One year ago today: September 23, 2021, somebody paid full price.
Five years ago today: September 23, 2017, I’m driving again.
Nine years ago today: September 23, 2013, testing solar panels, etc.
Random years ago today: September 23, 2009, comments on FBI/CIA stuff.
Adventures in Retirementland. That talk with JZ convinced me I have to start acting more like a retired person. I shot back that I am not going to start going to the casino five nights a week. He means more like joining clubs. Last time I tried that, I had to start my own and we almost built a robot. Besides why join a club when I get paid to play there. Which reminds me, there’s this lady at the tractor supply store, where I will prove in a moment I was there this morning, who says she’s known me nine years and I don’t have the heart to tell her I’ve only lived here six. She’s invited me to Karaoke tonight.
The difficulty of publishing is known best to those who try it. In that sense, it parallels playing in a band. You never see the mind-boggling effort that goes into each successful project. Something else has come up, in this case, an on-line publisher who pays well for non-fiction. I admit only to partial interest because I read five or six of their recent samples and it is similar to the way I’ll describe normally tricky-to-tollow subjects. I’ll delve further and remind you one of the hardest things to do is write for cash.
There is practically no way to publish anything anonymously and even trying sends up a flare at the tax department. Myself I don’t care, but for many, that is a huge disincentive. Why? Think of what would have happened to J.K. Rowling if Harry Potter had not been a success. Hint, like most musicians I know, the people who have time to write are usually on welfare. And if they find out you can write, they cut you off. It’s happened to people I know. Unless you are absolutely certain of a bestseller, think twice about writing for a living if you are not already well-off. Not me, when I began this blog, I was so dirt-poor I wrote in pencil because pens cost money.
It was a narrow work window today but I did get the spraying completed. I wonder if peach trees naturally drop yellow leaves. I’ve added the recommended amount of iron. Now I’m thinking over the past two years the iron liquid I’m using has a shelf life. Climbing on yard furniture, I braced up the rafter across the bird area. I hear this big chirp and look up to see Junior Red, in full glory. He’s shed all the ecru feathers of a juvenile and is as perfect as a picture, which I intend to get for you. In case I do head for Tennessee soon, I braced up the sawhorses and plywood as plant stands while I’m away. You know what I can’t find? A bottle of that Shultz™ Root Hormone.
My trip to Seattle in late 2023 has not definite route planned. That means I’ll do what fits into my budget. Searching on those parameters, I’ve come up with a tour of the Snake River. It’s deeper than the Grand Canyon at spots and likewise I’ve only driven past it at night. One sure way to lose my business is to block me from your website because I won’t allow tracking cookies.
In the twenty plus years I’ve been in Florida, I’ve seen one hurricane. There is a tropical storm heading this way. The cone says winds up to 110 mph in this area by Wednesday. Maybe I will take some time tomorrow to add in those extra hurricane straps. And hope I didn’t take too long to get those tree trunks trimmed.
Caldeonian era folding.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Here’s some random quips as I plan out the weekend. I’m a hundred bucks under budget this month, which looks good on paper. In real life, it’s because nothing went wrong. I see some libtards are taking offence to women’s dating ads, the ones that specify no liberals and nobody vaxxed. Biden has finally commented on the likelihood of losing in the mid-terms and tells the party faithful to no rely on simple Trump-bashing for their platforms. Germany is already freezing and it isn’t winter yet. Some say they should burn books for heat, they’ve had the practice. (That’s a quote, I’m fully aware the books burned by the Germans were pornography of the worst sort.) The German Green party has proposed a third of all Germans be fired from their jobs to promote diversity.
It’s funny to me watching people trying to organize these days. They’ve totally given up all their personal information to strangers on the Internet. There is no way they can for the small cells of the old-school secret cells, such as the French Resistance. Every such group will be infiltrated, if not politically, then electronically. I quit stock market gambling long ago, yet one can’t help notice it has fallen below the 30,000 mark so many say is critical and now it seems it wants to stay there. No dead cat bounce this time. Trump’s new spokeswoman is just not a babe, dammit. California bans gas water heaters.
Who remembers my predictions about the Democrats having to spend a fortune propping up their incumbents? It seems that now accounts for 80% of their spending. It means they are not meeting their other commitments, which in turn cuts off their supply. Ha, a double whammy.
Now, about publishing. The site that pays for non-fiction pays a minimum of $6,000 for an article. They are on-line only. For two hours, I combed their samples and archives to see what they pay for. The average article has these characteristics. It is 19 pages like this one long, with nearly 10,000 words. Fiction is not allowed and publication is on-line only. Generally, the material reads like regular book text, which I’ll explain in a moment. These stats will change if I do more research. However, for now, each article is comparable to 4.7 days of this blog. Hmmm, $6,000 you say.
I tend to write in batches, but if I push things, I can churn out this blog in an hour a day. The time would not be a challenge. Looking very closely at the structure, there are idiosyncrasies in the best articles, in the sense that these are people trained to write who have a few years experience. Yes, Ken, I know exactly how to gauge where writers are on the Internet scale. And unlike this blog, they write in a manner more suitable for publication than posting. For that matter, none of them seem to realize there is a difference. I would have a distinct advantage there, I know more than many about what looks right when being read off a computer monitor or small phone screen.
So leave this with me, I know, how many times have you heard that? Fact is, that should give you some idea of what you are up against. For success in America you are competing with the upper crust and against the lower 80%. Connotatively, there is a huge difference. One largely undocumented part of success is that it must be sustained, although I would always have settled for being a one-hit wonder. In my lifetime I’ve had several big successes but none that could be confidently repeated. I’ve learned anything less than a nest-egg of $10,000 will just fritter itself away. Keeping it topped off never seems to work out as planned.
ADDENDUM
There he is, this Catturd guy, on Gab. He’s got like 379,000 followers. He’s the one who says good morning to everyone except, then lists today’s crop of dipshits. He’s plainly well-known but other than his rare contact with this anything I post (yes, Elliott, I do other things than write this blog) I don’t know much about his endeavors. But I do like sarcasm. Today he published that the liberal polls now show Biden suddenly and shockingly now has a 99% approval rating and this will continue right up to the mid-terms. Here are some of the ensuing comments:
They polled only his immediate family.
They used Dominion polling machines.
An after-midnight poll using absentee forms.
312% of voters agree.
One too many 9’s in the figure.
Biden supporters only exist on Twitter.
