Blogkeeping Notes for Winter

Hey folks! This is not a real blog post, it’s just blogkeeping. I’ll be on with one of those later today.

I had to make an emergency appeal last month but this is the real, every-three-months blogkeeping note.

The first thing I wanted to let you know is that if you follow my X or Twitter account, there’s a troll account imitating me right now that will probably be zapped by the time you read this. I am not the account with the handle @PezzuloMary3, I’m the even more annoying one with the same picture, @Mary_Pezzulo. I’m not going to randomly DM you to make weird grooming conversation, that’s the scam account. I’m actually really introverted and suspicious about talking privately with people and won’t usually initiate a conversation unless we know each other.

I know very well that Twitter is extremely problematic right now, and Elon Musk is one of my least favorite people, but when you are an author and content creator who lives and dies by your work being seen on social media you have to put on your waders and participate anyway.

Besides X, I am on Facebook publicly here and I probably won’t accept if you try to friend my personal Facebook account instead, and I am also on Bluesky now and trying to post there more often. I’m working out getting a Threads account and trying to go back to being on Post, I will let you know about those when that happens.

The second news item is that I’m honored to be writing guest columns for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette pretty regularly now, and I post those articles to social media, but I don’t always remember to talk about those articles on the blog.  Lately I’ve been writing local color pieces about Steubenville and also more informational pieces about poverty, politics and social justice. If those get clicked on and talked about and shared more often, it will really help me.

And third, you guessed it, the tip jar.

I hate having to talk about the stupid tip jar, but right now it’s a necessity. I get paid a tiny pittance by the click to write content on Patheos, the checks might be as much as three figures, and I never know when they’ll show up. I also get paid a bit of royalties for my books, and I get paid for the articles I write that get published elsewhere on an equally sporadic basis, and I’m working on other projects I’ll tell you about when they get finished. I was chronically ill and stuck at home with severe fatigue for most of my life, and the past several months I’ve been very sick with the viruses Adrienne brings home from going to school for the first time, and it’s very hard to start your life over again with no resume when you’re almost forty, so writing is currently the only thing I do and I do it every day. I’m still very dependent on gratuities in my online tip jar, which I link to at the bottom of every blog post. Some people subscribe to tip me regularly, and some people throw a tip in when they can or when they’re very impressed with me. There’s a spot for a note when you’re giving a tip where you can compliment me or call me names if you wish. Those tips pay my rent. I know that a lot of my readers are as poor as I am, so I never want to pressure anyone to toss a penny in the tip jar when they don’t have enough pennies already. Just keep reading and sharing and talking about me and that really does help. If you’re already tipping now and then, thank you very much and I don’t expect more. But if you like what you read and you have the ability to keep my lights on so I can keep writing, please remember me the same way you would pay into another content creator’s Patreon. Right now I’m especially excited when people tip or subscribe to tip right in the middle of the month, because rent is due the fifteenth and all my utility bills have due dates about then as well, and it’s terrifying every single time. This month with Christmas coming up has been even worse.

If you want to tip, just go to my donate page here, click on the bright yellow button, and PayPal will walk you through the rest. I don’t know why the button says “donate” but it’s not a charitable donation, it’s just a gratuity that goes into my bank account and I report it to the IRS on a 1099 and pay taxes on it. It’s called “The Little Portion” because that’s the name of an Etsy craft shop I used to have and I’ve never changed it, but it’s really just me. I’m also working on getting a “buy me a coffee” button, I’ll edit that in here when I do.

And now back to blog posts worth your time!