I have to admit, THAT was pretty cool. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif; font-size: large;"><b>4-Subscribe!</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">Success begets success. Big numbers attract attention and draw even more audience. More audience will widen the net for folks who might be able to afford to give a dollar or two. You can help me even if you don't have money to give yourself. If folks think their carefully written guest blog is going to reach 18 people, their attitude about contributing will be a little different than if they think it's going to reach 10,000.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">Find <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/p/follow-me.html">all the ways to stalk me</a>, and pick a few of your faves.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif; font-size: large;"><b>5- Share the articles you like on social media.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">The hardest part about blogging is getting the word out. If I share a post on social media, it's all my same friends seeing it again and again. They all secretly (and some not so secretly) want me to shut up. Not everyone likes my style. Not everyone cares about writing. Not everyone can maintain their composure when it's time to use their scroll wheel. Finding my niche and those folks who really appreciate the work I am doing is tougher than running down a cephalopoid on foot (#23yearoldpopculturereferenceFTW), so helping push that process along is incredibly helpful. You have friends I've never met. Some of them might love what I do. It is an absolutely free and easy way to really help W.A.W. –– simply share the articles you really like on various social media in order to help me to find the narrow niche of people who like both what I'm saying and how I'm saying it.</span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">They're out there...but I could use your help to find them.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif; font-size: large;"><b>6- Click the little buttons. A lot.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">In today's world of web content designers and search engine competition, there is a "Red Queen Race" between content providers trying to figure out how to trick a search engine into listing them higher and search engines trying to make sure that what is high on a search isn't filler crap. Google is constantly coming up with new tricks to make sure someone who's just dropping keywords into a fluff piece doesn't end up as the first result of a search. One of the most effective ways to help an article get more traffic (by being a higher result on a search engine) is to do things like give it "Likes," "+1s" and "Thumbs Up." I'm not saying you have to click something you don't like, but if you want to help W.A.W., you might be just a little more generous with those endorsement buttons than for a normal site.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif; font-size: large;"><b>7- GIF party in the comments.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">For reasons I don't fully understand, GIFs tickle the algorithm of most social media more than a like or even just a text comment. (Especially on Facebook, which is far and away my most traffic-generating social medium.) So if you want to see a post get proliferated (especially an appeals post that might net me a new patron or three), put a GIF on that post. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif; font-size: large;"><b><br />8- Comment or drop me a line.</b></span></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"></span></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbYRvV02XQyFlmdFEK82xFN2OUoCbcP5oW-iDLWwap2sjo-vEvFynF_J1g0LF08nR8FOOACewtOa9x5mlL12iFvv0nCT8OTKAAFN6iwIlbsHP5pVQ6eXA9xe-fABIAkxMt0Qwt122pYZZAzmn2xfFBXPKOHXYv-veZ-Dd_P2KL81WyatuVP6Nx1g/s300/dawson-crying.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbYRvV02XQyFlmdFEK82xFN2OUoCbcP5oW-iDLWwap2sjo-vEvFynF_J1g0LF08nR8FOOACewtOa9x5mlL12iFvv0nCT8OTKAAFN6iwIlbsHP5pVQ6eXA9xe-fABIAkxMt0Qwt122pYZZAzmn2xfFBXPKOHXYv-veZ-Dd_P2KL81WyatuVP6Nx1g/s1600/dawson-crying.png" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I am SO a real writer.<br /> <br />Am so. Am so. Am so!!<br /> </td></tr></tbody></table><div><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">It's a thankless job. I make barely enough to get by (if I give up my car, cell phone, and eating anything that isn't a PB&J or ramen) for fifty hours or so of work a week. There have been a deplorable lack of hawt groupie threesomes since ever. Most of the time, no one makes a comment unless they've got a problem with something I've written. And half the time, I get these anonymous nast-o-grams that are absolutely intended to make my cry like the Dawson's Creek meme. It's really nice to hear some of the good stuff from time to time whether it's just an article you particularly liked, or a general appreciation of my work.</span></span><p></p><p><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;">It really does make a difference when I'm trying to get out of bed to write the next day.</span></span></p></div>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-16379117924144921142023-01-26T21:06:00.000-08:002023-01-26T21:06:40.511-08:002023 Update Schedule<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_N8ZqD8tFC3O2dJ7OC2mHN3wutqYN6JMfySORVHuYrJmNqXOrUi38190RM-nk1X2FtA-8msRyLzonDWniejcZ1rKEl96yYIIJfVXMpntGAUmWagmn_bNdC0ptq7sASOLaXOSmZwyQKzmGnDE7wI8ZYUpr2a1uY3k0WVQYOPIHhlx4TkwdRn4ohg/s1600/schedule.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_N8ZqD8tFC3O2dJ7OC2mHN3wutqYN6JMfySORVHuYrJmNqXOrUi38190RM-nk1X2FtA-8msRyLzonDWniejcZ1rKEl96yYIIJfVXMpntGAUmWagmn_bNdC0ptq7sASOLaXOSmZwyQKzmGnDE7wI8ZYUpr2a1uY3k0WVQYOPIHhlx4TkwdRn4ohg/s320/schedule.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">While most of you just click the link I put on social media when you see that something I have written interests you, there actually IS an update schedule here that we try to kind of sort of sometimes keep to…maybe.<br /></span><br /><i><b>Note: In addition to everything below, which will set up the schedule I am trying to achieve, I am going through a number of transitions from a reorganization of childcare time to recovering fully from cancer and surgery. I'm doing the best I can, and sometimes that's coming up a little short.</b></i><p></p><div><br /></div><div>I made a major change at the end of 2020. For my ongoing mental health and for my other long-term writing projects (fiction and some compilation e-books of our best articles). I am putting the days of seven posts a week and 70-hour weeks in the rear-view for good, and moving into a more quality > quantity phase of the blog. <div><br /></div><div>Yippee ki yay!<br /><i><br /></i><i>Writing About Writing</i> consists primarily of <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/p/who-is-this-clown.html">one guy</a> who takes care of a couple of kids, tries to keep up with some domestic stuff, is writing a novel, posts on <a href="https://notwritingaboutwriting.chrisbrecheen.com/">another blog</a>, posts a LOT on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/chris.brecharge">his Facebook wall</a>, and sometimes does really wacky shit like try to play a D&D game with friends or get laid or something.</div><div><br /></div><div>Okay, I'm not really having any trouble with that last one…<br /><div><br />He's also a working writer, though, so he better stop making a bunch of excuses and make with the clackity clack. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is the schedule we will generally make an effort to keep. I say "make an effort," but I have to be honest about four things. </div><div><ol><li>I have written posts from my bed with 102°-fever or from coffee shops out of state while on vacation or during hospital visits to people with cancer, so it is very likely that no matter <i>what</i> happens, you will still get more than a couple of posts a week, and I really really really do mean MAKE AN EFFORT. I absolutely fell behind this update schedule last year when I was recovering from having cancer (the mental/emotional recovery took so much longer than the physical one), but I'm definitely starting to get back into the swing of things.</li><li>I am absolutely balls at keeping on top of WHAT gets updated on WHICH days, and I am likely to start Tetris-ing the posts for the week if I SNEEZE too hard. </li><li>I am still working through the full effects of the global pandemic, including the massive, unrelenting, fully permeated burnout that comes from 18 months of 70-hour weeks.</li><li>I have mostly recovered from stage two colon cancer and the resection surgery to remove a tumor. Although the recovery curve is sometimes shallower than I would like.</li></ol></div><div><br />Thanks to my <a href="https://www.patreon.com/chrisbrecheen" target="_blank">patrons</a>, I have been able to quit part-time teaching, pet sitting*, and cut back on the amount of nannying I do as a side gig to focus more and more on writing. If you would like to help us write more and better updates, even a dollar a month helps me budget.<br /><br /><i>*I still have a couple of close, super-easy clients, so you might see me post about this stuff, but I don't run all over the Bay Area anymore.</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><u>Facebook Writing and Social Justice Bard</u></span><br /><br />Most of my major writing ends up on this blog, but some of my more throwaway thoughts don't. If you particularly enjoyed our <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2014/08/that-feminist-crap.html" target="_blank">Social Justice Bard</a> posts, I still have many bees in my bonnet.<br /><br />I invite you to follow my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/chris.brecharge">Public Facebook Page</a> (you can friend it if you send me a message, but it might be better if you follow it for a while first––unfiltered me is not everyone's cup of tea). I post somewhat more "political and partisan thoughts" there (rather than just social ISSUES) and also often post "proto-versions" of what later become full blog posts (if you're interested in seeing how those things develop). [There's also personal updates and nerdery there.]<br /><div><br /></div>I also have another blog called <i><a href="https://notwritingaboutwriting.chrisbrecheen.com/">NOT Writing About Writing</a></i> that I periodically update (once or more a week pre-covid, but now it's a couple of times a month in wild fits and starts), write personal updates, stuff about my woo-woo spiritual journeys, and post political thoughts that don't really tie into writing but that also aren't really short enough for Facebook.<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />Everything I ever write for any medium (and reruns of my best stuff) gets cross-posted to that <a href="https://www.facebook.com/chris.brecharge" target="_blank">Public Facebook Page,</a> so join me there if you want to see everything I write.