Fiction Trail Daily Magazine: Author Smackdown with @baerdric

Fiction-Trail Daily Magazine: Author Smackdown!
Every week fiction-trail will choose an
an author and contributor of fiction
on Steemit and poke them with our probing talk stick!
It could be you next time!

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This week we speak to none other than the first curator of the fiction-trail @baerdric! Lets see what's behind the beard.

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FT: How and when did you first learn about Steemit?

B: About the middle of October last year I was searching for distributed apps for chat. I tried Steemit and almost left when I saw that it was more blog than chat. I signed up and tried out the posting and voting, but wasn't excited until I learned about the blockchain.

FT: What piqued your interest in the Trails?

B: I had read about SteemTrail and was confused, so I figured I would write a post one day, which made me research. That was the same day they announced Trail Coins, by coincidence, or at least the first time I noticed. I was already on Streemian, but unhappy about the operator I chose. SteemTrail meant I was voting for people who at least had their content evaluated.

FT: Had you wanted to raise the profile of the Fiction category prior to the trails?

B: I had wanted to make fiction a more prominent tag and that worked out well with what the admins were doing. I just started curating fiction and people started joining in.

FT: What is your favourite animal?

B: I have always loved otters. They are so playful and fierce. They really show the myth that one can't be strong and also be happy and creative.

FT: That is a very good answer. However I was hoping you would say book, so lets move on... What excites you as a reader and as a writer?

B: I tend to like worlds with many stories. From Tolkien, to Heinlein, to some of the franchised worlds. I want to get into it, stay there a while, and come to a satisfying end. I want to be able to spend months in a writer's Universe. That's what I love about writing too, how I get sucked into the story as it unfolds. Unfortunately that's a problem because a huge story (like I am trying to write) needs organization and structure too.

FT: Has Steemit changed the way you write?

B: I was writing 5000+ words a day on other forums. Mostly paragraphs in replies and once sentence jokes. Steemit is putting me back into the longer form even in my short informative posts. But in the background, my fiction writing, it's the same. Any changes will be in editing for posts, not writing.

FT: Are you still writing on other forums?

B: Only socially. No actual content. I'm mad at them and don't want to share my work for them to profit from.

FT: What would you say is your finest Steemit post in any category not necessarily the most lucrative?

B: My favourite one is The Drum of my Death but my best one is How I understand SteemTrail

FT: Are you working on a new piece of fiction for Steemit now or in the near future?

B: I have the last two instalments of "The Net Value of Intelligence" in rough form but unpublishable. They both need hours or days of work.

FT: And finally. What advice would you give to a new steemian wishing to write and potentially get noticed on Steemit

Trails are good. I tell people, don't waste your good stuff on the first weeks. No one will see it. Follow and reply to people, write simple and professional posts, get them to be interested in you and follow you. Then hit them with the good stuff. It's really about community and bots, you have to get one or the other. I prefer community so trails is good for me.

That's it folks. I hope this gives you a little more insight into the man behind the beginnings of the Fiction-Trail curation!

Follow for featured authors each week where we can learn of writing, fiction and odd favourite animal choices.

published by @fiction-trail, written by @meesterboom