Life on Steemit: My Story - Episode 2

It's been 3 weeks now since I joined Steemit and it's been a total whirlwind. By my count, I've created 1 community, written 71 articles (not including the ones I "deleted" for posting in the wrong place!), posted nearly 250 comments (I tried to count and 235 was the rough number) and I don't know how many upvotes and downvotes (for plagiarism of course).

I've enjoyed writing, curating and in some cases even inspiring. It's been rewarding and in such a short time, my account value stands at $750 which is a remarkable reward for my hard work. I don't like tagging those who have helped me to get here (and I won't change that now) but if it wasn't for the significant upvotes by steemcurator01 and more recently, trafalgar and booming03 worth upwards of $20 per upvote, along with the countless smaller upvotes, there's no way I'd have kept motivated and reached any of the numbers mentioned above. So if any of you are reading this, a massive special thanks - I'm glad you're enjoying what I've been doing.

But with the success, I've realised that I've not managed myself particularly well. I won't repeat what's in that post and as a result of my realisation, I've started to work myself into a routine of writing in the evening (when I'm tired) and checking, editing and posting the following day whilst the-mrs-gorilla looks after the-toddler-gorilla at lunch time. So far, it feels like it's working well for me. I can pop in and out at other times, making notes and replying to the odd comment but by allocating "steemit-time", I'm able to concentrate whilst with the-toddler-gorilla.

In addition to this, my initial observations still hold true and a couple of curious things have started to happen:

1. People are asking me for advice on how to get upvotes - I think they're referring to upvotes from the individuals mentioned above who I'm been fortunate enough to have been supported by even when I've asked them not to upvote something! I really don't feel in a position to give advice though so the best I can do is to say read more than you vote for, vote for more than you comment, comment more than you post, post what you enjoy. I have plenty of content that doesn't get upvoted but I've found a few themes that I really enjoy writing about my new Fantasy Sports community, Music to Steemit By, Who's behind the Shirt? and Away Day Tales in particular. The research and memories that these evoke far outweighs the effort in writing the content.

2. I got my 1st "Special mention and want their special support"!! - I genuinely couldn't understand it and had absolutely no idea how to respond. I was weak, and upvoted it. My upvote wasn't worth anything because my steem power was too low (300SP roughly) at the time which I suspect was somewhat disappointing to the person mentioning me and I suspect that's the last I'll hear from them. I hope it doesn't happen a lot. I'm a patient man but my toddler exhausts that.

Speaking of patience, it's wearing thin with plagiarists. I've started following a couple of plagiarists - everything they post is plagiarised, gets smashed with a downvote and post to the admin, yet it continues. It's almost fun. Almost. I think they're too lazy to notice that all of their posts have been hidden and they've been banned from all of the communities. I'm beginning to think that some people just don't understand what it is. As I state in my recent post about plagiarism (I'm not far off that becoming a series), if you're writing your post using CTRL+C followed by CTRL+V, you're plagiarising!

I've also noticed that my original ideas are being rewarded. My Away Day Tales, Match Previews, Match Reports, Who's Behind the Shirt, Remember the Name, Music to Steemit By and Art Journey have all had some really rewarding upvotes, good comments and have inspired others to write something themselves (the article which copied and pasted my work wasn't inspiration though - that was plagiarism). That's not to mention the Fantasy Sports community, comments and discussions from other people's posts. I didn't realise I'd done so much in such a short period of time until I listed them out - no wonder I'm worried about addiction. And that I'm too gung-ho with posting things, often posting them in the wrong community and having to repost them when I notice. If any steemit developers are reading this, please introduce something to allow moving / cross posting or similar. Thanks 🙂

Nearly done, I think this is my longest post to date (when I should be concentrating on Villa v. Spurs for another match report)... I'm delighted that my Steem Power's nice and high so that I don't have to wait for it to reload. It's also great that my upvotes mean something now for the people receiving them so it feels more than a token gesture.

I'm genuinely grateful to everybody who's taken the time to read, comment and support me in my short time here. It makes me feel that my efforts to do something original have been rewarded and long may our relationship continue.

That's it for now. Adios amigos.

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