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span><b><u>Facebook Page Maintenance</u></b></span></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Running my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ChrisBrecheensWritingAboutWriting">Facebook Page</a> of over a 1.1 million followers as well as maintaining all the OTHER various social media (which is essential to the fact that I get to be a working writer) is basically a part-time job in and of itself. It just happens to be spread out so that the work happens in five-minute increments throughout the day, pretty much hourly, almost any time I'm not asleep. <br /><br />Mostly I've just done this AND my writing and not really acknowledged the ways in which the aggregate of all these five minutes here and there impact a weekly writing schedule. </div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span><b><u>Prepare for More of the W.A.W Meta Plot</u></b></span></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Just a quick note: if you've been around for a while (or have dug through a lot of the first-year articles), you may have noticed that we have sort of a running plot and bizarre cast of characters here at <i>Writing About Writing. </i>We're going to be getting back into these kinds of posts.<br /><br />There is a shame spiral that I get into when I feel like I'm not updating enough, or significantly enough, and I feel like the meta plot posts are "too fluffy" and too fun. So I am more likely to try to push myself to post something significant. (Which is ironic because I'm then more likely to not make it and have to push back the post altogether.)<br /><br />However my readers have CONSISTENTLY and UNSWERVINGLY said that they like these types of posts and that they make the experience of me writing an ongoing blog more cohesive instead of just being the occasional article they want to see. So I'm really really really going to try to shut off that part of my brain that is insisting that my meta plot posts are phoning it in, and post them more often.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><b>THE UPDATE SCHEDULE</b></i></span></span></div><div><div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Monday</u></b></span><br /><br /><div><b>BEHIND THE SCENES (and an accountability post)</b></div><div><br /></div><div>While I would love to get a blog up on every day that I'm clacking away in front of a computer, I also have a significant "behind the scenes" obligation to the <a href="https://www.patreon.com/chrisbrecheen">folks who keep the lights on around here</a> that takes time and energy. Ironically, if I give these kinds of rewards some dedicated time, I'm not only going to be better about doing them, but also about the blogging itself—they both have a way of distracting me from the other as I get overwhelmed and sit in front of my computer, unable to move in either direction because I feel like I'm letting down the other.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, I consistently have parts of this job that don't involve dropping a forward-facing blog.</div><div><ul><li><u>Once a month</u> I cannibalize a day of blogging to write my Patrons a newsletter, and now that the pandemic is mostly winding out of the Shelter In Place phase, four times a year, I'm going to need to write TWO newsletters. </li><li>I absolutely need to spend a day or two every month just doing admin stuff for Writing About Writing (like catching up on emails, cleaning up menus, and the like), or it gets SO far behind, SO quickly. As it is, I sort of imagine we're going to take a year to "dig out" of the stuff I just put up.</li><li>My <a href="https://www.patreon.com/chrisbrecheen">Patreon</a> tiers are perpetually in need of their rewards. Whether it's an early-access post or just a selfie from one of my hikes, I need to attend more consistently to the folks who are devoting their financial resources to my ability to be a working writer.</li><li>Also, I have a couple of other writing projects that require my time and attention.</li><li>From time to time when we are having a VERY busy week and need a second day to clear out the admin issues so that they don't back up, you might see the easier of the two admin posts go up on a Tuesday, but mostly I'll be working hard in the background.</li></ul></div><div><br /></div><div>You will usually see an accountability post on most Mondays. I'm going to restart posting progress on other projects, and I will let everyone know what I'm working on behind the scenes. But it will be more of a bullet point memo than a post.</div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Tuesday</u></b></span><br /><br /></div><div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;">OFF!</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>While technically no "off" day is truly off (even the weekends) as I take my own advice and write every day, having Tuesdays off from the responsibility of posting an official blog represents all the hours I work on other jobs. I have spent far too long beating myself up because they don't "count." Not only will taking time off to acknowledge these things be better for my mental health and "overworked" meter, but they will allow me to attend to both them and my writing without feeling like I'm neglecting the other and getting overwhelmed because I'm not spinning all the plates perfectly.</div><div><br /></div><div>So after much garment rending and self-reflection, and some deep thoughts about how much I will take on if I let myself, I have decided to take a three days off free and clear. (Although, as I mentioned, I'm always writing—this is more about the obligation of getting a post up than whether or not I actually "write every day" like the advice I give.) </div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, I would give any human being on earth the same advice and would tell them they were being too hard on themselves if they didn't take it, so this is absolutely a case of thinking basic self care doesn't count for me. However, I have two work factors that impact my writing schedule:</div><div><ul><li>Childcare side gig (7-10 hours a week)</li><li>Facebook Maintenance (10-12 hours a week)</li></ul>I mean that should probably be two or three days off by the number of hours, but obviously, I'm not going to take THAT much time each week. I'll stick to one day (Tuesdays) and try not to feel too guilty about it.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Wednesday</u></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>We need (at least) one dedicated day a week to kind of take care of what I call "jazz hands," although it might be better described as "admin-ish stuff that HAS to get done at some point." It's not necessarily Total Fluff™, but it usually isn't exactly a new article either. <br /><br />The review of the best posts we did in the month prior takes up a post. Often we have some kind of announcement or meta news about what's going on or coming up. You might also see a single entry for the long-forgotten character lists or an update to one of the menus (along the top of the page).<br /><br />Wednesdays will typically be the days that get cannibalized for Patron newsletters, fiction, or anything else that needs my priority attention.</div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Thursday</u></b></span><br />We have a number of "types" of posts that are just a little lighter fare. Everything from SHORT <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2012/09/the-best-of-mailbox.html">Mailbox</a> questions to our aforementioned meta plot posts to personal updates. Not necessarily admin or "jazz hands" but probably a little less "chewy/crunchy" than Friday posts.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Friday</u></b></span><br /><br />Fridays, for the most part, will be The Big Post™ of the week. If you're here for the hard-hitting writing advice (with the occasional examination of how language and narrative play into broader social issues), Friday is the day to tune in. Longer Mailboxes, full craft, process, and sometimes even style articles.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><a href="https://notwritingaboutwriting.chrisbrecheen.com/">NWAW</a></u></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>I used to write posts for <i>NOT Writing About Writing</i> and either drop them on my usual days off or post on both <i>WAW</i> and <a href="https://notwritingaboutwriting.chrisbrecheen.com/"><i>NWAW</i></a> on the same day. I'm no longer going to be doing this. If I drop something on <i>NWAW</i>, I'll put a notice up on <i>WAW</i> that that is the writing for the day. I sometimes put up <i>NWAW</i> posts on weekend days.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><u>The Two-Post </u></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Commitment</u></b></span><br /><br />Some weeks aren't going to go down like clockwork, and they might be front- or back-loaded with side gigs or other commitments. My writing career is also starting to open up occasional opportunities of interest like <a href="https://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2018/08/worldcon-76-report-prologue.html" target="_blank">conventions</a>, <a href="https://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2019/06/repost-friday-nights-reading.html" target="_blank">speaking engagements</a>, <a href="https://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2021/07/interview-goes-live-off-record.html">interviews</a>, or <a href="https://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2018/10/misery-podcast-pop-culture-confessions.html" target="_blank">podcasts</a>. On the advice of my doctor, I'm trying to be better about the (literally) health-shattering 60–70-hour weeks I was working, and I'm working to whittle that number down a lot closer to 40. That's a needle to thread when you are your own boss and you know that people will lower your income if they don't feel like they're getting enough of the content they want. I can't promise every week will go down as smoothly as three posts like end-of-the-week clockwork, but I will try really hard to get three posts up each week, and I can just about promise that I will at least do two. They might just be posted off schedule––landing on a Saturday or Sunday, for example—but barring illness, injury, or fabulously unforeseen circumstances (which I must now admit would absolutely include cancer and/or surgery), I will try hard to hit three and at least do two.<br /><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><u>The Return of the</u><u> Monthly Dedicated Novel Writing Time Increase</u></span><br /><br />You may have noticed that any effort to take blogging time to give to my novel was COMPLETELY on pause during the early parts of the pandemic (and then went on pause again as I recovered from cancer/surgery). But now it is back. The hardest thing I've tried doing as a blogger is keeping my fiction at a high level of priority. It's SO easy to just write a blog, call it a day, and go put my feet up. And blogging is what I'm getting paid for, so it's even easier.<br /><br />But...as much as I've surprised even myself by discovering how much I fucking love blogging, I do want to write fiction too. Finding time as much time for both is impossible, so I have to borrow from Peter to pay Cliché. While I am getting traction out of writing an hour or so of fiction first (so that then I still have to do the blogging in order to do "a day's work"), there may still be times where the needs of fiction completely take priority over blogging.