About 6 months ago I joined Steemit, thinking I might get a few dollars for the essays and stories that I compulsively wrote regardless of whether or not I received any money for them. If there's another way I can pay for my whiskey and clean socks, I'm in. I had no idea that I'd be sticking with the platform this long, that I'd actually make friends here and look forward to reading new articles everyday. And from what I've witnessed I think it's very possible steemit has a bright future ahead. Not just because the price of SBD shot up to a ridiculous level, but because growth is sustained by the people who enrich the platform itself.
I am still just a minnow who's an aspiring dolphin, but in 2018 I'm going to commit to a writing schedule for steemit and hopefully watch this community grow even further. See you in the sea. I'll be over here eating chicken fingers, contemplating my existence, and writing short stories in my back bedroom in San Diego while knocking back peach schnapps and Russian vodka.
Although tonight, I'm in a hotel in Albuquerque heading back home from my grandparents, eating a chicken sandwich from Red Robin, while writing on Steemit and knocking back peach schnapps and Russian Vodka while my boyfriend plays Rimworld at the desk nearby. How things change.
Here are some of (What I consider anyway) my best posts from 2017.
I went to college to become an English major, but I dropped out because I thought it was romantic, and I imagined myself riding trains like Kerouac and dipping inspiration out of stars. Instead I stayed at my grandparents dairy farm for six months, writing in the basement. I moved to Austin with an anarchist boy and we stayed in a punk house with a haunted blues band, burners, and heroin addicts. I wrote articles on the Internet for $15 and in the fall, I worked at a haunted house as a deformed incest child.
100 Followers Appreciation Post // Writing and Drinking Through The Days With CryptoCurrency
I'm a little late to the cryptocurrency game. I remember back in 2011 I was a videogame tester in Austin and people in our QA room were talking about bitcoins, but I dismissed it as something only ultra-nerds would be in to. (Notice the hypocrisy, as I was a videogame tester.) Cut to 2016, and I started finally researching it. I'd been -really- busy drinking it up in Seattle and falling into a depressive hole of oblivion, so I hadn't really been indulging my usual curiosities. And well, writing. So only recently did I begin to research it, mostly for a book I was working on, and I was curious. But unless you're into spending a lot of money, or mining for pennies, there's not many opportunities to get into a crypo in this day and age of 900 shitcoins.
[Short Story] The Azalea Girl And Her Paingod
Then it was over, and he wrapped me in his arms and legs and rubbed the burnt places on my back, my belly. He did not speak for the longest time, only projected with his mind a low satisfied hum. I thought of my mother, cutting chicken into geometric shapes like it was her part time job. I thought of the old legend she used to tell me about the paingod, whenever I spent too long painting on canvases in the backroom, trying to paint back what we had before ground zero.
Nine Things I Learned From Reading A Lot Of Books
The depth and richness of human experience is the ultimate entertainment device. Humans are navel-gazing creatures, but that isn’t really a bad thing. It’s how we learn about our species, and continue our survival. We are entertained by ourselves, and by others who are like ourselves. The definition of a story cannot exist without a character. And the character, except for rare instances, is human or anthropomorphized. Even when the story is from the perspective of a dog or rabbit, we’re entertained by the things that animal does that we can relate to. We read books to see ourselves, and understand ourselves, and be entertained by the strange thing that we are. That’s why there are no successful fiction stories about inert rocks, or a sunrise. It’s not us, and there’s no action we can relate to, so it’s boring to us.
[Short Story] He Whispers Like Flowers
Mama told me not to get too close to the edge, but I fell anyways, cracked my bones in fourteen different places and wheelchaired out of the hospital bowlegged as a spider. Those bad ladies in the frills said I could never dance again. My legs didn’t heal right. I tried to demi-pointe when I pulled my skirts above my thighs and showed the mirror the knobbed, throbbing veins, the rigid dents and puckered purple bruises. I bit my lip when my ankles shivered. I whispered to my feet to shape themselves into birds like they used to, grow svelte skeletonshapes and taper right into butterfly shells, but they could not take the pressure of my urgency.
My Thoughts on Steemit So Far (3 Months) From A Professional Writer
I was introduced to Steemit a few months back by @roomerkind, after I shared a blog post on my Facebook about the relationship between writing and money. He mentioned that he'd earned cryptocurrency from Steemit, so I decided to join and was instantly intrigued. I'm a writer with several published books and have written for games like "State of Decay 2", so I try to set myself to a standard where I don't often publish things for free.
However, most writers end up writing a LOT of content that never earns a cent. I like to share a lot of weird, essay-style posts on Facebook and I decided to keep sharing them here. I managed to earn the attention of a few whales and pick up some regular followers.
Loss is Inevitable, but so is Possibility
There are relationships that cannot be duplicated. That will never even come close. That’s the nature of living in a universe that abhors a copy. We live in a world that makes unique snowflakes that all perform the same function. Kills each star in a different composition.
I bought a table and two chairs and a lamp from Ikea today. As I was putting the table together, I remembered the last time I built furniture from Ikea - a bookshelf - about a year and a half ago. It was the first time I’d ever attempted it alone, as I’d always thought myself too stupid to do anything industrious.
Grow Beautiful Things In The Desert of You [Journal]
It’s not an easy thing to be human. I have to feel all the things that I’ve denied myself to feel for so long. I have to continuously push my head upward only to be hit over and over again, because it’s the only way to learn - to be in the center of things. I have to unwind all the dirty things that make me feel ashamed of myself, and force myself to not look away any longer. To no longer be a witness to my own life.
Notes For Writers I Met at a Local Meet-n-Greet
Writing is a lot of work for little reward and there is a LOT of competition. The good news is that it's really not that hard to be above average if you put in the work. I had a boss tell me once about the "3 A's of excellence" - availability, affability, and ability. If you put in the time and are open to opportunities, are easy to talk to, and display actual skill you'll shoot above the competition. This applies to everything.
I’m used to it hurting now. I’m no stranger to crying at the keyboard. Writing to me is a full body experience. Sometimes I twist my hips into the desk and tense up my shoulders and lay my head down on the desk and type with tight fingers. I imagine that sometimes I look like a mother throwing herself on the casket of her son, or a seasick voyager clutching the railing of a boat. I spell out words with my fingers in the air or mouth them as I think my characters would or move as I think they would. If I could write in any position it’d be curled up in a fetal ball on my bed, writing with my mind’s eye, able to toss and turn as I pleased. Maybe in the future, when augmented reality means I’m no longer attached to a keyboard.
The Cat Lady is a horror game - but ultimately, it's a game about familiar pains. Susan suffers from depression brought on by the ordinary pain of living. The loss of love, the death of a child, growing old, isolation. The environments are once familiar, but distorted. Hospitals, basements, and apartment flats warp around you, leaving you feeling disoriented and alienated - oftentimes in a way that will feel familiar to the suicidal or the depressed. Oftentimes it employs a black and white palette, with small splashes of color to signify that certain objects are important.
Monsters, Inside and Out [Writer's Journal]
But the cashier at the 7-11 who’s a little slow and the girl on her phone with the husky at the dog park don’t deserve the wrath that was heaped upon me by 27 years of suffering. It’s not anyone’s fault except maybe God’s that the world was only functioning on mechanisms that were laid out since the beginning of time - and it doesn’t matter how much I yell at the ocean the waves won’t pull back, and my pain won’t go away.
You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, and my website. You can also buy one of my books here.