There's a super long preamble before the tutorial. Feel free to scroll. I cover a bit of my back story and the benefits of participating in challenges and contests to gain or regain your footing.

Take it to the whiteboard. It's what my husband and I do to plot a plan.
Take it back to the whiteboard is what we do when we hit the quandary in the plan.

Taking it back to the whiteboard is largely what this week has been about for me with my 5 Minute Freewrites.
I've gone through spells before where my words don't want to escape from my fingertips and into blog posts. Since mid-October it's been wave upon wave of things that make me go quiet in the public sector.

I find it amusing that these same things can drive others to write more. And then not amusing that they make me write less.

I'm not in the mood to set a timer today.

I'm just going to be fine with talking a little bit.

I'm tired. Part is a very good tired. Part is because, away from here, I carefully talk with young people who are asking very hard questions about life and facing truths they don't want to face. I always know we're making grand progress and I start to breathe when they open the conversation and they say, "Look at this Red Flag in my actions that I found today! This has got to change. I've been thinking I should probably do ... "

OMG, when that happens, it makes my heart sing. I can't even begin to tell you. What a difference from, "There's no point! I can't win!"

I will pour all my everything into conversations that bring these kinds of results. And this week, it has happened with both of the girls I currently talk with. Cloud Nine. Tired lol.

On the flipside there's people I only choose to confound because, pointless. It would be the whole casting pearls before swine thing and they know how to prove me right every time. That's way disappointing ... that "proven right" thing is way over-rated.

The other part is health stuff. I've mentioned that before. Just wearing me down stuff. I can't imagine an ongoing chronic ... oh wait that fall in Starbucks that they still owe me 10K for .... happened over a year ago ... still has this nagging thing in my ear .... and shoulder ... and that specific headache is back. Okay fine. I can imagine a chronic illness. Honest? Did I really need to realize that? Meh.

And then there's all this political intrigue around Q. It's fascinating to watch it all - because history, because wild ideas, because sensible, because O.o .... but after a point it's still time to clean the kitchen and do the laundry and ... this brings me back to ...

So. How do I take Steemit back to the whiteboard?

Well, first comes discipline. And that's where the challenges come in.

I use to blog some 12 years ago. I witnessed the first meme that was born and sold. Thursday Thirteen. The goal was to present a collection of 13 anythings. I did everything from 13 add-ons for Firefox to 13 photos from Grand Central. Yeah. I've not changed one whit.

Back then a meme was not words on a photo. I was missing for that morph ... so I dunno. Anyway. Thursday Thirteen would now be called a challenge on Steemit.

As an aside, Thursday Thirteen, as I understand it, was Trade Marked and the trade mark, the idea, the platform, and the community list was sold.

So let me tell you what I learned/gained from Thursday Thirteen.

1. I gained my best friends through the challenge because
2. Challenges that encourage participants to visit each other become communities
3. Communities keep people blogging.
4. Blogging around challenges allow people to slowly reveal their crafts, their world, themselves.
5. The more people participate in communities, the more bold they become.
6. The more people become bold in communities, the stronger they become in the world.

So this is why I believe in challenges. This is why I specifically believe in the community that @mariannewest has carefully crafted around the Five Minute Freewrite and @freewritehouse. That is why I've been doing the Freewrites this week. To regain discipline. To refined the memory in my muscles that once knew how to write a blog post. (It might be working.)

I am also super enjoying #fractalfriday that @woodywood143 has started recently. It is fun to watch people increase their skills and share tips. Fractals are an art from that start out simple enough to produce and then ... you learn to tweak. Then you learn that tweaking can lead to endless fascination w/o production. At some point, you have to let the fractal into the world. FractalFriday is a fabulous opportunity for that.

Now, Next week I will continue to do the 5 Min Freewrites exactly because they are developing my discipline and reminding me I love this. Next week I'll kick it up a level though. Next week is about this simple fact: If you don't leave comments, people don't know who you are. If people don't know who you are, they don't come visit you. Feeds and notifications always play second fiddle to comments. Simple fact.

How Steemit will Fail - Warning

And let's talk about this one more little thing ... at the end of my 5 Minute Diatribe Gone Long ...
There is a growing thing in the Steemit community to judge small steps as "elementary and juvenile." There is a growing disdain for people who can and do churn out art like it's candy on Easter morning. There's a growing disdain for people who shyly share less than 1000 words about themselves per post. This behavior ... especially among the whales and the dolphins ... is egotistical bull shit. On minnows it looks like weighty caked on muck.

It is soul and community destroying. The platform that can show up and truly embrace free speech and no speech, is the platform that will win. We the little people are tired of getting beat up in order to gain 12 pennies. And we the people that are going through life stuff that steals words ... we're especially tired of it. We tend to have weaponized walking sticks.

Oh look, I'm a mere sixty words from writing a 1000 word post. How ironical.

The Encouraging and Practical Tutorial for Challenges for New (or Tired) Steemians.

If you're new to Steemit or thinking about being new to Steemit, the thought police do live here, too. But things will change or things will change so come be part of the change.

Do join in as many challenges as you want to. They are fabulous practice for your arts and skills ... just, you know ... do be you with your own arts!

When you join a challenge, no one will know you exist unless you find the origination of the challenge (peeps remember to point at the origination point) and share your link. AND/OR you can follow the challenge tag.

Then to gain friends, go visit the people who have also participated in the challenge. Don't show up on the doorstep to their blog saying, "Hi. I'm me. You need to come give me a gift at my blog." For real!! I know you wouldn't do that. I know you will show up and talk to them about their entry into the challenge and share any additional thoughts that their work causes you to recall.

If the egotistical thought police show up, let them dangle from your blog post like the fringe they are. If you reply, it just moves their comments upwards. (If you have reputation and are visiting a blog, remember it's better to make your own comment than comment in reply to negativity.)

If the egotistical thought police down-vote you, they immediately envoke the Streisand Effect. Also, leave a note on blog of the challenge origination point that you were downvoted for posting your own work.

Oh. In case you didn't know, today's prompt is Whiteboard. ;-)