Creating community

November 2018; ringing the gong to mark the end of my radiation treatment. The team were a

kind and supportive community. Grateful!

By Caitlin Kelly

I recently came across two examples of individuals who have created a community — not religious or political — and it reminded me how much we need to find common ground with others.

I am always moved, especially living in the U.S., where it’s always about the individual and their needs/wishes, that someone simply steps up and creates something new of potential value to others. It takes guts.

It’s leadership!

I’ve never been much of a joiner and have had some dissatisfying experiences with trying to fit into a community where I just don’t feel much sense of emotional or intellectual connection. I’ve lived for decades in a 100-apartment co-op (owned) suburban New York building. The people who move in, overwhelmingly, have owned big houses, sold them for plenty of money and downsize here. Or they are teachers, professors, civil servants with good pensions. Many are perfectly pleasant people, luckily, but I’ve found very few to talk to at length. Maybe I’m just a terrible snob! One next door neighbor is a college professor who specializes in social housing; we’ve chatted — and his now 15-year-old daughter who plays hockey and softball, athletic pursuits I know and love.

I tried, once, attending the building’s book club. Disaster. Almost no one spoke, and the books they keep choosing are not my cup of tea.

A local church, whose pastor I like a lot and whose building is gorgeous (1853) has been difficult — many are corporate warriors, high earners, and we are not. So I attend occasionally.

One woman who belongs to an online writers’ group I’m in has created a biweekly money chat. We meet by Zoom and talk freely about anything financial we’re thinking about. I find it encouraging, motivating and helpful as we share tips for saving, earning (more), investing and other business issues we all face.

A woman on Twitter in Vermont created a Spanish conversation group that’s been meeting for years. I love this!

I’ve been part of a co-ed softball team for more than 20 years. I absolutely treasure the long, deep, ongoing friendships Jose and I have made there. It began simply enough — someone thought to create it and let people know and…we loved it and keep coming. What a great gift!

Showing up consistently keeps community alive.

I guess it’s obvious — but if you’ve lived a less conventional life, as I have (no kids, living in 5 countries, lots of foreign travel, speaking 2 foreign languages) — it’s just de facto going to place you in a minority. If I lived in Europe, on the continent, I’d be an uneducated minority for only speaking three languages!

People with whom I always find the most in common:

• well educated (not formal education, per se, but self taught, perpetually curious)
• well traveled (not wealthy, but who have made travel, domestic or global, a priority whenever possible)
• well read (catholic tastes, in the small c sense of the word)
• deeply curious!
• open-hearted and generous with their time and skills; probably mentoring
• some talent they enjoy: cooking, knitting, music, gardening, anything!
• not dogmatically religious/evangelizing/conservative
• not politically rigid, misogynistic and racist
• fun! They have a sense of play, of joy, of humor
• resilient. We all face tough times; those able to surmount them, not whine endlessly “it’s not fair!”
• have often lived far from their birthplace, for work, education or adventure; i.e. are culturally/globally aware.

Finding kindred spirits is so comforting!

Here’s my recent essay about finding some, finally, at a local conversation group.

An excerpt:

French may have initially brought us together, but growing affection binds us deeper each week.

An Easygoing Camaraderie

We’re originally from Israel, Canada, Ukraine, Chile, Peru and Germany. As a Canadian who studied French from grade school through four years of university, and who worked in it as a journalist in Quebec and France, I arrived with an advantage. The four of us most fluent can tend to dominate, but there’s also much “comment dit-on?” (how do you say?) as we all hastily refer to our phones or dictionary to translate.

There’s a lovely and easygoing camaraderie, no one embarrassed to make a mistake, no one taking offense as others, kindly, offer corrections. In an era of widespread loneliness, our amitié is deeply comforting.

Where have you found ongoing and welcoming community?

Bye kids….taking a break

By Caitlin Kelly

OK, my last post has hit an all-time low — 16 views.

Sorry, but I really just don’t have the energy to keep writing posts no one sees or bothers to read.

Life has been really busy of late — doing webinars and planning more, coaching clients and now taking off for a badly needed vacation back in Canada.

I’ll be back in a few weeks, but maybe it’s time to hang it up here…No matter how little a post is read, it took me time to produce it. Very discouraging.

Enjoy spring!

