Wednesday

Greetings and salutations, Blog readers!

I need to find some fun community name for my blog readers, or something like that.

Anything but high pitched “Hi friends” and “Whats up family?” Because I feel like literally every other vlogger uses that.

Anyways, HI BLOG READERS!

Today is Wednesday. Health wise, I do feel better than I have been feeling, but still VERY far from 100% … am maybe at less than 50%, but I felt so shitty before that it fees like a massive improvement.

I do desperately wish I felt better, I am coughing, very congested, still get a bit feverish here and there, but, again, I feel much better than I did, so I am calling it a victory.

At work, the financial year is winding down, so I am hoping to stay on top of my to do lists and responsibilities as the year winds down.

But I am also trying to rock Blogmas and my writing, so while I can’t work on my writing at work, I am trying to at least pace myself at work so I’m not dead tired in the evening, when I get home from work.

Being sick, of course, takes so much out of me, and it makes everything harder, which in turn makes you feel even more exhausted.

I’m also behind on some stuff and I need to get healthy so I can get back on my game, and stop feeling so far behind. For example, I am behind on importing my blogs to Medium (Like by a few, all of Thanksgiving and the start of Blogmas) so I am using a little time before I leave the office to catch that up. I need to get back to my work out game too, need to add my cardio back in, and also my high intensity training, but while I know working out helps you heal, or whatever, I am NOT one of those people. I don’t LOVE working out, I just do it because i know it is ultimately good for my health, but I am not about to torture myself when I already feel like shit.

So I need to get better so I can get back on my game. In an effort to get back on my game before I feel better in an effort to have my #bloglifetogether I am importing my blogs to Medium, to catch Medium up…

Not that I really fit in with, or probably even belong on, Medium.

Not to throw myself a pity party, but considering I don’t write long articles about the “Top ten ways to make money on Medium” I am likely to never fit in with Medium. Also, I believe in my creative writing, as well as my daily blog style, and while that may not fit in on Medium, I am trying to show other writers out there that we aren’t all doing it for the money…Doing it because you enjoy it, and it’s good for you and grows your writing skill, is more than good enough.

It’s like ever since the world saw commercial success with JK Rowling, everyone wants to be some millionaire, from writing.

Some key things to remember: Book royalties are never great, even for her, merchandise played a big part in the money, and, the single most important thing to remember is she wasn’t writing a book series to earn money.

So please, for all that is holy, knock it off with this narrative of writers who make tons of money and live these beautiful jet set, quirky as fuck, beautifully whimsical kind of lives.

Not only is it straight up inaccurate, you are also contributing to the idea that true writers need to make tons of money to be successful, and that writing is some path to success.

Please stop. It leads to every Tom, Dick, and Harry all determined to “make it rich” by writing, and there is already some MAJOR crap out there in the reading world, because the market is getting saturated with craptastic bits of content designed ONLY to make money, and with no heart or soul in it.

I am completely over reading copied and regurgitated nonsense written by someone who spent no time studying their craft, no time honing their skills, and with no intention to better the community for fellow writers.

None of us need that.

Can anyone be a writer? Yes. Can anyone putting in zero actual effort become a truly talented writer? No. No they can’t. The people who are getting into writing because ‘I heard you can sit at home and just type whatever and make a million dollars” are not writers. They are greedy, normally lazy, pieces of crap, and to be totally frank, we don’t need more of them.

Look, not everyone who “has a story in their head” is suitable to be a writer. If you have a story in your head and you are willing to do the hard work, than yes, you should be…but if you want to make it rich, you should stay far away from actual writers…writers that are willing to put their heart and soul out there and do the work, they don’t need to catch your greedy suck.

If you are offended by anything I am saying here…Sorry, but…uh..If you wanna prove me wrong, go get your ass to work writing. When you are done, assuming you actually do the hard work of getting your ass to writing, I bet you will agree with me. And, plus side, you will be a writer. Huzzuh.

Without crapping too hard on these fake ass writers who are only interested in a paycheck, I am going to wrap this up here, and make my way home for some dinner and relaxing before diving into the part two of this blog. I don’t like being negative, but I do like being realistic and practically, and not always sugar coating crap, or following the herd of whats trendy…which is apparently how to make money on Medium/Blogging posts.

Please know, if you have a story, you should be a writer…but if you only want a payout, you shouldn’t…but even if you DO want a payout, I DO think you should try writing anyways….Just…maybe focus on the writing, and see if success can follow that effort…as it does…with any successful writer.

Wednesday Night

Well, it is Wednesday evening. Bret, and others, have been trying to get me to watch the American version of The Office, and we are on the sixth episode in the first season. It’s been pretty painful thus far.

