Hey, I am An Internationally Published Writer From Toronto, Canada

in introduceyourself •  8 years ago  (edited)

So I think it is time to do one of these. First of all hi from Toronto, Canada. That was where I was born and raised. It is a great city, a mix of friendly placed and busy city life. It isn't for everyone but it is home. Though I do want to get my dual-citizenship with the states and travel back and forth when I get the financial freedom.

I am a writer. Have been doing it for years and was fortunate to have work published in Canada, The States, and in Europe. I have also had stories accepted in Australia and India. Currently I am working on getting out my first novel. I write a lot of scifi, as you can tell from my account, but I do not do so exclusively. I write poetry as well. This site, hopefully, will make me officailly a blogger. I want to make this a source of income in the upcoming months if I can get this account off the ground.

Outside of work I am a gamer and movie fan. My name is @whatageek for a reason :p. I am looking forward to blockchain gaming, will be cool to have coins and items in-game that are worth something. As you know, gaming can be a little time consuming, so making some side money playing would be good way for extra support as you have take a break from work. 

So far I have written about dozens of stories which have been exclusive to steemit. I might use them on different sites but for now this is the only place you can check them out.

Here are links to a few of them:

Excuses, Excuses

The City Of Dolls

PSE

The Hack

All-In

Did You Bring Enough For The Rest Of The Class

Something's Missing

Wrong Turn

Lost Time

A City In A Dome

Reflecting The Seconds

Swan Song

Skin In The Game

A Deep Breath

I have also started a group for people who post original content to help support each other, if you are interest, find the link here:

Content Makers

That's about it. If you have any questions, please write them in the comments.  

@whatageek here




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Hello @whatageek, welcome to Steem! :-)

Maybe it´s too late to welcome you on steemit, since you joined in October and have already a considerable reputation :) Regardless, I wish you a great time here! Following you for future stories

It's never too late @surfermarly. Thank you for the nice message and the follow :).

I have advertised the group and have some interest which will come to you - I have a new member - obviously SP level at effectively zero. I would like you to consider him as he has been blogging and vlogging for about 8 odd years.
Also, as I am writing a book, would love to hear your advice. It is a novel based in South America at the start and then the UK, about a child who gets orphaned. Any steers you can give me would be wonderful!

Hey @ebryans. Cool, what is the new members name? I have someone who wrote me a nice message that wants to join. He is new but is willing to put in the work. There is also a member who is getting closer to 600 who I said I would leave a spot for but I can let him in early. I was thinking I can write a post that invites all three, I will upvote them and ask the group to do the same if they want. I'll let them know they are hard workers and if we support them they will get to the 1,000 mark in no time. This is turn might open the comments to new people who want in, but I am okay with that if you are. Let me know what you think.

Congratulations on writing a book. For publishing advice I'm more familiar with shorts. There is a site called submission grinder that is free and gives you a list of who is looking for stories. I think there are options for novels there too, so it is worth a look. In terms of writing, I need to see the work to be useful. Writing is one of those hard things to give advice on, if you want it to be good you need to really put in the time and rewrite it. That is one thing I can say, you need to put the time in. If you have specific questions maybe can help :)

I appreciate that very much. If I send you an excerpt, you will get an idea of my style. I try to glean as much as I can! Learning is something I try to do all the time. Though I am touching 54, I am teaching myself to mine Burstcoin - I need to get up to speed. Blockchain might be a very good author's outlet.
When I have more certainty around possible members of the group, I shall come back to you.
There was some great activity today I saw.

Do you plan on publishing any of it on steemit? And that is the way to do it, never stop learning.

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

Re publishing on steemit? No, I want to get paid!! (Tongue in cheek joke).
One question I received. Can you expand upon and explain your no re-steem rule? It just cropped up.
Also, I replied to @jedau below, I would like you to see my reply and get your thoughts, re voting %.
@uwelang should be on his way to you

Hey, so, I just noticed that not everyone is voting 100% for the contentmaker thing, also not everyone is voting everyone which is really disheartening. Maybe you could include a call to action in your post. I really hate seeing a log where I'm voting 100% and other people are voting like 60%. It really defeats the purpose of the camaraderie that the initiative is striving for.

I will make it a point in my next post about the group. If there is no response or change may I suggest you mirror the voting power to the same percentage they are doing. There is going to be a lot of moving parts in this group, and this site, so we might have to make our own changes and work around problems to keep it working and get to where we want to be.

Sure. It defeats the purpose, but it can't be helped. Some people are just inconsiderate.