The endless song and dance of freelance/creative life

By Caitlin Kelly

This new book by a friend from Toronto needs to be as visible as possible to find readers —

which is why I wrote about it here. Mutual aid is key!

This is an excellent discussion, on Vox, of how much time and energy (hello, blogging!) many creatives now must spend endlessly promoting ourselves and our work:

The internet has made it so that no matter who you are or what you do — from nine-to-five middle managers to astronauts to house cleaners — you cannot escape the tyranny of the personal brand. For some, it looks like updating your LinkedIn connections whenever you get promoted; for others, it’s asking customers to give you five stars on Google Reviews; for still more, it’s crafting an engaging-but-authentic persona on Instagram. And for people who hope to publish a bestseller or release a hit record, it’s “building a platform” so that execs can use your existing audience to justify the costs of signing a new artist.

It is really tedious and really necessary!

No more working away in obscurity hoping to be “discovered” — especially if everyone you’re competing with for work or commissions is very much visible and audible.

I confess, I have so far managed to survive nicely without using TikTok and YouTube, although I’ve considered both. I don’t think my target audiences for coaching live on those platforms, so for now Twitter is my go-to, still. I only today (!) looked at the number of lists there I’ve been added to and it’s surprisingly (to me) really extensive. I’m flattered!

So I blog (only once a week, now); I tweet, multiple times every day but not just monologue and self-promotion — but fun and funny interactions with others there, allowing my personality to show, for better or worse! I see people who only sellsellsellsellsell and think you are sooooooo boring!

More from Vox:

You can see this tension play out in the rise of “day in my life” videos, where authors and artists film themselves throughout their days and edit them into short TikToks or Reels. Despite the fact that for most people, the act of writing looks very boring, author-content creators succeed by making the visually uninteresting labor of typing on a laptop worthwhile to watch. You’ll see a lot of cottagecore-esque videos where the writer will sip tea by the fireplace against the soundtrack of Wes Anderson, or wake up in a forest cabin and read by a river, or women like this Oxford University student who dresses up like literary characters and films herself working on her novel. Videos like these emulate the Romantic ideal of “solitary genius” artistry, evoking a time when writing was seen as a more “pure” or quaint profession. Yet what they best represent is the current state of art, where artists must skillfully package themselves as products for buyers to consume.

It’s precisely the kind of work that is uncomfortable for most artists, who by definition concern themselves with what it means to be a person in the world, not what it means to be a brand. There’s been a fair amount of backlash to this imperative, recently among musicians on TikTok.

This pathetic pile is my desk drawer!

My dears, as I bang this out on my laptop on top of the dining table (we have no office space), I’m still in my sweaty workout clothes from spin class. I have zero impulse to show anyone how I work. The most essential thing, anyway, is how I think. That’s unique to me and I’m not clear that blasting it across social media helps anyone much.

It’s not even noon, and I’ve already emailed an editor and sources for two separate stories. I still have to deal with paperwork for one of them and am also planning a Feb. 25 webinar on how to pitch…with a pal in London. We’ll split the proceeds, maybe a few hundred dollars each. It will be a lot of fun — but also a logical place to pitch my own individual coaching sessions. None of this activity is the least bit photogenic! Admin. rarely is.

I really loathe the word “brand” when it refers to creatives….all I can picture is a piece of hot iron hitting a cow’s ass.

Taking a break

By Caitlin Kelly

I started this blog in 2009.

I’ve enjoyed writing it — more than 2,000 posts — and the many interactions over the years.

But guys, for the moment, I need a breather. I put a lot of thought, time and unpaid energy into every post, even if very few people now bother to read it.

I’ve been busy teaching French every week to a home-schooled teen, writing for The New York Times on personal finance and doing some individual coaching, all of which I enjoy. Still trying to sell our book proposal for freelancers despite a lot of rejections.

My regular meetings are every Wednesday for French and Spanish conversation and spin class twice a week.

But my right hip causes me a lot of daily pain and fatigue, which really shortens my temper and drains my energy.

So, for now, I’m taking a break.

I’ll be back in January.

Hope you all have a lovely safe holiday!

Life at the moment

By Caitlin Kelly

This is a hasty post.

I have been very frustrated of late at the handful of views this blog now gets — unless I also put it on Facebook and Twitter.

Is it that boring?

WordPress tells me 23,000 people follow it and I am appreciative of the loyal band who does show up to read and comment.