<br /><br />I'm firmly in the "Write Every Day" camp. But how much I write, what I write, and what I'm impassioned to write can sometimes still be a creative ebb and flow of being at <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2012/02/enter-dragon.html">my Muse's</a> whim.<br /><br />I'm also going to try something new and interesting. Each month I'm going to take an ADDITIONAL, <b><i>cumulative</i></b> day off to sequester myself and work on my book (as well as possibly other fiction). This isn't the only time I'll be working on my book, but I'll be diverting my blogging time towards it as well. I'll start with <b>one</b> day in September, and then <b>two</b> in October, and <b>three</b> in November and <b>four</b> in December. I'll reevaluate how things feel to my patrons at four extra days off each month—at that point I would either be updating only twice a week (if I spread the days out) or taking a full week off every month (if I took them all at once). It might depend on how close I am to finishing or a draft or something.<br /><br />Hopefully, I'll have something to show for these days off by the time Patrons might begin complaining that I'm not updating enough, but I hope that the transparency and gradualness both help in that regard.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><u>Vacations</u></span></div><div><br /></div><div>I've learned that I need some regular time off to keep my energy levels and output high when I <b>AM</b> working. Expect me to take a few days to a week off every quarter (three months) or so. Trust me, you might get a few less posts, but it'll keep the ones that go up much fresher.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><u>Yule</u></span></div><div><br /></div><div>You know that two weeks that starts a few days before Christmas and kind of goes until the third or the fourth of January? Yeah, I don't work that. It's busy enough. I can barely figure out what day it is most of the time. I'm rubbish. Don't ask me to get posts up. </div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><u>Election Week</u></span><br /><br />I'm adding something that I basically realized today (I first wrote this on 3/5/2020). I'm going to take a break in our "regularly scheduled program" during election weeks. Midterms, primaries, obviously the presidential ones. I just need to acknowledge that the writing that happens will be on other blogs (like <a href="https://notwritingaboutwriting.chrisbrecheen.com/"><i>NWAW</i></a>) and in other places (like my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/chris.brecharge">Facebook page</a>) and that unless I am backing someone polling at 90 points, it's very, very, VERY likely I'm going to have at LEAST one day where I need to go back to bed into a pillow fort with ice cream.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><u>More posts?</u></span><br /><br />There <i>MIGHT</i> occasionally be a fourth or even fifth (?) post in a week. Usually this will happen when I <i>need</i> to cover some ground on "blog business." (Like when I revise an old article so much that it deserves a fresh post, update a menu, write a new answer for our <a href="https://www.chrisbrecheen.com/p/faq_2.html">F.A.Q.</a>, or otherwise do something that needs to get done, but doesn't fit into our usual posting schedule). In this case, you might see an extra post pop up from time to time on the weekend or two in one day. Fiction will also usually go up independently of our regular schedule. It's less likely to happen these days, while I'm really struggling to get back to the old posting frequency, but it used to happen a lot.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Reminders:</b></span></div><div><ul><li><i>I'm writing this blog in real time, so there will be problems with updates in real time. I still watch kids for seven to twelve hours a week. Plus my host body occasionally succumbs to these pesky Earth illnesses and requires dental and medical maintenance to serve me well. And every once in a couple of blue moons I even just take a damn day off with no preplanning. So those three posts might not always happen like clockwork or may involve going off the rails of my usual updates. Until my <a href="https://www.patreon.com/chrisbrecheen" target="_blank">Patreon</a> pays ALL the bills, my reality is that I sometimes have to prioritize paid gigs.</i></li><li><i>I maintain a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ChrisBrecheensWritingAboutWriting">Facebook page</a> for this blog that has over a million followers. From time to time a post I put up may intersect with a social issue, or just tick some people off, and then all the dillholes come out to play, and I have to spend a day basically babysitting the comments. I don't love it, but it has to be done or the bigots will chase off the people who I actually WANT to be there.</i></li><li><i>This flexible update schedule should also cut down on the thing where I'm apologizing to absolutely fucking nobody that it's Thursday and I've yet to put so much as a taco video up. (MMMMM tacos.) I know that some people are annoyed by how often I apologize, and the rest don't really care. But this also settles my own inner overachiever. As long as I get in all the entries that week, my readers (who have literally never said anything in six years about my update schedule) and myself can give me a break.</i></li><li><i>I invoke the Anything Can Happen™ real world excuse. In ordinary times, I usually have a couple of "emergency blogs" tucked away, but after surgery, I chewed through them as fast as I could tuck them away. So any bump in the road hits the blog update schedule in real time. Health complications might crop up suddenly and have me needing to do a sudden, unexpected several-hour shift or even an overnight...or maybe even more. Trust me, I'm going to feel ten times worse about missing a post than all of my readers combined. </i></li><li><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Admin Long-weekends at least once a month will still be a thing, but instead of "we might have an admin long weekend this month</i><i>," I'm going to assume we WILL have them, and maybe we <u>might</u> have a </i>POST<i>. Since I'm not working Tuesdays and this would normally fall under the purview of a Monday "Behind the Scenes" post, I will take the first Wednesday of each month off. </i></b></span></li></ul></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TWhXIGXvo3o/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TWhXIGXvo3o?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div><br /><br /><br />Also......folks, if you like what I do, support your "local" artist. (In this case "local" means more independent, amateur, and two-bit than literally down the street.) The pandemic is not yet over, there's still a long phase of transition to work through, and I'm not in a financial position to completely give up my childcare side gig or pay someone to take over the admin of my Facebook page (both major time sinks that pull from my writing hours, but cannot be avoided without losing income that I don't yet have to spare). </div><div><br /></div><div>If you want to help me focus on writing (without all the side gigs), yeet a few dollars into that "tip jar" at the top left, or even better yet sign up to be a monthly patron <a href="https://www.patreon.com/user?u=3202389">through Patreon</a>. (You'll also get in on the back-channel discussions about posting schedules, big changes, and upcoming projects.) I have bills to pay like any other starving artist, and though my schedule is a lot better than it was three years ago, even three dollars a month (just $36 a year) will go a long way.<br /><br /><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b><blockquote><b>Note</b>: Hi there, Mr. Elephant. I guess we should address you.</blockquote></span></i><i><br /></i><i>So....yeah. I <b>ABSOLUTELY KNOW</b> that there is a pretty loud contingent of "Who Cares!" from the other side of the Internet, and I'll give you all a nod if this isn't your cup of tea. It's cool. You do you. Posts such as this one are not my least popular kinds of posts (that honor is reserved for meta posts about why there's no regular post…for some reason), but on the other hand, not every post can't be the barnburners of me replying to social justice hate mail. </i><br /><i><br /></i><i>However, I'm not going to stop posting my update schedule…every single time I adjust it.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>One of our mission statements is to </i><a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2012/02/share-my-experience-as-in-real-time.html" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">keep "The Process" transparent and give you updates in real time</a><i>, so there will always be an occasional hat tip to the meta. I want people to understand that writers struggle with their own productivity, schedules, and discipline. We are </i><u>constantly</u><i> dissatisfied with how much we're writing (or not) and trying to redefine ourselves, fiddle with the knobs, and find that perfect air/fuel mixture of writing vs. all the other parts of our lives. I want folks to see that someone who is making a paycheck doesn't have all the answers. I want them to see how their work/life balance matters, and how easy it is to fall into working TOO much or not enough, and </i><b>either</b> one<i> causes problems. I want them to see that a successful blog doesn't require nine updates a week (and, in fact, that's too many). And I want them to see how artists are constantly struggling to get it just right because we are at once human with our ambition and drive, but also human with our INCESSANT need to eat and have shelter. We don't just eat rainbows and shit brilliant prose. Even if a follower or fan never uses my own update schedule or productivity demands on myself as a formula for their own success, let it be a comfort realizing how flawed and human working writers can be.<br /><br />I want you to see how messy and non-magical it all is.</i></div></div></div></div></div>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-47307043493022078152023-01-09T15:26:00.000-08:002023-01-09T15:26:18.542-08:00Follow Writing About Writing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirQCIod6k04r9IEPhxeTIXKeSJM1NKvWRAetXWt7t30B-ZlaOKvVjJPFyetdDWeiEtIumwQIZ2nIVenh46olhgdoY9MskURPxC8rYfkjZ7kvtTNGcVlE6FDTvhzQGBkjntQnHRunDm6A/s640/M12291-Follow-Us-on-Social-Media-Landing-Page-Banner.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="232" data-original-width="640" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirQCIod6k04r9IEPhxeTIXKeSJM1NKvWRAetXWt7t30B-ZlaOKvVjJPFyetdDWeiEtIumwQIZ2nIVenh46olhgdoY9MskURPxC8rYfkjZ7kvtTNGcVlE6FDTvhzQGBkjntQnHRunDm6A/w640-h232/M12291-Follow-Us-on-Social-Media-Landing-Page-Banner.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: large;">Interested in following Writing About Writing? Or Chris Brecheen as a writer?