Going into 2023 I had a plan: content, content, content. My goal was to build up the Patreon, offer lots of stuff through here. On top of that, there’s 1,001 Bad Jokes and Puns. I thought it was a pretty good plan. Unfortunately, as often happens, the plan didn’t survive execution – now let’s see what I can do about that for 2024.
But, every failure is an opportunity for growth, as long as you don’t try and do the same exact thing as last time. And, so, I’ve changed the variables, and come at it again this year. Well, and some of the variables were changed by others, and by circumstances.
I was going to head off into a long post about what went wrong, how I could have pivoted my plans, all that good stuff. Thing is, those details aren’t really that important in the overall scheme of things. What’s really important is what happens moving forward – what am I doing differently for 2023?
Well, to start with I began in 2023. As we got close to the end of the year, I decided there might be value in waiting off on starting (or restarting) some projects. Some of this stuff is already created for 2024, and part of it is already pushed into the publishing queue 🙂
First, there’s weekly content being published on here. This place has been a ghost town for far too long – so, I picked up one of the projects I had planned on doing ages ago, changed it into something completely fluff, and once a week for the next 80 weeks or so there’s a new page added here. It’s just memes – I describe it a bit better, and it’s original planning in the poorly written introduction article. I may indeed circle around someday to a least a small bit of my original plan with the memes, but, I’m not holding my breath.
Thins is, that little bit of content takes one bit of stress off of me: I know, every Wednesday, new content is going on there, even if it’s just memes and jokes. It’s not amazing content, but my ADHD addled brain is (currently) tricked into believing things are moving forward at all times 🙂
Up next is the triumphant return of 1,001 Bad Jokes and Puns. There’s a short video on the “why” it disappeared for quite a while, so I won’t get into that right now – I’ll have a much longer form content version of that coming in the not too distant future. There’s 190 jokes currently recorded, ready to process (add captions) and upload. That’s half a year of jokes, told one a day[1]
The comes something kind of… out there. I’m simply referring to it as “Davis says Good Morning”[2]. I frequently message folk and send them a hug, a hello, a memory, or whatever ”cause I’m know they’re going through some shit. Well… I had this idea that maybe I could do something kinda weird and spread that to more people. So, every morning, Davis says Good Morning and tries to inspire. This isn’t a rise and grind sort of thing – this is more about trying spread a little calm and tranquility. I know, it sounds kinda goofy when I say it, but… well, hell, if it makes people smile on a bad day, I’m all for it. There’s 2 months of that content already recorded.
Then there’s the stories. This is one of the hardest things: trying to figure out what I really, really wanted out of them. I broke it down and decided on some goals – I realized one of my things was an almost monolithic approach to it all: write books, publish books. Except… I really just don’t really care that much about publishing books.[3] I want to tell stories, and maybe make a little money at it – maybe.
My workout partner did solidify one of the thoughts I’ve had for a while: I really should send some stories out for publication and go through that whole process of rejection and acceptance. Short stories, mainly, I’m not going to worry about the big things. Then I want to follow that up with doing something I submit and attempt to win awards, mainly so I can say I’ve did it. I don’t own any trophies or awards to beat people with, so it might be fun to do that. Typically not my thing, since I’m fully self actualized.[4]
The story telling is coming on a once-a-week basis, too – a lot of these are already written. Cycle of the Muse has been setting here, unedited, for ages. Time to tell the story. But, that’s not where I’m starting: there’s a 90% chance I’ll be starting with “The Arctic Fox”, a story I originally wrote in High School, and has been rewritten many times. And then I’ll follow that up with a couple sections of First Footsteps, I think.
Because I have so many stories, I’ll be bouncing back and forth a bit. This won’t all be telling a story until it’s done, I’ll tell a story until I switch to a different story so I can finish editing or writing on the previous story.[5]
And that’s the monetization part: Jokes, memes, and happy fuzzy feelings are free. But, for the stories, most of them are going to require a subscription to the Patreon to access them. Fortunately, that’s super cheap, and helps fund things like the Kansas Authors’ Pavilion and other stuff.
And finally, there’s some blog stuff from time to time. I’ve been optimizing my life for some ADHD based improvements, so you’ll hear about things like what I’m carrying in my pocket, my new anti-focus based browser setup, my opinions on horrible online content development, and more. My thoughts will still be free on here, no matter if people asked for them or not.[6]
So, that’s 2024. It SOUNDS a lot busier than it really is – because I cheated and created all the content first. There’s some other reasons why I’m doing it all this way, but that’s also a story for another day.
[1] It doesn’t matter that you didn’t ask for these jokes, I’m still doing the damned things.
[2] I never said I was great with naming things.
[3] Think of it this way: books are the side effect, not the primary goal, of telling stories for me.
[4] I’ve been going through the various seasons of Fargo. “Fully actualized” is one of my favorite things from Season 2, because it’s just so damn meaningless in the way it’s delivered by a character who’s sure it has some sort of meaning.
[5] Hey, why be normal when you can just lean into the ADHD?
[6] On occasion people do ask my opinion.