STATUS: Friday, July 1st

The Daily Report

I’ve already blogged twice today and haven’t done my status post, but it’s not a normal day and it’s not going to be a normal workday, either. It’s the last day before we leave in the very early morning for a flight back to Nebraska for 4th of July and family time.

I’ve been looking at how my MU pledges for June shook out, and honestly, if I just take next week off, the impact is only going to be something in the neighborhood of $30. I am still going to keep to the schedule, because it’s the start of only the second month of it, but if things stand similarly in August I’m not going to sweat missing a couple of updates around WorldCon.

Things are still pretty much happening for me here. My modestly viral Medium piece has crossed 20,000 hits and over 100 recommendations by Medium users (to say nothing of shares on Twitter, Facebook, etc.) It’s popping up on forums and mailing lists, too. It’s definitely slowed down, but it’s got more momentum 5 days out than I would have expected, and while it’s hard to convert that into long-term income, it has garnered a few new patrons, a few notable tips, and some interesting nods from unexpected people. I’m not going to mention anyone by name, but I am going to write it down, because my work is an experiment and that’s the only difference between science and screwing around.

I also got a lovely and unexpected notice from the restaurant supply company I linked to the other week, thanking me for my blog post informing people how to best use their services. That was an unexpected lift.

Author, blogger, journalist, comic book writer, and just general all around Renaissance woman Mikki Kendall gave the parody post a big boost early on in the Twitternets, and she also gave a push to my short story for June, “Women Making Bees In Public“. That was really a great experience, because she was a big influence in my current Patreon model.

It’s actually pretty much down to a combination of her and fellow Twitter luminary and novelist, Saladin Ahmed, talking about their own plans. Saladin recently launched his Patreon as a “story of the month” model after a long struggle with a word drought. Mikki was talking about something like a story of the week model, which… okay. I’m ambitious. But I can’t do that and Tales of MU, and anyway, my interests are too scatterd for the same thing every week. But them both talking about the fact that they could do this and ways to make it pay is what both convinced me to focus my Patreon efforts a little better and helped me hit on the model I ended up on, which has a short story a month as one of its features.

That’s a digression. The point is, “Bees” is showing early signs of catching on fire. I think it’s well-positioned as a follow-up to “Infidelity”, given the underlying social dynamics it’s exploring. I think the next short story, “The Numbers Game”, will likewise slot nicely in. It is admittedly a bit more of a traditionally structured story than “Bees” is, to the point that I considered shopping it around and writing a different story for July, since I have the whole month, but it’s enough in the same vein as my recent big pictures that I feel like there’s a “Strike while the iron is hot.” kind of situation. I’d rather have “The Numbers Game” come out next week when people are looking for my next thing then months from now when eyes have moved on.

So stuff’s happening.

Financial Status

 

Pretty good right now? I need to keep growing things through July, but in good shape for the moment.

The State of the Me

Can’t complain. I acquired a stubborn splinter in my foot late yesterday and I was a little concern that it would resist removal and I’d be traveling on it, but a little strategic soaking and I was able to tease it out.

Plans For Today

I have a chapter of Tales of MU to post and two to write. I might be nervous about this, except I started writing yesterday at 3:30 and had 6,600 words by 7:00. I also don’t have to finish both chapters tonight, as I’ll have parts of the overnight and the travel day.