I've been lurking about this Steemit site for awhile now, mostly in the background. I was recommended by my good friend and writer, Michelle Gent, and she is one of the few people I follow regularly. A few months ago she urged me to join up and submit my work here, saying "it's a really great avenue to get your work read by a lot more people, and perhaps even make some pretty darn good money for it, too!"
I'm a writer. I've self-published a poetry book, and am working on my second one - plus a few short stories and a couple of novels that are still in the works several years later. I'm also disabled, which is part of the reason for things taking so long to get completed. Another reason is that I'm a total perfectionist in editing - which is often at odds with actually producing something that meets my own standards.
A part of me immediately wanted to jump in with both feet - I mean, what writer wouldn't want to advance their readership by leaps and bounds, and make some decent money at the same time? At the same time, I was scared to death to make that leap. What if no one read my work? What if they hated it, or thought I was boring? So many insecurities reared their ugly heads ... so perhaps I erred on the side of excessive caution, and did nothing aside from lurking in the background.
After reading a few posts lately, and a plethora of comments - some pretty ugly, bully-ish and really petty - I'm glad I didn't jump in right away. I'm re-thinking whether I even want to join yet another community that seems to diminish and dim the lights of writers who don't "tow the line" and walk the tightrope of bureaucracy. Isn't one of the main perks of writers to be able to think and write outside the box; to colour outside the lines? Perhaps I'm naive to think this is possible for any community, no matter how wonderfully it starts out.
The jury is still out. In the meantime, while I think things over and try to make up my mind whether this is something I really want to deal with down the road, I think I'll stick to writing when my health allows me ... and lurk in the background.
Michelle dragged me over here as well and I've jumped in to steemit. The place is still finding it's feet and there will be disagreements and people who are rude. It's easy to be rude from a keyboard but the vast majority of people don't take that easy road and there is far more positive comments out there.
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Thank you, that's good to know.
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Nice post. Very interesting and informative.
Criticism of one's work, both good and bad, is part of the learning process. Conventional poetry publishing hides you from the reader experience. As poetry is a form of literature that requires a significant degree of effort and thought from the reader, few casual readers are able to cope with it.
I also note that poetry accompanied by a pretty picture gets significantly more votes, about 60% more actually. Furthermore, they get more votes than views, which suggests that many people are willing to vote for a poem without even reading it.
So I suggest you start publishing your poems, and worry very little over negative comments.
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ColdMonkey mines Gridcoin through generating BOINC computations for science...
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Thank you. You seem to be familiar with poetry. (It's one of my great loves.) I write a lot of "classical form" poetry, which I realize isn't really "in vogue" anymore - but it's what I was brought up on and educated in. I'll take your advice about pictures to heart ... although I'm not sure about people voting for a poem without even reading it? Ahhh, no room for ego in writing, is there? lol.
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Thanks for coming over, JC. I really do appreciate your support, ever time xxx
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Hi @jcedwards, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads today/yesterday and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.
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I really appreciate the aknowledgement; still a bit nervous about all this, but I'm learning.
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Well, writing won't do itself...
Try some and see how it works for you
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Thank you for commenting - I'm thinking ....
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