End of an Era

The end of an era!

No, this is not a reference to a political event, although it would be special if it were the year that Trump and Pence resigned, and we got our first female President (Nancy Pelosi, third in line of succession).

It's not an oblique reference to our deteriorating climate, although...SPOILER ALERT!  Global warming and the adverse effects from it ARE ALREADY HERE!

It's not about the end of a Sports Dynasty.  No, Alabama's professional level football, well, their tide is just gonna continue to roll in, over and over and over again.

Am I leaving Higginson & Paulk?  Are we moving?  Is Game of Thrones ending on TV?  Is Benjamin wrapping up high school?  Well, those last two are true, but not the era I'm referring to.

It's the end of the era of morning blogging.

Yes, in an attempt to return to more fiction writing, starting tomorrow, I am surrendering my morning writing time to my fiction projects, both books, and short stories.  I have slacked horribly on my fiction projects, and it is the best way I can think of to restore a regularity to it.

I intend to start writing on my fiction projects after a morning walk.  On days I go in for accounting work, that will probably be about an hour of writing.  On days I don't go in, that should be two to four hours.

Does that mean the blog will disappear?  No, hopefully not.  But I will have to write on it in the late afternoon, or in the evening.  What effect that will have on the frequency, I don't know.

Blog traffic has been down of late.  It could be the quality of what I blog, but I think it has as much or more to do with social media.  I suspect that Facebook is putting my blog postings on fewer and fewer newsfeeds.  This means the number of people who even see my posts are dwindling.

I may transfer my blog to a site that will allow for advertising.  I was banned from getting advertising money several years ago, and it's been frustrating to not earn money from the blog, even if it was only a couple hundred a year.

I am going to try to use Facebook less, and scroll it less often.  I will continue to post blog stories and the Song of the Day, but I am going to try to post fewer memes and non-TM Strait written articles.  It's tempting to repost the anti-fascist memes I see, especially when we are in such a deep crisis.    But I'll try my best to concentrate my firepower in my blog efforts.  We'll see.  A major theme of my life the last few years has been trying to wake up the Trumpeteers in my life,  It's hard to surrender in that regards.

I am also abandoning my newspaper column efforts.  I've already withdrawn for the last month or so, and none of the groups I used to send them to have seemed to have noticed.  I need to concentrate on projects that will earn at least a tiny bit of money.  I can't say that I won't ever produce a newspaper column - it's just no longer a high priority.

A priority not directly related to writing is to become an audiobook narrator.  That is a dream job for me, and something I believe I could do extraordinarily well,  My hold up is technological, as I have to create the facility and become a sound engineer (at least enough to allow me to record).  If I can conquer that, then choo choo choo!  That train is leaving the station!

So, goodbye morning blogging!  You're a decade old habit I am bringing to an end.

Hello, morning fiction!  It's time to finish writing The Extra Credit Club, and then to start the sequel to History of the Trap!  It's time for new Crowley Stories, and to finally come up with that killer science fiction short that a sci-fi magazine can't resist!

It's time to prove to the naysayers that I CAN make money creatively!

Ok, maybe I'll still be unsuccessful doing that.  But I'm going to try.

By golly, I'm going to try.