Learning something New. (Patreon)

Greetings,
With over 2000 followers, and a few asking me about donating through Patreon, I added 'Set up Patreon' to my schedule. But Patreon is on a computer and counts as "New Fangled Stuff". Which means I know it's never going to be as easy as people say.

"You should try selling on Ebay?" But none of my friends had ever done it themselves....
"You should write a book!" But none of the people encouraging me had ever written more than a grocery list...
"You should just build your own website"....

Ok, no one said that. I told myself that after 3 people offered to do it (1 free, 2 for money) and my website never got built. How do you build a website? Go spend several hours learning the website builder and get started.
Ebay was the same. I spent a couple of days reading all the stuff no one reads, and branching out to articles by various sellers. Then started setting things up and got to work selling.

The point of this isn't actually that I spent some time setting up Patreon.

 It's about learning to write a story. I could TELL a story, but putting it down on paper without people in front of me while I talked was tougher. Plus all that stuff about grammar, sentence structure and creating a plot. Turns out my kids had all these great books on how to do those things and my wife handed them to me. I got to reading. I swear I used to know this stuff. Mrs. Ash in Creative Writing Class back in 1976 would be scandalized I had forgotten her lessons.

Writing on Royal Road was very easy. I spent a few minutes researcing, submitted a story idea and title, and it was approved an hour later. Then I panicked! But within a day I had an intorduction and a chapter. Both were horrible, both got re-written to make them better.

What helped was feedback from readers. Some of it was harsh, but it really pointed out the flaws in my writing and helped me to get better. I had to put in the research to learn to write the same way I had learned to build a website, or build an ebay business. Research an Doing. Lots of both.

It turns out that I really like writing, especially with the support of my readers, whether that is in the form of feedback, catching my typos, or by donating to patreon.

If your still reading at this point, I thank you for following along with my ramblings. And thanks for reading my stories. And of course, your support here on Patreon.

-TWK