Anyway…life for now:

Torrential rain has hit our area — affecting 23 million people. The subways of New York — an essential service — and even the buses! — have been flooded. Streets are impassable. Even the commuter rail system shut for a while. Any climate deniers remaining are absolute ostriches. I moved here in 1989 and have never seen weather like this.

I have a severely arthritic right hip that, until the past two weeks, has really been destroying my quality of life. There have been days I can barely walk and leave the gym in tears of pain. Now, for no reason I can fathom, I am walking almost normally. It is an enormous relief to not be in pain every day for months!

I tutor a teenager in French, a new venture for us both. One of my blog friends in England shared a great BBC site of lesson plans, so we’re using that, conversing and doing some dictations.

I go to a weekly French conversation group at a local library for an hour, then an hour of Spanish after that. Whew! My brain is very tired at the end, but it’s such an easy way to get out of the apartment, free, and have lively chats. One of the women in the French group told us she’d celebrated her 75th birthday by riding an elephant.

Mahjong is a game of tiles that I associate with ladies wearing cat’s eye glasses and bright caftans. Now I am edging my way into it as well, thanks to some neighbors in the building who ask me to join their group from time to time.

I’m still writing for The New York Times, now on my third personal finance story this year for them. I have a second session scheduled this coming week with a global PR agency who hires me to review pitches to journalists that failed to get traction and discuss how they might have worked better. I’m very glad of the income.

I also still coach other writers at an hourly fee; here’s the link. One of my clients recently sold a story we worked on to the Washington Post, a much-coveted outlet for ambitious writers. Another was delighted to find an outlet for a story he had had difficulty placing — and our session was much enhanced by the presence of his tiny perfect hedgehog!

Two great bits of news — we paid off our mortgage! Now we own our apartment outright.

And we leave soon for four days ‘ vacation at a Quebec resort we love, then five days renting a house in Vermont, a state I love and haven’t been back to in decades. October is the perfect time for both. My husband works so hard at his three freelance jobs and we need time off the computer and away from home, which is also our workspace. Can’t wait!

Join us in Prince Edward Island for our 3-day storytelling workshop!

By Caitlin Kelly

I’ve been all over the world — but never to PEI, which everyone assures me is gorgeous!

It’s easily reached from the northeastern U.S. (Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut) by car or by air from Toronto, Montreal and other Canadian airports.

We’re planning a really cool three-day workshop in Charlottetown for anyone who wants to improve their ability to tell truly compelling stories, with their photos and their words: August 23 to August 25, 2024.

The three people teaching are me, my husband Jose. R. Lopez and legendary Canadian nature and portrait photographer Dave Brosha, who lives there (when he’s not out all over the world leading his own workshops.)

all photos here are mine

Jose is a Pulitzer winning former New York Times photo editor and photographer (eight years in the White House Press Corps, multiple Superbowls, two Olympics and more) and has been mentoring and teaching his skills for decades, including a decade running the New York Times Student Journalism Institute’s photo classes.

I’m the winner of a Canadian National Magazine Award, author of two books, and have sold more than 100 stories to The New York Times. I’ll be teaching writing but also how to better integrate terrific photos into your storytelling, whether for your blog, for paid publication, for your clients. I began my career as a photographer, selling three cover images to Toronto Calendar magazine while I was still in high school. My photo work has later appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post and more.

We’re three photographers (one writer!) with very different ways of seeing the world — Dave is legendary for his images of nature, Jose for historic high-impact photos like his 1993 black and white portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the steps of the Supreme Court. My photos often carry a sense of mystery; I like viewers to stop and try to determine what they’re looking at, unlike my writing, whose role is to be more explicit. I’ll talk about how my powerful visual skills inform my own storytelling and how yours can too.

The three days — exclusive of travel and lodging — is $2450 Canadian or about $1800 U.S.

We guarantee a great hands-on learning experience, limited to a group of 20 students.

Join us!

Please spread the word!

Here’s the link!

A matter of trust

By Caitlin Kelly

It’s foundational to everything we do, from earliest childhood to later years — we (have to!) place our trust in medicine and health procedures, in the men and women who pilot airplanes and drive subway trains and schoolbuses, in the chefs and cooks who prepare our meals when we eat away from home — and the health inspectors whose role it is to make sure it is safe.

