Dead Bloggers Society

Jenny Lawson made a post (yeah, I say “made a post” because “posted a post” sounds stupid; shut up) yesterday, answering the question of, “Is blogging dead?” – which was perfect timing, since I’d started writing yesterday what I’m posting today, because yesterday was one of those awful what’s the damn point? days that my depression house guest often brings over for an uninvited visit, so I didn’t post it. I didn’t even finish it, to be honest. See if you can spot where I rage quit.

So anyway, here’s what I started yesterday that I wasn’t going to finish until I read Jenny’s post and found the will to keep going. Or at least to not give a shit.

It could go either way, really.I think I had some kind of epiphany last night, although I guess maybe it could’ve just been gas. I don’t know; I’m not a doctor. But whatever it was, I realized an Important Thing I thought I’d share with you today.

YOU ARE WELCOME.

At my last job, I made very good money. Sure, it came at a high price – namely, insane amounts of unpaid overtime and (eventually) a wholly incompetent manager who was more Paul Blart: Mall Cop than he was an effective leader in a Fortune 500 company, but Hillbilly Voldemort doesn’t really matter right now. I mention him only as contrast, and to put the Good Money into perspective.

Most people either hate their jobs, or fuck it what’s the mother fucking point of any of this fucking shit nobody cares fuck it.

Aaaaand that’s all I managed to write yesterday. Whoever figured it out gets gold stars and a +10 bonus to their Perception stat. CONGRATULATIONS.

Dem teef, tho

So yeah, there really is no point to blogging. But that doesn’t mean it’s dead; it was just never alive in the ways most people thought it was. Jenny rightly points out that you’re not going to make a million dollars by blogging. Hell, her blog even led to one book already, with a follow-up hitting shelves later this month – and her blog is one of the most popular on the web. However, while I don’t know her financial situation, I doubt she’s a millionaire yet.

And if she’s anything like most of the working writers I know with books on the shelves, money is still a household issue on the same level it is for most everyone else. Maybe it’s not at the forefront of her thoughts as she subsists, huddled over her half-broken keyboard, on a steady diet of stale crackers and unmeltable dollar store cheese, but it’s jumbled in with the rest of life’s everyday concerns, just like it is for people living paycheck to paycheck. Which almost certainly includes you, even if you don’t want to admit it.

I’ve been at this blog for seven years now, although you might not know if from the recent Great Cleansing I did to remove all of the really awful old posts from the early days, back when I was bitter and angry and going through a terrible divorce. I was turning into someone awful back then, and it’s only through meeting my wife and her son that turned me around and saved me from becoming a Permanent Asshole.

But this entry isn’t about that.

This is about money, and my gassy epiphany.

I realized that I hate it. Money, that is; not gas. Gas is fine. My dogs LOVE gas. It’s why I can no longer eat my dinner in the living room without it tasting like dog farts.

But money…money is a bitch. As I mentioned earlier, before I was laid off from my last job when my position was outsourced to India, I made a lot of money. Of course, I’d never made a lot of money before, so most of what I earned went to paying old off old debts, like back mortgage payments and student loans – but I did manage to get everything back on track and even bought a new car before everything went pear-shaped. So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

Now I’m unemployed again and looking for IT work in an area where there are no IT jobs. I live in southeast Texas, remember – and, for those who don’t know – southeast Texas is a magical land where people have close, personal relationships with the Baby Jesus and technology is how the Devil gets inside you. So yeah, not a lot of opportunity here. (My last job was remote work; I administered several servers spread out all across the nation.)

So now I’m looking for pretty much anything else, and I’m constantly worried about money. Or, at least I was. But I’m not now. For the moment. Because epiphany.

I wasn’t happier when I was making a lot of money. In fact, toward the end of the job, I was downright miserable. From being on call 24/7, to having a manager who had us spend more time in meetings talking about all the work we weren’t getting done because we were spending all of our time in meetings, to filling out forms and recording duplicate information in no less than three different places across three different systems, the job became a bureaucratic, micromanaged nightmare. And I’m glad to be rid of it.

These days, I just want to make enough money to meet my obligations: pay my bills, put food on the table, and keep sending my kid to the private school he loves. That’s all. I don’t need nice things, I don’t need a big house, and I sure as hell don’t need status symbols. I don’t need people to think I have more money than I do, or even any money when I don’t.

I just need my family.

And I need to work.

Another side effect of living in the Deep South is the whole nonsensical idea John Oliver recently lampooned involving the idea that financial prosperity is given to those who are worthy in the eyes of God. So down here in America’s armpit, we not only have the standard status-obsessed people driving SUVs and bopping around in their khaki shorts, Under Armour t-shirts and designer flippy-flop shoes, but we also have an added layer of contempt for anyone who isn’t displaying those status symbols, because everyone who isn’t flaunting their wealth is clearly ill-favored by God because we’re horrible people or something.

But I don’t care about those people. They’re just the worst, and nothing shy of marching rank-and-file, Stepford-like with them into the abyss will change their opinion. So screw those guys.

Of course, while taking that view of horrible people is kind of liberating, they’re still a problem when you’re trying to find work in the Deep South. Sometimes, it seems like everyone is super religious here, and they just don’t want to hire people who don’t fall in line with their worldview.

It happens.

It has happened to me more than once.

