image by @wales, Dean Moriarty

Boy did I ever NOT know what I was getting into!

I'd had enough of the negativity of facebook, and sought a kinder online place. I owned no cryptocurrency, had never heard of discord or pixabay or uploaded a photograph, and had certainly never written a blog post. Heck, I hadn't written a story since tenth grade when I wrote a one (which I think was titled the Devil and Miss Jones) that put a smile on Mrs. Decker's face, and there was not much that I did that got a smile out of her. I still remember both her smile and my story. My she devil wore knee high white patent leather boots and was irreverent. I kind of miss Mrs. Decker now. She was kind to me when my Aunt Katy died.

But I digress. For some reason, even though it was months before a post of mine made as much as .01 stu or garnered a comment from a human (@vdux thank you for being my first ever human!) I persisted. I posted a poem nearly every day, and spread my worthless 100% upvote everywhere I could. I posted, I commented, I upvoted, and I resteemed.

What did I get for my efforts? Messages that I had run out of RC and not much else.

Here's a haiku I wrote and posted at this point in my Steem journey:

In the beginning
I placed my most treasured work
and no one noticed

I'd seen the @mariannewest freewrite posts and read, commented on and upvoted a number of them. Somewhere along the line of my life I had convinced myself that I could not write fiction, certainly not anything like the brilliant stuff I was seeing submitted for those freewrite prompts.

One day @fitinfun and I exchanged a few comments on one of her posts. She encouraged me to try a freewrite. I thought "No one will read it even if I do post it, so why not give it a shot?" and lo and behold I wrote an actual story in five minutes, shocking myself. Here it is, and it's pretty darn good if I do say so myself. I got tipped! (Thank you @wandrnrose7!) I got comments! I made .06stu! This story emboldened me to write more freewrites, and my life had changed right then and there for the better.

I COULD WRITE! I'd been lying to myself for almost 50 years.

Then came my adoption by @freewritehouse. I don't know who nominated me (I was still utterly lost on steem) but THANK YOU SO MUCH TO WHOEVER DID. For one whole week, multiple people read my stuff! I made pennies, which felt like striking it rich after months of nada, zilch, nothing. My followers soared over twenty! Should you care to know more about my progress from my first human upvote to my first freewrite, check out this post I made thanking @freewritehouse for my adoption.

Now I write stuff that blows my mind. Honestly, I can not believe the stories that come out of me, especially the freewrites. That there is some kind of magic going on.

Steem and @freewritehouse helped me access my magical powers, and that does not suck.

But my posts were still making next to nothing and sometimes not even that. A very special fellow came to my rescue, Uncle Bruni (otherwise known as @wonderwop) by showing me the ropes of SBI. Uncle directed me to contests that were doling out SBI and I started winning! Just like that, gone were the days of my posts making .00 stu. Bit by bit my delegated RC got replaced by RC I had earned myself, and since my posts were no longer making zilch, others started upvoting me more often.

Thanks to SBI, I had arrived.

I love this place. I have made true friends, people who value me and I them. Discussions on even the most difficult of subjects are civil and respectful.

I learn! I love! I read! I write! I even take good photographs!

It's been a lot like having my first baby - I do not remember what life was like before Steem.

This is my entry to two contests: @ntowl's contest supporting @freewritehouse and SBI and @theycallmedan's contest How Has Steem Impacted My Life. I'm not on twitter, so perhaps I don't qualify for the second contest. Would someone please do me the favor of tweeting this post? Maybe that will work, idk.