If you live in the U.S. and follow news — which some of you don’t — a big story of late has been a shocking, relentless barrage of lies from a newly elected Republican congressman from Long Island, George Santos.

From The Daily Beast:

The perplexing series of alleged lies from George Santos, the Republican congressman-elect from Long Island under investigation by county, state and federal prosecutors, have continued to roll in this week—with each “embellishment” as shocking as the last.

Among the new claims under scrutiny in the last 24 hours: Santos’ high school education, his claim to be half-Black, a claim that his family’s Jewish last name was Zabrovsky, and that “9/11 claimed” his mother’s life after she’d “fled socialism” in Europe.

Basically everything he told voters is a lie. And…he will still be sworn into office.

HOW?

I think about trust all the time because trust in journalists — my career since university — is very very low.

This causes endless problems if voters believe a pathological liar like Santos — but not the reporters who uncovered those lies.

It’s a problem when people shriek “Fake news!” when they hear things they don’t want to, like COVID running rampant still.

It’s a problem when we keep sending our hard-earned tax dollars to governments that don’t do what they said they would, further eroding our trust in them, which, for Americans especially, seems subterranean at best.

From the moment a writer proposes a story, there’s a level of trust between them and their editor, whether they’re on staff or freelance. A staffer can be disciplined, suspended or fired for lying while a freelancer can lose access to a coveted market; The New York Times, for which I’ve written more than 100 stories, periodically sends every freelancer its long and detailed ethics code, and those who break it are out.

But there are legendary stories of lying reporters and their names are known to those of us in the industry, like Janet Cooke and Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair, all of whom were — of course — much lauded for brining in powerful stories and every ambitious editor wants material like that. Until they turn out to be false.

Every time I ask a source to speak to me, they generally agree quickly and kindly, which, in itself is a sign if trust that I’ll behave professionally; my website makes clear I have a long and solid career in place as testament to that. Only once, and it was interesting, was I told “oh hell no!” when I tried to get sources, by an agency that helps teens on Riker’s Island accused of crimes. Only after pleading my case to them face to face did I win the interviews, which are in my first book “Blown Away: American Women and Guns.” I’m proud of having won these stories, as they were untold and powerful and I’ve never forgotten them — and I’ve done thousands of interviews in my career.

That took trust.

We live in an era of easy, quick and profitable manipulation — of words, ideas, images. A few years ago the news agency Reuters invited a group of New York journalists (arguably pretty savvy) to listen to a powerful and frightening presentation about how easy it now is to alter images, whether video or still. It was deeply sobering to know how much energy is spent trying to sort out the garbage. My husband, Jose, is a photo editor for The New York Times, and it’s also his job — like every news editor now — to sniff out fake images. Staff photographers and longtime freelancers have earned their trust, Many photos arrive through a photo agency like the AP, Getty and and Reuters, to name three major ones — by the time they’re looked at for publication, they’ve been vetted by many editors who’ve already vetted their photographers.

Trust requires a long unbroken chain.

In 1997, as I think I’ve written here before, I became the victim — one of many! — of a skilled and determined con man who had duped many people in Chicago, done time and moved to New York where he picked up again. I won’t get into all the grim details, but it was a lesson for me, for anyone, in what behaviors inspire our trust and why.

He was physically attractive.

He dressed well.

He was very intelligent and engaging.

He was (of course!) initially charming — later creepy and threatening.

I fell quite ill the day before I was to fly from New York to Sydney Australia alone, hoping to research my first book — he brought me a pot of homemade soup.

How can one — when should one — mistrust kindness?

Read The Gift of Fear, a must-read book for every girl and woman — which includes charm and niceness as warning signs.

Are you wary by nature or experience?

How does one become creative?

In 1845, a young girl made this sampler…early creativity

By Caitlin Kelly

Back when I started this blog — 2009 (!) — one of my first and best-read posts was about the endless American fetish for “productivity” when creativity is really what drives most innovation, and certainly the arts.

As every blogger knows, blogging demands creativity! Ideas, some skill and the eternal optimism there might actually be an audience out there for us.