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">If you're trying to follow <i>Writing About Writing</i> (or if you are trying to follow ME as a writer), it might actually be confusing to navigate all the different ways I am online and what goes where.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>Writing About Writing</i> is on several social media, but each medium is updated a little bit differently. Some get every post I make, no matter how major or minor. Some media are privy to a cycle of "reruns" where most days I cycle through the popular posts of the past so that new folks can see old posts they may have missed (and old fans can be reminded of treasured classics).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Some social media have different signal-to-noise. Some I update in other capacities. Some are fire and forget. In some, I post my writing that is not "about writing," like the blog NOT Writing About Writing. Other places, more strictly ABOUT writing, pretty much keep it to this blog and it's updates along with macros, puns, and "You should be writing" memes.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Here are a few questions I get a lot:</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>What should you follow if you want to see everything I write? </i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">You want <a href="https://www.facebook.com/chris.brecharge/">My Public Facebook Page</a>. Follow it (or friend it if you check out the guidelines below). Though be warned that it can sometimes be like drinking from a fire hose. I will post everything I write, including reruns, but I ALSO post navel gazing, proto-posts, Jack-Handy-caliber deep thoughts, amateur political punditry, social justice thoughts, macros, silliness, and geekery. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>What should you follow if you basically want all the official posts I write, but not a bunch of crap about politics, video games, my day, or social justice?</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">You want <a href="https://twitter.com/WritingAboutWr1">My Twitter</a>. Every post from every blog plus the reruns. I never post anything there that is not a Writing About Writing or Not Writing About Writing link. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Beware though: I cross post everything I write to Twitter, but I don't post anything else. So it is perfect noise-to-signal if you only want to see my finalized writing, but not if you're looking for memes or something.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>What should you follow if you basically want the </i>Writing About Writing<i> blog, but almost nothing else. </i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">You want the <i><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/146781396220937">Writing About Writing Group</a></i>. TWO posts most days (one new and one rerun). There is one meme (but only one) that is the prior day's best from the page. I almost never post from my other writing, and I almost never post more than one meme.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>What should you follow if you basically want memes, puns, articles, and "you should be writing" reminders and don't really care about reading my blog?</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Okay, that's cool. No no. It's fine. Really. While I put some aloe on this burn, you want the <i><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ChrisBrecheensWritingAboutWriting">Writing About Writing page</a></i>. Lots of memes, macros, puns, and comics and it's easy to scroll past the occasional post from my blog.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>What should I do if I want all of these things? All of it! Give me more!!</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Follow the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ChrisBrecheensWritingAboutWriting"><i>Writing About Writing </i>Facebook<i> </i>Page</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/146781396220937">The <i>Writing About Writing</i> Facebook Group</a>, and my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/chris.brecharge/">Public Facebook Page</a>. Then go to the following button on the page and set your preferences to "See First." I will warn you that you may see some repeat posts, but this if you want to miss the <i>fewest</i> things I post, this is the way.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnGTGAQ7KKXEVb78oX1iS4xRwfbM3j7sTbFlQ3Vm86BYjTAT4t5qr0oESd_5vnKCh3Jb3oZInAdgesfMjNgmbF7xvSjsPGe5KDbrXDQI5j3bkItcIGBPRJTvoyxpNd-rKWS8IACae2aw/s1000/huc-ff-000185.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnGTGAQ7KKXEVb78oX1iS4xRwfbM3j7sTbFlQ3Vm86BYjTAT4t5qr0oESd_5vnKCh3Jb3oZInAdgesfMjNgmbF7xvSjsPGe5KDbrXDQI5j3bkItcIGBPRJTvoyxpNd-rKWS8IACae2aw/s320/huc-ff-000185.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All nearby Mandalorians in unison:<br />"This is the way"</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The "Join this site" button on the left, toward the bottom of this (and every) page. </span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Following <i>Writing About Writing</i> through Google's Blogger allows you to assemble a collection of blogs you follow. Most people following the blog this way have their own blog through Blogger, but it's not necessary. (You only actually need a Google account, which many people have through Gmail.) You will be notified when I write a new post.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Pros</b>- Shows all updates (minor and major). Updates in a timely manner.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Cons</b>- No reruns. No posts from any other venues. Blogger usually takes a few hours to get the latest post up.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">R.S.S. Feed </span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /><i>Note: Google has recently discontinued FEEDBURNER, but if you still want an RSS and/or email feed, <a href="https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/best-feedburner-alternatives">here is a page of alternatives</a>. </i><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">If you have an RSS reader, you may like to simply be updated by having your RSS feed updated with the text of my latest post. If you click on the Feedburner button AT THE BOTTOM of the page, you can subscribe to Writing About Writing through a number of RSS readers including FeedDemon, Netvibes, My Yahoo, Shrook, NewsFire, RSSOwl and more. <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6D-PbaGBgz5aSR35eT68cH9xmNDInZLyyUoL1zCJ7o1xO0tiP1t8j-x7eRnkXE81EdpBJJmF8Kn-DaXj_1oVo2uPi3lL0Ha1TGC3MxiNcyaiwBpXPAqd9MUmXzL-ijf1jmZwEzg7UJA/s646/Screen+Shot+2021-05-25+at+3.12.57+PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="174" data-original-width="646" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6D-PbaGBgz5aSR35eT68cH9xmNDInZLyyUoL1zCJ7o1xO0tiP1t8j-x7eRnkXE81EdpBJJmF8Kn-DaXj_1oVo2uPi3lL0Ha1TGC3MxiNcyaiwBpXPAqd9MUmXzL-ijf1jmZwEzg7UJA/s320/Screen+Shot+2021-05-25+at+3.12.57+PM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of many Feedburner alternatives at the link above.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Pros</b>- Shows all new updates (major and minor). Updates instantly.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Cons</b>- RSS feed does not include reruns (even the Greatest Hits I like to cycle through). No posts from other venues. Many RSS readers are JUST text, so you won't see the images that are part of the posts. Also, if you get a little behind on your feed, catching up feels Sisyphean and knowing the next update is coming feels like the sword of Damocles. (Gotta get my Greek metaphors on.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Email Notification</span></b> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">….has been disabled by Blogger.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I'm really sorry. I will keep my eye on a replacement. When I'm making enough to pay all the bills with writing, one of the first orders of business is going to be hiring a web designer to completely overhaul the site and have all the cool things that I can't figure out how to do.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://twitter.com/WritingAboutWr1">Twitter</a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">(That heading is the link to my twitter--just click on it) </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I know Twitter is a mess with the Elon Musk thing, and it's turning into everything I hate about people who think they're free speech advocates (but who are really just bigots who don't like social consequences) getting their hands on the gatekeeping power of controlling a medium. However, I am currently not making enough to take the 15% traffic hit that not posting to Twitter would cost me.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Pros</b>- Gets all written posts by Chris (reruns, new, other blogs, everything).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Cons</b>- Gets only a little of anything else.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ChrisBrecheensWritingAboutWriting">Facebook Page for <i>Writing About Writing</i> </a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">(That heading is a link)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>W.A.W.</i>'s Facebook page is its whole own thing.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In order to build an audience on Facebook, I spend a lot of time posting memes, macros, "you should be writing" reminders, inspirational messages, videos, and whatever thing about writing I find interesting and want to share.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">This may seem counterintuitive, but I actually try NOT TO POST TOO MUCH FROM MY BLOG. The audience I've spent years carefully cultivating will not stick around if things get spammy. Most of the FB audience is there for the shenanigans, not the blog cross-posting.<br /><br />You can increase your chances of seeing posts by setting the page to "see first," but you'll never see everything……because Zucc. FB does something horrible frequently enough that if I could som</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCtZo8EjSS2YHwKePDNIMbHun23hZR6kxwhCGRIFzmDHEFQaFWGnciQXUqif6WshfzTedjPdVD2A0HFrovOGeBo7dE_KxnlvSqxV4e0FptYgoQA7EQj9o_40QcBSD4DKW-3-U5KKwVsw/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-04-17+at+3.33.04+PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCtZo8EjSS2YHwKePDNIMbHun23hZR6kxwhCGRIFzmDHEFQaFWGnciQXUqif6WshfzTedjPdVD2A0HFrovOGeBo7dE_KxnlvSqxV4e0FptYgoQA7EQj9o_40QcBSD4DKW-3-U5KKwVsw/s0/Screen+Shot+2019-04-17+at+3.33.04+PM.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click "See first" to see more. <br />But because FB wants page admins paying money<br />nothing you do will ever get you everything I post.<br />(You have to visit the page periodically and go through our history for that.)</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Pros</b>- Lots of other fun stuff going on. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Cons</b>- Lots of other stuff going on which. Also the FB algorithm prevents page followers from seeing every post so some W.A.W. posts will get lost. Not a good place to get all the blog updates if you want them. Enjoying anything on FB requires a shower with steel wool and industrial cleanser. Facebook is the Antichrist.