This is #Mysteemstory, Consider Sharing Yours to Make New Friends and Make Steemit a Bit More Social! Thanks!

So, I can't expect anyone else to play if I don't participate in my own project, can I. So, here, is #mysteemstory, I hope you enjoy it!

I'm the oldest of seven kids, with four brothers and two sisters. I was a preacher's kid. I've been married for 26 years, and we have 8 children, 4 boys, 4 girls, all our biological children, no twins. The oldest is 22, the youngest is 8.

I've been: a carpenter, a professional theatrical director, an acting coach, a scenic designer, and a voice coach. I started full time professional freelance writing ten years ago. I also ran a social media marketing firm for about three years.

We raised our kids in the same house for twenty years, in fact, five of them were born IN the house, with a midwife. But, after all of that time, and the house being 100 years old, it was falling apart. We recently sold it and moved into a much nicer home, thanks, in part, to steem!

So, here's how I found steemit

First, I found steemit through a horrible, derogatory Facebook post!

Picture it, a lonely freelance writer in Summer of 2016. Work was slow and I was seeking new opportunities, when out of the blue, the universe dropped it into my lap!

I started my online experience with a blog in 1996, shortly after the term became a thing. But it wouldn't be until 2008 that I'd really get involved in earning online as a social media consultant in the early days of Facebook.

Since I learned the platform, it's been one of my most consistent sources of work. On this particular day, I was on a Facebook writer's group, when someone said, "Yeah, well, it could be worse, he could be wasting his time on that Steemit scam" so someone asked what that was. "Some site that claims they'll pay you to post, what a ripoff."

But, I was intrigued. Within a few hours I'd read the white paper and everything that existed, pretty much, as far as tutorials, or FAQs on the site, trying to figure out what the angle was. I couldn't find one. They were going to GIVE me the money to start and I risked nothing to try it.

So, I did.

I think my first post got zero votes.

But, I've started a lot of things from scratch, so I wasn't deterred. I knew I could write, I'd been getting paid a lot for it, for years. So, I tried again.

It was about three weeks in that I got my first decent payout, for about $20. I couldn't believe it. A month after signing up, I was getting multiple hundreds on posts on a regular basis. It was amazing.

Three things appealed to me

• Earning for writing, of course.And in crypto, something I was curious about, but knew nothing of?
• The additional savings aspect of Steem power. (at the time, it was a 52 payout process to power down, over 104 weeks, yikes!)
• And at the time, there was a built in residual, content could be upvoted for a payout again, on a monthly basis. (they did away with that very quickly)

Within about six months, I'd earned over 16k in steem. It was amazing. Then the bottom dropped out and I cashed it all in when the new power down schedule was introduced. I didn't regret it, it paid for a wedding for my daughter, a trip to Chicago with several of my kids, and a trip to Paris, as well as a used car I'd needed for a while.

My best steemit experience has been helping others get started!

Yeah, I've been about making a profit here, but almost from the very beginning, I started sharing what I was learning and that has been the most rewarding part. I was recently invited into a Facebook Steemit group made up, almost entirely of people who were on Steemit, due to my recruiting. That was pretty cool, I didn't even know such a group existed!

My work on Steemit is primarily fiction

As a writer, most of what I've been paid for has been non-fiction, and pretty dull. So, Steemit gave me a chance to get paid, to create! That has been amazing. In the past 18 months, I've written over two dozen short stories, four novels and started at least two other novels all on steemit! Yeah, that's pretty cool.

My goals for steemit

I want to reach twenty thousand followers by March. Yes, that is ambitious! But, why not? New people come on every day. Here are a few other things I want to start doing.

• More commenting and resteeming. I feel like I have an opportunity to be the encouragement I need, to others! But, I'm too busy a lot of times, worrying about my vote count and payouts.
• I want to get to 1 million SP. Yeah, that would be amazing. I'm 46 and if I work hard here, I might get the retirement I might not otherwise enjoy.
• I want to launch a publishing company that sells ebooks, and possibly even print volumes, for steem! Wouldn't that be amazing?

What I'd like to see on Steemit

One of the biggest changes I'd love to see, is people voting their conscience, instead of delegating, or following a curation trail. Sow some seeds. You have a real opportunity to encourage what you see as valuable content. Don't sell that, it's soooo valuable!

That, and the publishing company.

So, there you have it! If you'd like to share your #mysteemitstory Go to this post and read the project briefing. I'd love to see it! I'm personally going to read and comment on every single one, hopefully, that will mean weeks of reading and commenting because we'll get soooo many stories!