As readers here know, I only moved to the United States at the age of 30, so its cradle-to-grave obsession with work and being seen as obsessed with work — above all other pursuits (family, friends, health, a spiritual life, etc,) struck me, then as now, as weird. Yes, I know about the Puritan work ethic. But we’re not all wearing shoes with buckles or moving around by horseback and making our own soaps and clothing either…

In a country whose minimum wage pushes millions into poverty, millions will never find the time and energy and encouragement to savor creative pursuits, even for their own pleasure — cooking, knitting, crocheting, embroidery, woodworking, making music or visual art. American capitalism makes sure only the well-off have the leisure to do it without sacrifice — I still get a payment every year from Canada’s Public Lending Rights program, a sort of royalty system that pays authors for the library use of our books. It’s not a large amount, but is deeply meaningful to me, both because it democratizes access to our work and sends a powerful message to creators — you matter!

I don’t have children, but I do see the tremendous pressure American children face — to pass endless state tests, to do terrifying “active shooter drills”, to get into fancy and costly colleges.

None of which seem likely to foster creativity.

So I’m always in awe of creative people, some of whom manage to keep producing their work in the face of some serious odds.

Here’s a 9:07 video of actor Ethan Hawke talking about creativity; it’s gotten 5.2 million views.

“We’re educating kids out of creativity” says Sir Ken Robinson on this 2006 TED talk; it’s 19:12 minutes long and has received 74 million views, with lots of laughter and insight. “We need to radically rethink our idea of intelligence,” he says. Worth it!

Here’s one unlikely and interesting example of creativity — a book out May 16, 2023 from a San Antonio nephrologist whose Twitter threads on medicine were moving and powerful. Social media networks like Twitter, Instagram and YouTube have fostered and spread all sorts of creativity, from high schoolers to seasoned professionals.

We recently visited friends who worked with my husband at The New York Times for decades, one a photographer renowned for his portraits and his wife, a photo editor. Her father was an architect and her mother a textile designer; his father and grandfather were bakers.

I grew up in a home filled with all sorts of art — Inuit prints and sculpture, 19th c Japanese prints, Mexican masks, a Picasso lithograph — and all three of my parents (father, mother, stepmother) worked in creative fields: journalism, TV and film-making. So it feels natural and felt inevitable I’d work in some creative capacity, as I’ve done since my teens when I sold three photos as magazine covers in Toronto while still in high school.

But creativity requires many things some people never have:

• silence
• solitude
• uninterrupted time to think deeply
• a physical space in which to paint, draw, print photos in a darkroom, weave, sew
• access to needed tools and materials
• the disposable income to buy needed tools and materials
• a larger culture that admires and celebrates creativity, whether family, school, neighborhood, country
• skill sufficient to make something you might want to keep or sell
• time, energy and spare income to learn and perfect those skills
• good health and mental focus
• encouragement!

My favorite book on the subject is the 2003 book The Creative Habit by American choreographer Twyla Tharp.

She is ferocious! No awaiting the muse!

When, how and where does your creativity emerge?

Have you been encouraged along the way?

By whom?

Women — time to speak up!

By Caitlin Kelly

The editor in chief of the Financial Times, Rouala Khalaf, (probably the most male of the big newspapers — and boy are they male, especially at the very top) — recently implored more women to write to their letters page.

I was thrilled to have my letter published there, verbatim, a few months ago.

I can see why so few women do:

— It’s intimidating! Letters to the FT routinely arrive from Lords and CEOs and deans of elite universities. How dare we add our voices?!

— Fear of looking stupid or uninformed.

— Fear of professional reputational loss (see above!)

— Too busy working/parenting/caregiving

— Modesty…why listen to us?

As you know (cough!) I’m fine expressing my opinions publicly, here and on social media and in classrooms and at conferences and in letters pages, including those of The New York Times and Newsweek.

I was basically raised as a boy, to be smart and competitive, not sweet and submissive as so many girls and women still are, so this never scared me, even if maybe it should.

I am very careful on Twitter not to discuss the most divisive topics — abortion, guns, politics — in any detail. Women are trolled and harassed and get death and rape threats when they do. No thanks!

So, when and where should we speak up?

— Protest marches

— School board meetings

— City council/town hall meetings

— at industry conferences, either as a speaker, moderator or audience member

— your blog, and others’

— social media

— writing and publishing essays and op-eds

— voting

— call-in radio shows

— as a member of an organization or group or community

I know, it can feel scary to invite argument or ridicule or dismissal!

But the more we stay invisible and inaudible, the more we allow this behavior to dominate and silence us.

