Blogkeeping Notes for September

Hey friends,

This is not a real blog post, this is my periodic blogkeeping post where I talk about things I did lately.  And I’m a little late for the beginning of September.

I haven’t written one of these since June and I’m ashamed to say I haven’t accomplished much  until September, with being sick for two months straight and losing all of my writing projects. However, I am thrilled to announce that I am back to getting published at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette! This is my latest article, writing about politics in Northern Appalachia. I think that I will have another article with them very shortly, and I’ll add a link to the new article as soon as it’s published. I’m very honored every time the Post-Gazette publishes my work, and the best thing you guys can do to get me invited to write more is to read my articles and comment and share them all over social media. They really do notice and it makes a difference!

Speaking of social media…

everyone knows that I’m a loudmouth on Twitter and that’s the best place to get ahold of me. I also have a Threads and Bluesky account, and I’m very eager for more people to follow me there so that I can spend more time being a loudmouth on Threads and Bluesky. Right now I spend most of my time on Twitter because it’s still the biggest account and when much of your money comes from clicks to the blog, that’s important. But Twitter algorithms get a little worse all the time. Some days I suddenly have 100 new followers and sometimes I get no engagement at all. This has been terrible for clicks and made my income from people noticing my online tip jar extremely rocky as well. So I’d love to do more of my posting on other social media if I can get more followers!

Third, thank you to everyone who’s suggested places for me to go if I do a series of articles or even short videos about historic sites and tourist attractions near my home.

I love learning the history of this part of the country, I’ve done a lot of research into places I’d like to visit, and I’m frantic to get started, especially since some of you even offered to buy my ticket to museums! I know it’s been a couple of months with no progress on this project. It’s just that we’re still trapped at home without a working vehicle. I don’t even know how to express how frustrating this is and how embarrassed I am that I got swindled into buying a lemon in late 2022. This car has been in the shop more often than it’s been driving and it’s finally really unfixable. I haven’t been able to drive anywhere since mid-June. Now that Jimmy the Mechanic is helping us, we know we can get another used car and not get cheated. And with help from friends we’ve worked out how we’re going to make payments on a used car from Jimmy’s reliable car dealer friend as soon as we are caught up on rent and bills for the month. The only part we haven’t figured out is the down payment. Do keep that in your prayers because it’s an extremely tricky situation with Adrienne in sports and no longer homeschooling, to be stuck without a car in a neighborhood the school bus doesn’t go to. I’m very stressed about the whole situation.

Since I said the word “payment…”

I humbly remind you that this blog is free to read, and I get a tiny paycheck from clicks in the United States and nothing from clicks outside the country. I get a little bit of royalties for my books and I’m thrilled whenever anybody buys one–do leave a review if you like them, because that helps me sell more. I’m doing writing projects like writing for the Post-Gazette whenever I can pick them up and I get paid here and there for all of them. But I’m still very reliant on my blog tip jar, and especially on tippers who subscribe to be a monthly patron. They are the reason I can pay the light bill and keep blogging, and staying notorious on my blog is the reason I get published and paid anywhere else. In addition to the fiasco with the car, my readers know that I got very sick with a bad case of colitis in June. Before June I was really beginning to make enough from my writing to break even, and then it took  just about eight weeks to recover enough that I could go back to my writing projects, along with the usual summer slump,, and we got behind on everything. We’re still catching up to August’s rent, and September rent is due in less than a week on the 15th.

So, with a little urgency, I remind you: if you like what you read, give me a tip when you can! This is my paypal button and this is my venmo button. The Paypal says “donate” but it’s not a charitable donation, it’s just a gratuity and I report it to the IRS as income.

And if you can’t afford to support me financially, again, the best thing you can do is read and comment and share my work. That’s how I get new readers and tippers, and that’s how I get noticed and offered new writing projects.

And I’ll be back on later today with a post worth your time!