Celebration Time!!! This is my 36th Posting on Substack

36) I accomplished all of this in five short months!

I can't believe I have published as many pieces for Substack in five months as I did for Wordpress in 5 years.

Actually, I can. 

For those of you that visited my archive page, and you scroll all the way down to the beginning, you will see my earliest postings are accompanied with a roman numeral. There’s a very good explanation for that.  

The reason I did that was, because as I organized my Substack, I wanted to show all of you a demarcation of what was originally published on Wordpress and what was published on Substack. 

Honestly, I’m not even sure I want to count postings XXXV and XXXVI as part of being originally published on Wordpress as they were a big part of my writing rebirth. Hence why in the subtitle I call them prequel #1 and prequel #2 

You see, my writing journey first became public in 2017. But, it hadn’t been a big part of my identity until this year (2022). 

I’m not sure everyone can appreciate the labor of love writing a newsletter/blog is. I don’t just write to write. But, I pour my soul into this endeavor. The words you see on my page are my exposure to you, the audience. For a while I grappled with whether I should go paid on Substack, and when I should start doing that.   

Well, I have gone paid, but this is actually the first article I’m publishing, that is being released behind a paywall. Every other article that is behind a paywall, was originally free, but then I retroactively put them behind a paywall. 

One friend suggested that once my Columbine piece went viral and got well over 10,000 views, that I should start getting paid and put that beautiful piece of work behind a paywall. 

For the Columbine piece, I did put it behind the paywall, temporarily, but I realized that some work deserves to be public, no matter what.  However, this piece right here and right now is the first time I am publishing a piece of work, and starting it behind a paywall.