It happens all the time.

So what does any of this have to do with blogging? Simple – I want to be better at it. And I want to turn it into something I can one day pay my bills with. That’s it. I don’t need to make millions. I just need to keep the damn lights on.

Which is hard, when I don’t even have ads anywhere on my site. I shun them because they’re generally horrible and Flash-based and people will just AdBlock them anyway, but mostly I don’t do it because the advertising model of the Internet is so effed up that it’s not worth bothering with. In every other publishing medium, ad cost is based on eyeballs: your number of subscribers, sales figures, viewers, etc… The bigger your audience, the more expensive it is for someone to run an ad in your publication.

Except when it comes to the Internet.

Ad costs aren’t typically based on pageviews (it’s a factor, but a very small one); they’re based on clicks. Someone needs to actually click one of the ads on your site for you to get any real money from it, and that almost never happens – especially when potential advertisers just cram all the information readers need into the ad itself, thereby negating the need for anyone to ever click it.

If your business is having a Labor Day sale, for example, then you can just stick that in the ad. Everything in the store! 50% off! One day only! – and nobody needs to click it for further information. It’s all there, and so it’s basically free to the advertiser.

So no, there’s no money to be made in blogging unless you can turn it into something else, like Jenny has done with her books.

Sure, I’ve had a few offers for freebies and stuff. I got a fancy razor once, some kind of funky USB key I’d forgotten about until just now, and even my wedding ring for free, just because of this blog. But razors and rings don’t pay the bills.

Which is why I’ve become increasingly frustrated with updating this thing while sinking deeper and deeper into the pits of despair when nothing ever comes of it.

Which is stupid.

Because nothing will ever come of it.

Because that’s not what blogging is about.

Blogs are supposed to be fun – a creative outlet for people who can write and express themselves in ways that other people might find interesting, or that might speak to them. We write blogs to communicate, not to haul in the buckets of cash that aren’t in it.

Jenny was right – blogging is far from dead, but it’s far from the idea that it was ever anything more than it has always been: people stuffing virtual letters in virtual bottles and tossing them into the virtual sea, hoping someone, somewhere will find it one day.

Which is exactly what it should be. If I want to turn it into something more, then I just need to turn it into something more. I just need to do something.

If I want to write a book, I just need to write a book. I don’t need a blog for that. I don’t even need an agent or a publisher. There are no excuses in the world today for people who want to write. Just do it. Put it out there. See where it goes.

There are plenty of ways you can try to eek out a living at this. PLENTY.

• Write a short story.
• Self-publish an eBook.
• Get active on social media.
• Start a podcast.
• Make a YouTube channel.
• Write a blog.
• Do any one of all the things I’m not clever enough to have thought of.

There is no end to what’s possible in the creative space of today’s world. Just don’t expect to make a ton of money off of whatever it is you’re doing. Because you almost definitely won’t.

Even if you’re successful, you probably won’t.

And you’ll fail a lot before you get there. You’ll write stuff nobody cares about. You’ll post things nobody clicks on. You’ll share thoughts and dreams that people will poke fun at. (Internet People can be some of the best, most kind-hearted souls you’ll ever not meet (like Jenny), but most of the time, they’re just a bunch of assholes.)

Don’t listen to them.

It really, really does.

And don’t listen to yourself, whenever your inner Depression Voice is monologuing in your ear about how terrible and worthless you are. Like it was doing to me, just yesterday.

Before I found Jenny’s post.

Which inspired me to keep going.

That she wrote on her blog.

That isn’t dead.

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

Humor | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

Have you ever lived through an experience that was so humiliating that you wanted to die, but when you tell it to all your friends, they can't stop laughing?

Have you ever made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you're still living with the hilarious consequences years later?

If so, then grab a snack, get comfortable, and prepare to have all of your own poor life choices seem just a little bit more bearable.

You're welcome.

Short Stories
Available now from the following retailers

The nine stories of rage and sadness collected here range from the most intimate of human experiences to the wildest realms of magic and fantasy. The first story is a violent gut-punch to the soul, and the rest of them just hit harder from there.

Those who tough it out will find a book filled with as much hope as despair, a constant contradiction pulling you from one extreme to another.

Life might knock us down, over and over, and will the beat the ever-loving snot out of us from the time we're old enough to give it attitude until the day we finally let it win and stop getting up.

Always get back up.

Gaming | Nonfiction
Available now from the following retailers

This isn't just a book. It's a portal to other worlds where there be magic and dragons and hilarious pirates. Okay, not really. But this book is about those portals, except they're called video games.

The Life Bytes series of books take a deep dive into one man's personal journey through childhood into kinda/sorta being a responsible, competent adult as told through the magical lens of whatever video games he was playing at the time.

Part One starts way back in 1975 and meanders down various digital pathways until, oh, around about 1993 or so.

If you're feeling nostalgic for the early days of gaming or if you just want to understand why the gamer in your life loves this hobby so much, take a seat in your favorite comfy chair and crack this bad boy open.

I'll try to not be boring.

Horror
Available now from the following retailers

What you are about to read is not a story. There is no beginning, middle, or end.

What follows is nothing more than a series of journal entries involving shadow people, sleep paralysis, and crippling fear. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t follow story logic, and nothing works out well in the end.

You've been warned.