I didn’t even bother trying to take the dog on a ‘walk to work’ yesterday. He’s happy enough zooming around the gardens and so long as his collar’s off, he’ll settle down too. That time was better spent on this occasion working.
The day started with me publishing yesterday’s blog post, which I didn’t get around to scheduling the day before. Once it was published, I posted it to BlueSky and then imported it to Medium. Next was my 5-minute tech declutter. And then I quickly caught up on emails and blog comments.
For the rest of the day I continued with my date work. This really is a 2-day job at best, and at least 3 days to get back up to speed. But it’s one I want to get back into the swing of.
I started by checking topical anniversaries in my dictionary of dates. Then I went through adding in feast and saints’ days as well as local folklore. And then I went back to the On This Day website. I noted everything that was even a bit interesting to me, and made a mental note on the way through for the one I was going to pull out and make a Take One Idea feature.
I’ve always published this as a single story, but I think I’m going to publish 2 stories: 1 with the dates and topical anniversaries; the other with the Take One Idea feature. I’ll also start to include pertinent dates in WRITERS’ IDEAS: WHERE TO FIND THEM and pertinent stories in WRITERS’ IDEAS: WHAT TO DO WITH THEM.
These are going to be 2 separate guides, but then I’ll put them together as a boxed set or an omnibus, WRITERS’ IDEAS: WHERE TO FIND THEM AND WHAT TO DO WITH THEM, depending on how long they each run.
I topped and tailed an old story and submitted it to ILLUMINATION on Medium. They published the story a long time ago, but I had to remove it when Amazon started to get antsy about my own stories appearing online. If it’s accepted, a week later I’ll resubmit it to Vocal too. I’ll do that with all of my stories on Medium, I think.
And if they don’t accept it, I’ll publish it myself.
I created a poster for Monkey Dust’s October gig. The venue had asked for it a few weeks ago, but I’d not even done their poster for their September gig yet. When I’d done the September poster, I contacted the October venue to ask if there was a cover charge on the door. They came back at the weekend that there wasn’t, so I was able to make the poster for them and send it off.
I folded some washing, put some more washing through, and hung some washing out, and I put a couple of jacket potatoes in the oven to have with our tea. I spent another hour or so on the date work, and closed everything down.
Busy stuff! Are you finding Medium useful? I think I deleted my account; I don’t remember.
You’re still on there, along with one whole story about your Christmas tree! I just followed you again in case you get an email.
I haven’t used it for ages. Pennies drip in here and there, but they’ve recently put the minimum payout up to $10 so I haven’t had anything in a few months. They’ve banned AI-generated material, which I like, and they’ve stopped ‘scraping’. But I’ve seen conflicting stories about whether you have to be a paid member or not in order to benefit from the partner program payment system. I figured I’d give it a reboot and if I didn’t earn back my annual sub in a year, then I’d knock it on the head.
I’ve also gone back to Vocal, but there doesn’t seem to be as much AI control there, and it seems that each of the ‘communities’ (categories) is a bit of an unmoderated free-for-all. Although they’ve recently added a paywall for stories – but only if you pay their annual subscription (also available monthly). They already had the anti-scraping on Vocal, which I do like. And now they have monthly bonus awards too for various categories. Their minimum payout is $35. I’ve been sitting just under the threshold for more than a year! (Because I abandoned it.) If that one earns enough, then I may take out an annual subscription, which is the opposite to Medium so I suppose that speaks for itself.
(I just nicked that par above for tomorrow’s post!)
Both platforms are okay for stories that have exceeded their lifetime elsewhere, although I do write the XX Ideas Editors Want/Take One Idea especially for Medium, as it did very well when I was doing it. They’re okay for regurgitating older material.
Thank you. That’s good to know. As I’m looking to 2025, I’m trying to figure out what’s viable and what’s not.