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://chrisbrecheenwritingaboutwriting.tumblr.com/">Tumblr </a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">(The heading is a link)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I joined Tumblr after Facebook's latest round of content throttling. Then Tumblr started doing it too and THEN they axed LGBTQIA+ content because of overkill compliance with Fosta/Sesta. These days I'll post all my blog stuff (reruns too) including from the non-writing blog, and a few of my well received memes very similar to my FB group except more memes and I sometimes I share other Tumblrs or something a little social justice-y. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Pros</b>- Blog posts from all locations. Best meme of the day. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Cons</b>- Somewhat limited presence on Tumblr. And I share other Tumblr posts about social issues from time to time.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/146781396220937">Facebook's <i>Writing About Writing</i> Group</a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">(The heading is a link)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Different from the FB page, the Facebook GROUP will only have the blog posts (usually two a day) and a single macro/meme/infographic that is kind of like "The prior day's best."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Pros</b>- Mostly just blog cross posts. (Reruns and current.) Once-a-day "best of" macro/meme.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Cons</b>- Nothing else.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/chris.brecharge/">My Public Facebook Profile</a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">(The heading is a link) </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">My Public FB profile is a melange of personal updates, posts about politics and social issues, geekery, things I find about non-monogamy, introversion, and pop culture. But it will also include some "behind-the-scene" thoughts about writing, running a page, and the creative process. (And sometimes complaining about some of the people I run into on the page itself.) If you wish there were more "Social Justice Bard" posts, this is a place where you can read the proto-versions of some of them as well as the ones that never make it to the blog.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">You might want to follow for a while and decide IF you want to send me a friend request. I'm definitely not everyone's cup of tea with the geekery and the social justice stuff. 99.9% of my posts are public, so you really wouldn't be missing anything except the ability to comment.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">If you don't care for my (very) occasional social issues post on other social media, you will like my profile even less. I write about that stuff almost daily. I can be a bit much for people. I post a lot. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I have a Commenting Policy for this profile. You should read it before charging in. ESPECIALLY before charging into a contentious post. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">If you do want to "FRIEND" me, send me a PM with your request. (Don't worry, I check my "Message Requests" inbox at least once a day.) That account gets around 100-200 friend requests a week. I reject most of them because I don't know if they're there to try and rent my page or just pick a fight in the comments. So send me a message along with the request.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Pros</b>- See more of "me." Get "behind the scene" updates. See "alpha" versions of posts and thoughts that never quite make it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b>Cons</b>- I post a LOT. I am not shy about my liberalism/leftism. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.instagram.com/chrisbrecheen/?hl=en">Instagram</a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">(The heading is a link)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Yes, I even have an Instagram. It gets a couple of memes each day and a very occasional link to my blog on some super relevant picture, as well as the the occasional selfie (although self-promotion demands that I point out my <a href="https://www.patreon.com/notifications">Patreon selfie tier</a> is still the best way to get those and nature pictures I take with my snazzy camera). </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.patreon.com/notifications">Patreon</a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">(The heading is a link)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Though Patreon is less of a social medium, my patrons do get pictures and content through various tiers that are not available to anyone else. Newsletters, early access to posts, and the occasional post about what's going on that my regular readers aren't privy to. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Others?</b></span> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I would love if something better existed than these few (oft problematic) sites. Anything. Right now, though, I am fettered. For all Twitter's muskiness and Facebook's throttling and trying to squeeze blood from my stones (and even restricting my account for no reason and not telling me why), these sites are what have made it possible for me to be a working writer.</div>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-61930516536302773202022-12-29T20:04:00.003-08:002022-12-29T20:04:55.935-08:00"About Writing" is Coming Soon<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxQakyYUHQ5tu0XXIGs3cANtXs7NTgQadSSePXSvUA0KcKLOCn0If1VL4FgtXlnPJlcrMHoL_ig9bNTuO3cIcdpqTRBb24zG_Cs56wfMrIHnpUXPnuuU5JLXt-6JfLRV-xqv74sfbIE5an4Nq05VA0V6rutFSUZuzt26gjkIT2SE7aGd4qhqKxqg/s708/63adebc1a51b3d00185b3283.webp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxQakyYUHQ5tu0XXIGs3cANtXs7NTgQadSSePXSvUA0KcKLOCn0If1VL4FgtXlnPJlcrMHoL_ig9bNTuO3cIcdpqTRBb24zG_Cs56wfMrIHnpUXPnuuU5JLXt-6JfLRV-xqv74sfbIE5an4Nq05VA0V6rutFSUZuzt26gjkIT2SE7aGd4qhqKxqg/s320/63adebc1a51b3d00185b3283.webp" width="316" /></a></div>Just a reminder that during the ten days between Solstice and New Years, I take off from blogging here at <i>Writing About Writing. </i>However, I have also been writing about my recent woo experiences over the last couple of years at my other blog…<a href="https://notwritingaboutwriting.chrisbrecheen.com/">which you can find here</a>. <br /><p></p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-67919809838130141692022-12-08T17:00:00.003-08:002022-12-08T18:56:21.166-08:00Nine Things For Writers to Let Go Of<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcZgXKVch8oOMqHslGpVdYbi77JNg374bUSahB0f5omloy2wNbCgJ4ozD5QYbxceimCYK6Urr-55ZZWmt7qwm5J_eX2E5h-i9n_xzjeymhrwK6fmjBlamaM3G8AisIzi4HEu4aZI7NIasBKPsmzaSQ4sE4F7CKN1Csygeu34d4YQx3xGXlKQcebQ/s500/1_ms_Dacti8WmvMeInLoaRNA.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="352" data-original-width="500" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcZgXKVch8oOMqHslGpVdYbi77JNg374bUSahB0f5omloy2wNbCgJ4ozD5QYbxceimCYK6Urr-55ZZWmt7qwm5J_eX2E5h-i9n_xzjeymhrwK6fmjBlamaM3G8AisIzi4HEu4aZI7NIasBKPsmzaSQ4sE4F7CKN1Csygeu34d4YQx3xGXlKQcebQ/s320/1_ms_Dacti8WmvMeInLoaRNA.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>I don't write much about my woo-woo practice here. I write a little in <a href="https://notwritingaboutwriting.chrisbrecheen.com/2020/12/solstice-ritual-navel-gazing.html">my other blog</a> from time to time (and there may be more coming), but it tends to be something I am circumspect about around most folks. Usually my reaction when I talk about anything like being genderqueer, pansexual, non-monogamous or pagan—when folks demand to know "what does THIS have to do with writing,"—is probably the opposite of what they intended. It makes me want to write about that stuff MORE. But my practice is mostly personal and I don't like to proselytize. <br /><br />However, last night was the "long moon." (Also sometimes "cold moon" or "oak moon.") It's the last full moon before the solstice. That's an astronomic term, not just for us new age folks who like to wank off with our moon water. And whether you consider lunar cycles to have any particular spiritual significance or would just prefer to consider a social psychological practice, the long moon is a time where a lot of people ritualistically let go of the fetters and thoughts that no longer serve them.<p></p><p>For me, it's a tricky practice. I don't just let go of every terrible event or relationship or moment that's ever happened to me. Some of those experiences have galvanized me, and sometimes the worst things I go through end up leaving this indelible goodness in places and ways I could never have expected. And as I tried to carefully edit my list, I started to realize how well some of the ideas I wanted to let go of mapped onto my own career and creative life.</p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">So I came up with a list for writers.</span></p><p><br /></p><p><i>[Before we go ANY further, I want to take a moment to talk about the gaslighting effect of toxic positivity. Letting go of that which no longer serves us is NOT THE SAME THING!</i></p><p><i>We're not going to always look on the bright side. There's no benefit to feeling guilt over negative emotions. Just because "it could be worse" does not mean it isn't bad, or a person should never feel bad feelings. Not everything will work out, and the universe is cold and uncaring—not your secret conspiratorial pal. (The tendency for everything to work out is more accurately described as privilege.) Not everyone gets a happy ending. And on top of the ways in which negative emotions are ignored and shamed, toxic positivity can fountainhead a whole movement that tries to whitewash systemic and systematic injustice with "love and light" and call any attempt to accurately recognize such injustice as "negativity." <br /></i></p><p><i>For some folks, some of the items on this list cannot be simply willed out of existence no matter how intense one's spiritual practice. Some will require years of therapy. Some need meds. Some </i><i>of the items on this list (in some cases all) will be made worse by </i><i>mental illnesses, and just wishing them gone on a particular full moon night won't fix the problem. Some may be chronic in the lives of a number of writers, and they will spend a lifetime working around them. I make no value or moral judgements about anyone's ABILITY to let these go. But if they can be released, a writer will be better for it.]</i></p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">1- Perfectionism</span></b></p><p>Spoiler alert. It'll never be perfect. You have to find the sweet spot of "as good as you can get it for what you're trying to do" and then let it go. If you're trying to write a literary masterpiece, maybe you put in a few more drafts than if you are punching out the 15th popcorn novel in a series so that your fans will buy it up and keep your rent paid for the next six months. But whatever you're trying to accomplish, at some point, it's reached its glass ceiling of limited returns. And that's when it's time for you to do what all artists should do, and move on.