Tuesday, 21 January 2025

The Struggle. Is Real. Newsletter Edition

 I'm sure I don't have to tell you what a charley foxtrot social media is becoming. Just this week the Americans were removed and then returned to tiktok. All the social media influencers are talking about having your own newsletter so that you don't lose followers if you lose your account.

Very good advice I guess...if your aim is just to talk at people.


For me, social media is a way to connect, to argue, to know what's going on out there...I'm not really that good at selling my shit using these apps - as you might have noticed.

However, I'm trying to take my authorpreneurship more seriously lately and so I'm attempting, once again, to have a subscriber list and put out a newsletter. Thee irony is that I did have a subscriber list, and this blog, was my newsletter. But madmimi shut down and Go Daddy has ridiculous hosting prices and so I was left in limbo, alone and abandoned, having to begin again.


So yesterday, I found substack - I mean I knew of it in an abstract sort of way, but yesterday I realized that it might be the way to build up my subscriber base. I know that I had a few regular readers of this blog. I don't know if you ever look for me now that each blog post doesn't land in your inbox but if you do...you can subscribe to my substack and have my posts delivered to your inbox once again.

Yay?

I hope so.

I'm neglecting my paid work to write this and inform you so I hope someone's listening. As an author what is your answer to the perpetual need to be in people's faces and remind them of your existence?


This year I'm not about 'achieving goals' though. I'm about living and enjoying so my blog posts will not be in linkedinese. I might rant and rave a bit, as I am wont to do. 

But.

I can promise that it'll be interesting. Maybe even fun. Come join me.





Saturday, 11 January 2025

Erase and Rewind

 

Chapter One: Awkward Menses

 

Her period was getting embarrassing. This was her third week bleeding, and the flow didn’t seem to be abating even a little bit. If anything, it was getting worse. She was seeing double and she couldn’t quite walk in a straight line. She couldn’t tell anyone though; her father would run screaming from the room if she tried to talk menstruation with him and her brother might drive her to the hospital in a panic. This was one of those awkward times, when she wished her mother had asked her to come along, when she walked out on all of them seven years ago. Well, she hadn’t so Rosemary would just have to handle this the best way she could. She excused herself from class to go see the nurse, hoping she’d be able to get there considering her vision was blurry. 


 This was a good time to have a best friend she could call on. Unfortunately, her best friend was also her panicky brother. So, she was back to square one. She walked slowly arm trailing against the wall to the nurse’s office. Nurse Sylvester was always very concerned; her eyes went squinty and she’d lean forward to listen intently when someone was confiding their problems to her. It was as if she was trying to compensate for all the neglectful parents who abandoned their kids to her care. Rosemary didn’t buy it though. She knew for a fact that it was nurse Sylvester who’d spread the rumor that Angie Lemon had gonorrhea. 

To listen to the rest of the story, click here