But, Bret says it gets better. But, while this episode plays, I figured I would update the blog, and work on getting Blogmas day five scheduled for tomorrow.

Bret actually showed me an app that I had actually suggested to him, and forgot about, that, as it turns may work out better for me to make visual graphics, at least until I get more pictures stored up for my own.

Thankfully, all of these pictures are completely free and fair to use, which is great, and it helps me get better at figuring out exactly what kind of photos I will need. I am trying to provide fun illustrations that allow an audience to see my world a bit, without me having to spend a million dollars on illustrations.

Please understand, it’s not that I don’t want to pay for artwork. I would love to. I have no money, and I would like to not have to charge for any of my creative writing. Therefore, I need to use free stuff, or make my own.

I do plan on mostly making my own, photographing actors or models, etc, to make the specific images I want, but, to use fair use images, and be able to give credit to other artists would be a great way get some basic stuff out of the way. With the sites I use, you aren’t required to give credit, but I would always rather give credit, when and where able.

Anyways, this new app has more options, and, the paid version offers more, at a more fair price, so I was thinking I may upgrade that one as well.

I saw all if this to to explain a picture I worked on today, edited it a bit, to change it a up, and make it a big more of what I needed for the illustration. This is one for Roxy, big surprise, that kind of explains her a little bit.

It’s a picture I have used on this blog before, actually, but I edited it with some text and filters, and made it appropriate for my mysterious character who goes by a name that isn’t even her name.

And I say all of this to say that making these photos have really been opening up my eyes for the kinds of photos I want to grab, and I am actually making a master list to try and shoot certain shots for my publishing this year.

Thankfully for me, I work at a place that sells special FX makeup, so I can make some cool makeup tricks happen to make any zombie shots or whatever as well, for publishing Flake City this upcoming year.

Anyways, I can feel you getting bored with that as you read it, so lets move on to another topic.

Lets talk about Blogmas, for this blogs “mas” section, shall we?

Why Blogmas?

To get better at blogging? Better at balance? Better at writing?

Well, when you google search “What’s the point to blogmas?” It autocorrects to Vlogmas, because Vloggers are more popular than Bloggers, namely because people don’t read that blogs as often as they watch vlogs, and that’s okay.

It says the point to Vlogmas, however, is to give your audience a glimpse into your life.

It is also to grow your audience, and to get a little festive, because holidays.

For me, it’s to stretch my skills at balancing my creative writing and the blog. I also tend enjoy my statistics when I post a blog a day, and I also enjoy the daily challenge of putting together another daily blog, keeping my day to day life interesting…all that stuff.

It is also fun because, as always, blogging forces accountability, and that forces me to stay kind of positive, and also always looking for the positive in a situation and not a bad.

Also, to actually do the things I need to do. This weekend, which is when I think I will be on the mend, I plan on working myself back into my work out routine, with a nice long bike ride, maybe, if I am on the mend enough and feel like pushing myself, I will do my high intensity work out, but, mark It down now, I will be biking this week on the stationary bike.

A glimpse of my life? I think you all know it a bit, it involves working, writing, smoking weed, and this month, HOLIDAYS.

I do plan on discussing holidays, this year during Blogmas. Each of the holidays on the winter months, I am hoping to discuss, and I will also be discussing how Bret and I have started trying to observe the winter holiday months.

But, for todays “mas” in Blogmas, I wanted to discuss the point of Blogmas and my goals for it.

Google wasn’t helpful for what Blogmas is for, but to me, it is another challenge, just like NaNoWriMo, meant to help grow your skills at a writer and your daily habit of writing.

I already have this habit pretty well on lock, but, I also will skip a day and make it up another day, and this forces me to write every day, which really reinforces not just the word count every day, (my goal being 3,000 a day) but the habit of writing every day, not just hitting that word count on average (9,000 on one day to make up for two days of not writing). This is a good thing, because I do knock out some great writing on those 9,000 word days, but sometimes that writing gets wasted on things like dialgoue or a massive blog update because I didn’t bother updating for a couple days, or whatever. Instead of diving into 9,000 words in Flake City, slowly chipping away at the magical mystery that is unfolding in the zombie outbreak of Flake City, I am stuck writing boring dialogue to develop characters, or updating the blog with some stuff I did but never wrote about or took pictures for. If I spend every day writing, not just averaging 3,000 a day, I can spread that writing out, and really dig in more, on those 9,000 word count days.

Which, yes, is very similar to why I like NaNoWriMo, but this is a much more forced to be daily situation, so Blogmas serves its own super great purpose.

So, this has been my “mas” of this Blogmas post, Day Five.

I hope you have enjoyed!

❤

Abbi