</p><p>Perfectionism just leads to anxiety, procrastination, and a fear of failure that will stymie ANY progress.</p><p>Make it as good as you can (for what it is). Done is better than perfect. </p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">2- Comparative Benchmarks of Success</span></b></p><p>There will always be someone with a more widely read blog or better selling novel or who is just a little further along in their career. To say nothing of the Stephen Kings and Neil Gaimans and Colleen Hoovers who eclipse us all with their phenomenal success. This has never been clearer to me than having entire MFA cohorts gawking at my relative success while I try to justify the expense of eating at Panera for the second time in a week. I bet Stephen King gets Panera as often as he….okay, maybe best to let this go.</p><p>We are absolutely SOAKING in a commercial culture that wants us to compare ourselves to each other. (Often so we'll buy a product that'll make us feel better about that comparison—see below.) But these comparisons lead to feelings of envy, depression, and are inextricable from a certain virulent sense of entitlement about what we are due. Better to focus on the work and how to continue forth with the best possible effort day after day.</p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>3- Rampant Materialism</b></span></p><p>Look, there's a whole movement that tries to shame poor people for going to the emergency room or for eating anything but beans and rice. Fuck that. FUCK IT. We all require safety, which includes food security, shelter, medical care, and not worrying about the clicking noise that the only car available we have to get to the job two towns over has started making. There are an awful lot of people who have nothing to cut out of a budget and who have to do what they can to make ends meet. Believe me. I walk a neighbor's dog for a few bucks anytime I want Panera. </p><p>But there is a level of materialism that a writer could do without. This is not a well-paying career until/unless one is well established with a LOT of work in the rearview. Everything from being secure on a tighter budget to not having to work long hours at some job that takes you away from writing will be served by not letting a never-sated lifestyle obsession dictate the unending quest for more and better stuff.</p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">4- Limiting Beliefs/Negative Self-Talk</span></b></p><p>You can't do ANYTHING you set your mind to, no matter what the cishet white male motivational speaker with the six-figure salary says you can. And acknowledging systemic and systematic injustices and inequalities in a world rampant with both is not somehow what's holding folks back. No matter how clear the thought, or how many candles are lit, no one can manifest themselves out of real-world limitations. </p><p>But there is a needle to thread, especially for a writer. If you give oxygen to your catastrophic intrusive thoughts, you create a reality in which these objectives are just as impossible as you believe them to be. If you keep thinking that you can't write that book or no one will ever want to read you, you are very likely to talk yourself out of even trying. Then you <b><i>definitely</i></b> won't get it done. </p><p>Sometimes there's a fine line between blithely spewing rainbows up people's butts and a simple belief that you can accomplish <b>something</b> worthwhile if you keep trying. (Maybe not exactly what you wanted, but something.) Not every positive thought has the ability to alter your reality…but ironically, most negative ones actually do.</p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>5- Concern for the Opinions of Others</b></span></p><p>Please understand that I'm not telling you to go publish your unedited NaNoWriMo novel because other people's opinions are useless. I'm not telling you that you don't need an editor or peer feedback or to listen to anyone. You have to be willing to listen to some people. <br /><br />But it's up to you who.</p><p>If you sit around and worry about the opinions of everyone, you'll never get it done. It's just too damned scary. MOST people won't like what you do. People won't like your style. They won't like your content. They won't like your politics. They won't like your philosophy. They won't like your adherence to a style guide that puts in the comma when they wouldn't have. They won't like your adherence to a style guide that leaves out the comma that they would have put in. They won't like that you said "fuck." They won't like your joke about cishet white dudes. They won't like that you eat at Panera. There are eight billion people in the world, and even if you somehow manage to reproduce the outrageous, phenomenal, unthinkable success of She Who Shall Not be Named and sell 500 million copies (which is far from being LIKED by everyone who buys a copy, BTW), you still will have 15/16ths of the world basically unimpressed by you. MOST people aren't going to like you. And if you sit around caring about all of them, not only will your simple act of expressing YOURSELF suffer, but you'll never find the people who will think you're great.</p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>6- Your Past Failed Goals</b></span></p><p>You either hit them or you didn't. <br /></p><p>Kudos if you did—or got close. </p><p>If not, don't dwell on it. Get up. Dust yourself off. Set new goals—perhaps slightly easier ones. This is a new day/week/month/year. </p><p>I wanted to be published by 30…then 40…now I'm thinking 50 might be a stretch. </p><p>But if I let my failure at 30 define me, I'd never have a writing career. Hell, if I let my failure to write two articles a week during my cancer recovery define me, I'd be sunk. </p><p>If you aren't failing at goals from time to time, your goals are too easy. Set new ones. </p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>7- Saying Yes to Everything</b></span></p><p>Protect your writing time. <br /></p><p>Protect your writing time.</p><p>Protect your writing time.</p><p>I can't tell you what your priorities in life are. Family? MMORPGs? Sex parties? Dating? Eating at Panera? Off-road mountain biking? But if you say yes to EVERYTHING, there's nothing left for writing. It's really that simple.</p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>8- The Excuses</b></span></p><p>We've all got them, <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2012/11/15-excuses-writers-make-that-arent.html">and most of them suck</a>.</p><p>You'd be harder pressed to find someone who DOESN'T think they have a book in them…along with a list of excuses as long ass their arm for why they haven't written it. <br /></p><p>If you don't want to write, don't write. That's okay. No really, that's really, really, REALLY okay.<br /></p><p>If you do want to write, you have to let go of the excuses.<br /><br />[Insert a Panera joke here.]</p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>9- Hubris</b></span></p><p>Negative self talk is one thing. Thinking you don't need an editor or that your first draft is ready after a quick edit is another. Get rid of both.</p><p>If you want to be a writer, you have to let go of the idea that you are a gift to the written word. You need an editor (maybe two). You need to revise. You need to trust the process and rewrite rather than just polish your first draft. You need to get messy.</p><p>If you just want to self-publish, admire your own book on your own bookshelf, and never even sell enough to buy lunch at Panera, don't let me get in your way. But if you want more than your pressured-into-it friends buying your novel, you need to release your ego.</p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-24982720425919244762022-12-02T15:49:00.004-08:002022-12-04T13:47:34.391-08:00What CAN You Do (Prompt) <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsveebu8oSamHGg-4BCh9nRBGZuIDVY6xMrrylghxii3hEBNSGhqmvUh0oRiJFh9OgxDj5OofinaZIIR0_d74rPBhsrbcDGnoro0avU_Sox_Vxvpte_n2lDYRAyjJj8EnAaGHmnX0tUlfao7cXtSCN5ZcE6iuS--QRzV_4jiAm86L5NOXS45kxsw/s890/SmallSteps-811.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="890" height="114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsveebu8oSamHGg-4BCh9nRBGZuIDVY6xMrrylghxii3hEBNSGhqmvUh0oRiJFh9OgxDj5OofinaZIIR0_d74rPBhsrbcDGnoro0avU_Sox_Vxvpte_n2lDYRAyjJj8EnAaGHmnX0tUlfao7cXtSCN5ZcE6iuS--QRzV_4jiAm86L5NOXS45kxsw/s320/SmallSteps-811.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Are you having trouble writing…or maybe writing the way you once used to?</p>Today's process prompt has two points of inspiration. The first is based on the cry I have heard from so so SO many writers that the pandemic is destroying their productivity. Even when it's not "The Pandemic™," it's the pandemic. If it isn't social distancing and risk assessment literally and directly affecting their ability to concentrate or enjoy writing, maybe that is making everything just a little bit worse. Life continues to be life-like—pandemic or no—with its break ups, deaths, massive upheavals, moves, and general lifey bumps, but toss in a pandemic and you have fewer support mechanisms, fewer mental resources, fewer enjoyed activities, and just fewer emotional reserves, and more baseline anxiety. I've seen more people unable to establish or reestablish a daily writing habit in the last couple of years than ever before. It's entirely possible that most of us could keep writing through most of these trials and clichés on our own. It's just that when the life is already being sucked out of you, there's an aggregate effect.<br /><p></p><p>The second is a more personal font of inspiration. Recovering from cancer has been a slow process and I'm often not quite where I think I am in that process. I'm definitely doing better, but I can't seem to reach even my own modest goals most of the time. If I want to do three articles in a week, maybe I do one or two. I look at the calendar and think there's plenty of time to write a big article and then one of the kids gets sick.</p><p>Of course, I sing the praises of <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2012/04/morning-writing-lessons-of-brande.html">morning writing</a> (and later a <a href="http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2012/08/the-floating-half-hour-of-writing.html">floating half hour of writing</a>) if you're trying to jump start your creative flow, but sometimes even that seems impossible. Sometimes even thirty minutes here or there might be daunting or just getting up and getting out o, and then you need to take a step back even further.</p><p>Do not despair if you failed NaNo. Or if you can't seem to focus for long enough to get anything written. Or if you've tried to restart an hour of writing every day for the last month. You just need to break down your goals even further.