Now that the landmark abortion law Roe v. Wade is in danger, and so many U.S. states ready to ban abortion, it’s no time to sit back and shrug. Our many bodily rights to autonomy are being erased daily.

Our voices matter.

Are we here for attention or support? Both?

By Caitlin Kelly

I grew up long before social media existed.

If I wanted or needed love, attention, interest — in me or my work — I had to find and nurture the relationships that might provide it. Or not. In the real world, friends can come and go, betray us, be disloyal, say stupid or unkind things — or be incredibly loving for decades.

When conflict arises, which is likely over a long relationship of true intimacy, we have a choice: try and work it out or bail and end the relationship.

We had no “mute” or “block” button as Twitter so conveniently offers.

I spend too much of my time on Twitter, I admit, and now have 6,239 followers there, a few of whom have become close friends. But I would never mistake the majority of these strangers as benign and caring friends, no matter how much anyone “likes” my tweets or retweets me.

True friends show up for us at times of real difficulty, bringing their physical presence whenever possible or sending cards, gifts, flowers, letters. They know how bad things really are, or how hard we may have worked to win something.

I’ve also been very badly burned twice through Facebook, once by a “friend” who sent a screenshot of my (unwise) rant about an editor to that editor — destroying a professional relationship. I now accept almost no new “friends.”

So people on social media “know” only a fraction of who I am, even though I’ve shared quite a lot here, because, even though WordPress says I have 23,000 (!?) followers, a tiny fraction (thank you!) ever comment. I really have no idea if more than 20 or 30 people even read this. Tant pis!

I’m very aware that sharing personal or professional details — here and anywhere on social media — also means leaving myself open to criticism, judgment and cruelty, not just kindness.

I was recently shocked (should I have been?) to see a highly popular artist/writer start hinting on Twitter that she was facing a dire medical diagnosis, which she has now made clear is some form of cancer. She has 38,000 followers, but some have chosen to tweet truly horrific things in reply to her very real fear and grief.

I’ve tweeted and DMed her to suggest she stop sharing any details there immediately and focus solely on true friends and medical care. The added stress is not helpful.

Social media — certainly in an era of (ugh) “influencers” — begs an important question:

Are we doing this for attention (obviously) or (also?) for crucial emotional support?

I see many people now sharing their grief on Twitter (as well as weddings and births and graduations and new Phds) and find this somewhat confounding — but I also spent the first 30 years of my life in Canada and France, countries whose cultures are far more reticent than the “lemme tell you everything right now!” that Americans seem to enjoy.

It’s true many of us are now terribly isolated and lonely, and year after year of avoiding social contact because of COVID, is only making it worse. Social media becomes a default way to connect emotionally and intellectually.

It’s just a double-edged sword.

I was recently dressed down (albeit privately and in a friendly way) by a very senior journalist who admires my work, saying I’m so negative about journalism on Twitter I’m losing editors’ interest in working with me.

At this point in my career, I don’t care. I want newer writers to avoid the many pitfalls I see them tumbling into.

But loneliness is a huge problem for so many…here’s a long, smart NYT article about it:

real remedies to the problem of loneliness, Dr. Murthy stressed, must address not just the lonely people but the culture making them lonely.

“We ask people to exercise and eat a healthy diet and take their medications,” he said. “But if we truly want to be healthy, happy and fulfilled as a society, we have to restructure our lives around people. Right now our lives are centered around work.”

From the surgeon general of the United States, this is a moonshot call, to reverse cultural patterns that are decades in the making and that profit some of the nation’s biggest businesses.

We recently hosted a much beloved younger friend for a few days, visiting NY for the first time in a few years from Oregon. What a joy it was!

We chatted, snoozed, caught up, discovered all sorts of unlikely commonalities — like our addiction to the Bourne movies. Like us, she works freelance, so we have lots in common from a work perspective as well.

It was so sad to say goodbye!

Why do I still blog — now 13 years and 2,000+ posts into it?

I love having a place to muse, to share my travels or images or advice or ideas…many of which can’t be monetized and sold as pieces of journalism. I weary of retailing every thought!

But I also enjoy hearing from you!

So, yes, attention is the goal.

How about you?

Do you blog or tweet or use Reddit or TikTok or YouTube to gain attention or support?

Is it working for you as you hope?