Writing to Survive—Updates and Thoughts on Some Tools Available to Writers

Discord and Mastodon offer nice alternatives to authoritarian social media sites

Image—My daughters made these pencil holders for my wife to take to school. I like it when they get to work on crafting projects.

Good Morning Folks!

I’m looking out the window at another couple inches of snow. This time of year it’s an endless series of stops and starts. The snow melts, then freezes, and you spend a few days ice skating over everything. This is the time of year that leads to slips and falls and broken elbows (very painful).

I don’t like mornings like this when my wife has to drive to work. Sometimes I can convince her to call in sick and we have a spontaneous date day. Snow days are the best.

The week after the Birkie is like the week between Christmas and New Year’s for me. It goes by in a blur. After the intense physical demands of the Birkie, I spend my week eating. Actually, it’s one of the better weeks of the year.

Writing developments for the first week of March

February was an awful month for me on Newsbreak. For the whole time I’ve been writing there, it’s felt like the platform doesn’t want me around. That’s probably because it’s a very conservative leaning news site, and I have an educated viewpoint.

Conservatives don’t like the concept of education because educated people are harder to control.

My earnings trickled down to almost nothing last month. However, they’re back up again. Maybe the web page is deciding it likes controversy.

Opinion: Uneducated Rural Voters Have Ruined America

As I write this, that one has close to 700 comments. But if you click on it and read the comments, you’ll find they’re overwhelmingly hostile.

I’ve come to believe that most of the comments I get on Newsbreak are from AI bots that just attack anyone who doesn’t have a viewpoint that aligns with “submission” or “obedience.” It’s pretty scary and I’ve been sounding the warning alarm for some time now, but nobody wants to believe the sky is falling.

I noticed that Substack has a podcast option. I’ve been thinking it might be interesting to do a podcast where I read some of the awful comments I receive and then respond to them. The whole point of writing is to generate some discourse right? That might be a fun way to do it.

But I’m torn about that because I feel anything I do has to be funny. I don’t think people want to endure me being irritated... Then again, there’s the opportunity for humor in reading ignorant comments. Maybe I’ll try one and see how it’s received.

This seems like a good poll question:

Oh, I also wrote an article for Medium that I’m especially proud of. Please give this one a look and share it (because it’s guaranteed to be buried):

The United States Has 3 Political Parties Disguised as 2

I’ve got a few more articles that follow this concept coming along.

Writing tools (even if they weren’t designed for that)

This week, I’ve been experimenting with two new communication resources. The first is Mastodon.

The problem writers are facing in the modern world is that authoritarians and fascists always want to control the narrative (not a new problem). That means that authoritarians and fascists gravitate towards distribution mechanisms, and they filter out any messages that might help us build a better society.

For some reason, the majority of writers like to remain willfully ignorant of this. They mope around with their heads down thinking the reason they’re not getting a book deal is because they aren’t any good. The truth is, the only people who get mass distribution are the fascists and fascist apologists (seriously, go read something and tell me I’m wrong).

Case in point, the website with the birdie. It used to be that you could post an article on the website with the birdie and it would get a fair number of eyeballs on it. But since the guy who owned the slave labor emerald mine took over, everything you post on the birdie gets buried.

Then they go on and deny they have things like “shadow bans” etc., it’s irritating.

Well, Mastodon is a response to this. It’s like the birdie web page, but apparently it doesn’t use the same algorithm to bury any content that might be considered humanitarian. It’s not as well-populated as the birdie web page, but I’ve noticed the difference in the short time I’ve been on there.

It’s almost comical how much more educated the posts are on Mastodon. On the birdie, I’ll go days without seeing anything that piques my interest in the slightest. On Mastodon, I’ll see two or three posts like that a day.

I got drawn in because Medium has a server on Mastodon (me.dm). I don’t really know how the server thing works. Basically I’ve just been using Mastodon like the birdie while crossing my fingers, and hoping for the best.

The other new thing I’ve been working with is Discord. It’s a bit chaotic, but kind of interesting. I’ve been playing around on the ‘Bouncin’ and Behavin’ Writing Staff’ server. It’s kind of nice to take a 5 minute break between articles and ask a question there.

It is a bit random though, but it’s like scrolling through a social media feed without all the authoritarian BS (almost every social media page is just fascism in my opinion).

Both of these tools need a little refining (or I have to learn how to use them better), but I appreciate more options. The more places you have to post your work and expand your audience, the better.

Finally...

Alright, I’m off to begin my workday. I’ve got braces and piano lessons to pay for, so I’ve got to crank out some articles.

Anyone who wants to support me, please head over to Ko-Fi! Don’t hesitate to let me know what topics you want me to address, or ask questions of any nature.

Have a great day!

WR