</p><p>There's this idea of tiny goals—if you're not familiar with it, it's pretty easy to understand. Instead of setting goals that feel too big and are overwhelming, you set a much smaller goal. Even a reasonable goal might feel daunting so you set an EVEN SMALLER goal. Instead of meditating for twenty minutes a day, you sit in your meditation spot for thirty seconds a day (and see if you want to do a little more). Instead of doing a five mile run, you put on your running clothes and go stand on the street for two minutes.<br /></p><p>So instead of thinking of a reasonable writing goal, think of one that is entirely too easy. Something that feels trivial—silly to even mention. Instead of writing for thirty minutes, just write ONE SENTENCE. Or if you're feeling totally baller, do a paragraph. But the point is that you don't do something you think you SHOULD be able to accomplish. You do something that is absolutely too easy for you. <br /></p><p>Set a goal that you can't possibly fail at. </p><p>Sit down. Knock out your one sentence. (Or one paragraph. Or five minutes. Or whatever.) </p><p>Of course, once you're there and you've done a sentence, you might want to just do one more, but you don't have to. You're done. And you have one sentence more than you had before. And maybe the next day, you make it two sentences because one was so darned easy. </p><p>Sometimes a full goal is daunting. Sometimes we just need to get ourselves into position and inertia will start to carry us forward. Sometimes we need to put one in the wins column and take a victory lap instead of feeling like a failure. Don't be afraid to set the smallest of goals, knock them out, and then see where you are. </p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-16959351169396622632022-11-28T17:17:00.001-08:002022-11-28T17:17:17.696-08:00Where Would I Take a Guest (Non-Writing Mailbox)<p><i><span style="font-size: large;"></span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjINPmPR9hRrkuUKHFvgR7a_0cwQ9FdxhmkqN91WTnwIbo1MP79wizQd78dVlEXnBEgGHsqukIdhjZPzhKtrz3Xnz7FyeUoSicOxOl1pdT8Ec8jLQJfJXxThP97SKB62F9eh6lIFqt6nW-lFXhFUXhKoV7jT9ulS1qxUJMex9Lg0kPcPMEEncYI0w/s750/image.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="422" data-original-width="750" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjINPmPR9hRrkuUKHFvgR7a_0cwQ9FdxhmkqN91WTnwIbo1MP79wizQd78dVlEXnBEgGHsqukIdhjZPzhKtrz3Xnz7FyeUoSicOxOl1pdT8Ec8jLQJfJXxThP97SKB62F9eh6lIFqt6nW-lFXhFUXhKoV7jT9ulS1qxUJMex9Lg0kPcPMEEncYI0w/s320/image.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></i></div><i><span style="font-size: large;">15- If you had a friend come to town who’d never been here before, where would you take them that wasn’t necessarily a big tourist spot? Or maybe you would take them to a tourist thing. Who knows :) <br /></span></i><p></p><p><b>[Couple of notes: </b></p><p><b>1- <u>Non writing questions</u> are going into a full 20 Questions post when I'm done with all of them, but there are way too many to not break them up into separate posts.</b></p><p><b>2- I'm still looking for questions to answer in my mailbox. Mostly writing questions, but you can send me anything and I'll get to it eventually.]</b></p><p>This has happened a couple of times, and I'm usually not much into the tourist spots myself unless there's a specific place that a guest wants to go. I'll take them to Alcatraz or to see Fisherman's Wharf or the Golden Gate Bridge if they are wanting that experience, but I'm much more likely to find something they like and tailor a local adventure to that. If they want to see the ocean, we head down to Half Moon Bay and take a hike along the cliffs and then down to the beach. If they want to see a museum I'll take them to the DeYoung (or Cal Academy if they're a big nerd). If they want a vigorous hike, I'll show them the Lafayette Reservoir rim trail. If they like to eat Mexican food, we go on a Fruitvale taco crawl. </p><p>Still, I rarely do that either. A lot of my visitors are more of the "hang out and enjoy each other's company" type. We putter around locally. Maybe go for a hike. Or perhaps we just knock out some grocery shopping that I need to do anyway. We hit a few local restaurants. There's lots of talking. Maybe we watch a movie or something.</p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-84566448555367215712022-11-11T17:08:00.001-08:002022-11-11T17:08:19.925-08:00Can You Smell What the Chris is Cooking?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjJ73jXZ_ZmzUs9c6SjS1sj0h3-Wy1mpwojrbM2MZ5mFCKG6NjimTbgfRQK7fWtswUaeUu4jqayDGgqI2oItqw0DN6dW7C56TRBHBvRHhXxEO309TxzdKxdBLTv70y9dLaKo04EH3Fp3v-kfj9yp3ypxKX_SerDbmW9jHGUMPFQn0aTzYfWd5kcQ/s2500/191009-cooking-vegetables-al-1422.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1667" data-original-width="2500" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjJ73jXZ_ZmzUs9c6SjS1sj0h3-Wy1mpwojrbM2MZ5mFCKG6NjimTbgfRQK7fWtswUaeUu4jqayDGgqI2oItqw0DN6dW7C56TRBHBvRHhXxEO309TxzdKxdBLTv70y9dLaKo04EH3Fp3v-kfj9yp3ypxKX_SerDbmW9jHGUMPFQn0aTzYfWd5kcQ/s320/191009-cooking-vegetables-al-1422.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>It's been a quiet week here, but I'm hoping by next week, you will understand why—or at least get the first hints of what is going on that I've been so busy with. Today was Treble and Clef's observance of Veteran's day, so I basically had about four and a half extra hours of childcare. And it looks like I've gotten nothing done this week. <br /><br />I'm not going to lie—I'm still stumbling more than I'm cranking out the word counts. It's been a long and slow road to recovery. But the posts are coming and a major project is in the works. <p></p><p>Basically what happened is that my editor came to me with their part of something I had been hinting that I wanted to do for a couple of years now. They had done it. It was already completely finished. Suddenly, I was in a position to get a major non-blog project done. </p><p>But there was a catch…</p><p>It was about NaNoWriMo. Which meant I had to drop everything and put it all into getting this project done if it was going to be done in time to be topical. Otherwise it would have to wait for an entire year. </p><p>So that's what I did. I dropped everything and started working. I have a shit ton of editing and polishing and revision to do as fast as I can possibly do it, as well as two articles that are absolutely essential to round out the final version of this project. One of those will go live next week as part of the regular blog, and I HOPE this thing will get off the ground while NaNo is still a thing.</p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-83884370549366815822022-11-02T14:35:00.003-07:002022-11-02T14:58:22.205-07:00To Editor or Not to Editor (Mailbox)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1qi9fUBp96UyQy3J1ZwJsNDElQr3R7Dh9OUELX66joAMQaOPNQ7_Qm4p7ZCjfVbX-LHV4uPI9XqKbrAtaSbOEB6RRv-pIolQd5b2z4xp6NIRo0YwT4w8iIFrAdXL4zy8zJpbJ1QPbZ4ZHNmHc6k7WEdBkwcOA_7qVwgYZej9mz-kKy4XC_WLp9g/s479/istockphoto-1285800846-170667a.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="479" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1qi9fUBp96UyQy3J1ZwJsNDElQr3R7Dh9OUELX66joAMQaOPNQ7_Qm4p7ZCjfVbX-LHV4uPI9XqKbrAtaSbOEB6RRv-pIolQd5b2z4xp6NIRo0YwT4w8iIFrAdXL4zy8zJpbJ1QPbZ4ZHNmHc6k7WEdBkwcOA_7qVwgYZej9mz-kKy4XC_WLp9g/s320/istockphoto-1285800846-170667a.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><b>Note 1: I still need more questions to help me with my multi-week, get-back-into-the-swing-of-writing mailbox-a-thon. Please keep sending questions for me to answer to chris.brecheen@gmail.com, and they may get featured in an answer post.</b><p></p><p><b>Note 2: The multi-week, get-back-into-the-swing-of-writing mailbox-a-thon will mean that I'm off update schedule for a while while we deep dive into answering your questions.</b></p><p><span>[Remember, keep sending in your questions to chris.brecheen@gmail.com with the subject line "W.A.W. Mailbox." I will use your first name ONLY, unless you tell me explicitly that you'd like me to use your full name or you would prefer to remain anonymous. My comment policy also may mean one of your comments ends up in the mailbox. Long questions? Short answers? I'm here for it!] </span></p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">Tyler asks:</span></b></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><i>First of all--I love your blog. It's helped me shape a lot of my writing philosophy. I read Brande. I started working every day I can on writing. I did the floating half-hour. It's all helped immensely, and over the past three years that I've been writing seriously, I've noticed that I've been getting better, and I have some thanks to give to you for your advice. Thank you for all you do, and hope soon you can return to blogging--but as I'm sure people tell you all the time, take care of yourself.</i></span></p><p><i><span style="font-size: large;">My mailbox questions...</span></i></p><p><i style="font-size: xx-large;">Do you use an editor, or do you self-edit? What does this look like for you when you are posting 3 times or so a week?</i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: large;">I've been writing for three years, and have yet to publish anything. However, I've felt my writing getting substantially better over the last few months. I've been working on a short story/novella for 1.5 years or so, but while I've only recently been able to tell the story the way I want to. However, I feel that perhaps I am getting stuck on this one idea for too long. I'm not expecting to get my time back out of the work, but how do you decide when it something should be published? I feel I could wrap up the story in another rewrite or so, but when I try to work on other ideas I feel distracted by this work, knowing it is so close.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: large;">Thanks for all you do Chris, I look forward to seeing more of your work!</span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>My reply:</b></span></p><p>I usually try to open my mailbox replies with a totally hilarious joke (and believe me, they are always absolutely brilliant), but I have just got to say that it's really touching to have been doing this whole thing long enough that I'm starting to get folks writing in who have been taking my advice for years. I have a whole bookshelf section of people's first signed books with a few words of thanks for all the "You should be writing" memes or blog posts or just general advice over the years. And while my suggestion to do things like write every day or maybe skip NaNoWriMo if you don't already have experience writing at a fevered pace have always garnered a certain level of…let's say "spirited disagreement" (usually from people who have yet to hit those goals they claim rank upon their most ardent desires), once in a while folks who have gone ahead and tried what I propose take the time to write me and let me know that it actually worked like a charm and they're writing regularly and feeling much better about everything.</p><p>So to all my naysayers. "Nyaaaah!" Where's YOUR fucking bookshelf of signed first editions, huh? </p><p>Okay, that was petty. I'm being petty.