Hi @jedau, I have just seen your comment and your question is very valid. Thank you for bringing it up. The value of votes is a hot topic for me and I have been advocating for vote value for everyone to be displayed next to Reputation which, to be frank, is a less important metric.
I vote at 60% in the contentmakers tag. There are a number of reasons. I am happy to have an ongoing review of this.
The reasons: I have various voting set-ups in place. My voting power was getting down to 25, even 15% because I am an active reader and voter. If I vote at 100% and my Voting Power is, say, 25%, it is pretty useless.
I hope and believe that the contentmakers tag will grow and am assisting @whatageek, via my FB group and elsewhere to recruit good authors. Having said that in the first few days I wrote nearly all the content in the tag which gained votes. Continual assessment needed.
Were I to abandon the authors whom I have supported over recent times and who have supported me that would not be very loyal.
So, rather than brush your comment aside, I acknowledge and appreciate your comment and am happy to continually assess.
I cannot stand the 1-5% votes that I see - they are useless and cynical and actually do more harm than good in many instances if you really understand the system. I have even seen 0.7% votes!!
As it is my vote is worth about $0.002 - a metric which, 4 months in, I have only just worked out how to ascertain. Vote value is the building block of steemit, yet is the most obscure thing to find out. Happy to show you how!

how did you find out the value of your vote?

Ah, the rude man, but I think we were all getting a little flustered so I shall pretend it never happened if that is ok with you.
Vote value is my current crusade as it is the basic building block of steemit.
It does vary, as does the value of a post. If you go to https://steemstats.com/#/, you will be able to enter yours, or anyone else's username and get what you need - it is phrased in SBD etc but you will get the gist of it.
Transparency ... pah!
Namaste to you

pretending is more rude than saying what you are thinking

I am not prone to lying. I meant what I wrote. Your disbelief says more about your attitude towards someone whom you do not know than it does about me!
I hope you found the link helpful. If you want to find more helpful people I help run a group on Fb which might help you see that there are good people around.
Aspiring Whales and Dolphins

Hey, thanks for taking the time to explain, though I actually know the technicalities of how voting works here. It comes down to your goals I guess. Personally, I don't care if my own voting % is trash. I have gone as low as 26%, and even though it's next to worthless, adding that one vote to encourage someone else is what I find most important. I vote 100% all of the time because I only vote on posts that deserve it. It's a reward for the effort that the author has put into making his post.

While arguably it has next to no monetary value, the encouragement it gives is priceless. I leave comments on authors that I support to set them apart from those I just gave votes on.

I do agree that the votes that are 1-5% are next to worthless, however, I don't believe that vote value is the building block of Steemit, rather it's a means to an end. Interaction and mutual support should be the foundation. Votes are easy to give out, and its automation almost removes the human element from it.

It's good to know where you stand regarding that, and I respect your decision. I'll just have to change my rule and give you 60% as well. I would still have @whatageek for example at 100% though because that's how he votes on my posts. No hard feelings, man. We all have our reasons we act the way we do, and I appreciate you taking the time to detail yours.

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

I tried to be polite. You think you can behave differently - no!
You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

Hmm? Yeah, I'm not entirely sure I get what you mean when you said live by the sword die by the sword. I answered your politeness with equal respect, and I just said that since you're giving me 60% votes anyway, then I might as well do the same for you.

Learn how to write then - re-read your comments - you are off my voting list - end of story. I don't think you do know how anything works, judging from your comments.

Yup, I re-read my comments and I still couldn't see anything wrong with it. If you would like to get a second opinion how it's interpreted, feel free to do so. Based on your interaction, I could see that you're a very aggressive and confrontational person. While everyone has a right to act the way they do, I try to cut that kind of negativity from my life, so I've taken you my voting list as well and unfollowed you all the same. Feel free to do the same, and as I mentioned previously, no hard feelings.

Also, telling someone to learn to write is about as rude as anyone can get, in my opinion. Just so you know, I work as a software developer professionally, so even though I don't know all the intricacies of Steemit, I have a firm grasp of its technicalities. The way you reply is, frankly, insulting, and even if you consult others to interpret how this conversation went, I'm confident that they'll say I'm in the right on this one. I'm really not even sure what triggered you to go south all of a sudden.

I still remember the mutual support that we shared a couple of weeks ago, and while it was brief, I thank you for it, but I feel this is where we part ways. I wish you success in this platform!

Welcome to Steemit @whatageek :))

Thank you @pilgrimtraveler

Welcome to steemit @whatageek =) Best wishes !

Thanks @lastminuteman, you too.

hi i wont say welcome cause i came way later than you but instead i will say lets make the community grow better, (i checked some of your post and i got interested in , so followed! and waiting for more)

welcome home hey!

Welcome to steemit

:)

:)

Welcome to Steemit!

Thanks @cryptofiend

You're very welcome:)

Hello and a belated welcome to Steemit :)

Thanks @daisyd

WELLCOME bro

Thanks @indram24

Are you wellcome, hopefully glad here. not bored

I have enjoyed many of your pieces so far. May you bless Steemit with more!

Thanks @riskdebonair, happy to hear you like them :).