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyy0luH6yIETwGYOzCQ848Ue7ReaNl75q_xJdQkg7A17x7hVKwf8HTtz29XCm19mo-97DpJHSK0VpMp9wdhKdLvXe2VaI7r-qjZ1tX5FpKnej62TlTYV7d7XX3Gy_oGvSzs7_GX_EWbDQ6wPla5tH4PQiPyD_upuCvX__cgIevMVsjlgVYtA0PHQ/s1486/download%20(18).jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1486" data-original-width="1219" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyy0luH6yIETwGYOzCQ848Ue7ReaNl75q_xJdQkg7A17x7hVKwf8HTtz29XCm19mo-97DpJHSK0VpMp9wdhKdLvXe2VaI7r-qjZ1tX5FpKnej62TlTYV7d7XX3Gy_oGvSzs7_GX_EWbDQ6wPla5tH4PQiPyD_upuCvX__cgIevMVsjlgVYtA0PHQ/s320/download%20(18).jpeg" width="263" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No, not TOM Petty. <br />Jesus Fucking Christ, who is in charge of picking the pictures on this blog? <br />Why won't they back down?</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>So Tyler, it turns out your first question is a lot easier to answer. I work with an amazing editor. And it's a good thing too because if you go back to before we worked together, it's REALLY painfully obvious. Not only do I make lots of mistakes (particularly when it comes to where the commas go) but there's just this noticeable dip in quality. My editor doesn't just fix my grammar and spelling. She also helps me be….a better writer than I am—or at least the best writer I can be. She teases out what I mean to say and helps me sharpen and tighten my language. Once she's gone through a draft, it's just a much better piece of work. <br /><br />Occasionally I finish a post too late to get it in front of her before I need to post it, or it's just really short and I think I can probably keep it mostly error free on my own. (Narrator's voice: They couldn't.) This is inevitably when I end up finding a sentence I didn't even finish, an idea I expressed badly, and half a dozen grammar mistakes….in the first paragraph—of course that's after I've posted.</p><p>So yes, editor is good. And if you can't afford one, work out a trade. And if you can't work out a trade, at least get some peer review. And if you can't get peer review, at least get a second set of eyes from someone who isn't trying to bang you. This is part of the process for a reason. We all suffer from knowing what we MEANT when we wrote something. </p><p>The more complicated question is when you NEED an editor (and how many drafts you should do), and that gets into the tricky land of revision. I hate to answer your question with a question, but how important is this writing? As my attempts to go forth without an editor indicate, you should probably have at least a second set of eyes for anything you expect to be read. <br /><br /></p><p>Imagine a logarithmic graph….</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB1CbAJK8BW1LgpDayw_sWS-0uNXO4Xo9gUZVdukh7vroZNazEBTueMuvaL-PS81C2nI29N1pTK8T25rlTQzs2AxPfKBqxlIKEXLfTDXQst29uOc12Fl2affzlefUUMgZiJZ9MIQSO7_bzvhMbyWyRapFoq_DAwuSRzFXvilhOK7r5_-LBgSk8EA/s1360/material-QAxFqMuF.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="616" data-original-width="1360" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB1CbAJK8BW1LgpDayw_sWS-0uNXO4Xo9gUZVdukh7vroZNazEBTueMuvaL-PS81C2nI29N1pTK8T25rlTQzs2AxPfKBqxlIKEXLfTDXQst29uOc12Fl2affzlefUUMgZiJZ9MIQSO7_bzvhMbyWyRapFoq_DAwuSRzFXvilhOK7r5_-LBgSk8EA/s320/material-QAxFqMuF.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Or just look at this one if you have trouble imagining <br />calculus in your head.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p>So revision and editing is like this graph. The first draft to the second draft will be unbelievable improvement. VERY notice. Much improve. Wow! Then the change from the second draft to the third draft will probably be somewhat less noticeable but still quite apparent. From third draft to fourth, you might feel like you are getting limited returns even though you are still improving upon the work.</p><p>Your efforts to keep polishing will keep yielding a better and better draft, but the curve will start to flatten. To get a draft that is as much improved between draft 2 and 3, you would have to do draft 4, 5, and 6 (in addition to 2, and 3, of course). Yes, it will keep getting better. There is basically no point where another pass by an editor won't find SOMETHING, but how willing are you to put in that effort? Yes, the returns get more limited. It will take longer and longer to yield a significantly better draft. How much time and energy do you want to spend improving this? Is it your Great American Novel™? Or is it the content for a random day's blog post? Masterpieces are probably most discernible from what I call "popcorn books" because they go through somewhere around five to ten more drafts. <br /></p><p>And this is one of the painful truths of art. Perfection is a goal we must strive for but can never attain. We can just get closer and closer (like the flea in the thought experiment who jumps half the distance from point A to point B every jump). And eventually we have to decide that our work is good enough for what we're trying to achieve, call that work complete (as complete as it will be), and move on. </p><p>Deciding that a piece is ready for publication is a very personal decision if you're self-publishing (and a very gatekeepery decision if you're traditionally publishing). Obviously, I can tell you when something is clearly NOT ready (draft one…maybe two…lots of grammar errors…maybe a few continuity problems…and a chapter that is basically your freshman composition essay on why Mario is a scathing indictment of capitalism), but as you clean up your work and improve it, this becomes an increasingly subjective decision. It really has a lot to do with whether you feel the work is ready to go out into the world, and there's almost no objective way for someone else to tell you. Even in traditional publishing—where you would think you would be getting a more "ready/not ready" objective value judgement—factors like how popular the genre is matter way more than some rubric of quality. Seriously, things get published (traditionally) all the TIME with glaring errors in grammar, confusing wording, and absolute shit prose. </p><p>So I hate to leave you with a bit of a non-answer, but it's really up to you, your sense of how ready your work is, and how close to perfection you want it to be. <br /><br />I will give you this one freebie though, Tyler. When writers are starting out, they tend to underestimate how much revision and editing their work needs. It is a tragically common error among new writers to assume that they just need a grammar polish. I promise promise promise pinkie swear that you (nor anyone else) will be the exception to the rule that you are going to have to do some big revision. For most starting writers, it will take a <i>significant</i> number of peers FAILING to tell them that they are unsung literary geniuses (and maybe even saying, "this was a little confusing and stilted") before they begin to put their ego to the side and consider editing and revision (with peer review) a crucial part of the process. If you are new to putting your work out in the world, ERR ON THE SIDE OF TOO MUCH. Later…(much later)…you will start to kind of "revise as you write" and may find that some of your less critical work can be done in only two or three drafts. However, you'll still want to do multiple drafts for the important stuff, which for most of us will include any kind of fiction to be published. <br /><br />I hope that helps, Tyler. Good luck.</p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2660089177097719300.post-39704908949988257472022-10-27T16:34:00.005-07:002022-10-27T16:34:44.975-07:00Four Trips and a Funeral (Personal Update)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPxoRgp2g3fmOAqI0MApnVsWZRNEfryNkWhbyCPzd_AsDQ5eFP5tj8P4lc-gdvs8cst0cR4GXXBE8N95_thSqG2GZXOHvslbj5hUpZOzvvHIFQBvZ7Fqgt-Sj1OG0UoJckPylteJe5j_SxiWGttdo-pZ-g55JthYSVjanRqsl4eao2Qa4OdquvNg/s1920/getty_167167350_9706479704500183_94071.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPxoRgp2g3fmOAqI0MApnVsWZRNEfryNkWhbyCPzd_AsDQ5eFP5tj8P4lc-gdvs8cst0cR4GXXBE8N95_thSqG2GZXOHvslbj5hUpZOzvvHIFQBvZ7Fqgt-Sj1OG0UoJckPylteJe5j_SxiWGttdo-pZ-g55JthYSVjanRqsl4eao2Qa4OdquvNg/s320/getty_167167350_9706479704500183_94071.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div> [CN: Pet Death] <br /><p></p><p>While I wait for <a href="https://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2022/10/questions-needed-and-meta-update.html">questions to roll in from my post on Tuesday</a>, I thought I would share a little of what's been going on in my personal world. I'm not sure I can tie it into writing much without sounding like a broken <strike>record</strike> cliché from the last years or so. ("Hey life happens, folks. But you have to write. But you have to be kind to yourself. But not TOO kind. But not too mean. But kick your ass. But gently….)</p><p>One thing about the anxiety that came up for me after cancer and surgery was that I had a hard time being still with my thoughts. I was restless and had trouble concentrating on anything. For months afterwards, I really wanted to keep busy. I couldn't sit still (I would just lose concentration and start thinking about things I was anxious about if I tried), and I would dread being alone. So I was antsy, and mostly kept trying to keep busy.<br /></p><p>Somewhere in there I started planning little trips. </p><p>They weren't big vacations. A road trip here. A couple of days there. One planned a couple of months ago. One in the works since winter. One that wouldn't have been possible because of a train trip but then suddenly was when the trains went on strike. One practically a 17 hour (each way) road trip on a lark.<br /><br />And because I wasn't paying attention to where I was putting the short trips compared to the trips that had been on the calendar for a lot longer, suddenly I had four trips lined up almost back to back in the span of about three weeks. </p><p>If that weren't enough, somewhere in there, we lost a hamster. Which….like okay it's a hamster. But for the five and eleven year old, this is some of the biggest grief they've had to contend with. The feels were big and the impact wasn't easy. </p><p>Maybe the worst part is that right before these trips started happening, I felt a shift in the anxiety. Like I know I'm not all better or done with my mental health journey or anything pollyanna like that, but I definitely felt like I was a little more comfortable in my own skin and could probably sit with my thoughts a little better and didn't need every moment of every day to be a distraction from the thoughts that would creep into my head if I dared to slow down. </p><p>So there I am in a better headspace, and just a little better able to process and maybe starting to confront that I don't even particularly ENJOY having every moment filled up with socialization, and I have four trips out of town planned. (And though I wouldn't know it until I was half way through them, a very emotional funeral was going to be happening in there too.) </p><p>It's been a weird month—nourishing and rejuvenating in many ways—but also stressful in others and a difficult schedule to carve a writing routine out of. I've had to keep reminding myself that not every day is going to be ten pages on the work in progress and promises to all my patrons, but at the same time, I've tried to keep writing a little something every day so that my skills didn't get too rusty. </p><p><br /></p>Chris Brecheenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07819138776404280633noreply@blogger.com0