Happy 1 Month Steemaversary to Me! What I've Learned in my First Month on Steemit.
Photos are mine. Featuring a very sweet little grandson of mine <3
Tomorrow marks my One Month Steemit Anniversary (of Posting) and I’m still SO Confused. First off, let me say that I am already deeply in love with this platform. Maybe it’s just the spicy new-ness of the relationship or maybe I’ve just found my kind of place, but I really love it here.
I’ve already met people that inspire me, people that I feel I connect with and found my own inspiration after floundering for the last few years trying to figure out what I want to DO myself (now that my Stay at Home Mom years are quickly falling behind me!) @mariannewest and her #freewrite challenge was the very first thing I found on this site and she has been amazing! Putting together the daily challenge and a ton of behind the scenes work that I'm sure goes into all of it... she's been awesome at helping this newbie out!
I love the creative aspect, I get the social part of the actual steemit site… the rest? Well, that’s kind of up in the air!
Things that I think I’ve figured out:
the THINK part of that is the operative word in the sentence, because even with this list, I'm not SURE I've gotten it right!
How to meet likeminded friends (not only replying to comments, but checking out other people’s blogs and commenting on things that impress me or resonate with me has led to meeting some cool people and new friends already!
How to keep an eye on what’s happening with my voting power/SBD and whatnot thanks to Steem Now (Although I suppose I now have to add that I have read that you should vote much if you’re below 90%, but I don’t know why that is or what happens if you do. If I know I’m going to be away from the computer a lot, I’ll go ahead and use up most of my voting power while I’m online. I’m not sure if that’s a horribly bad thing to do or not.
How to use tags (although I’m sure I’m not doing this one completely right, I have figured out what tags to use and realized at some point that the first tag means that’s the category that you’re actually posting in.
What NOT to do as far as spam… and which wasn’t a problem for me anyway, as I’m mainly here to write, be inspired and meet new people. I like to leave genuine comments on people’s posts/writing and if I don’t have anything ‘real’ to say, I don’t say anything at all.
I have found that I really love upvoting things and encouraging others, because I find it so encouraging when other people do that for my posts. Whenever I leave a comment, it’s because I truly liked your post/am inspired by you or impressed with your words.How to post bullet points! How to create links, do some absolute basic formatting stuff AND how to insert photos (graphic design is a hobby that I've always enjoyed, way back to the literal cutting and pasting letters out of paper and gluing them to a physical layout!)
Things that still have me confused:
Curation and Author rewards. I don’t know what either of these things really ARE and I certainly don’t understand the difference between them, how to acquire them or how they happen at all.
Discord and chat rooms in general just completely throw me off. I’m not good at small talk in real life and I’m really out of practice at keeping up with an even moderately large group of people speaking at pretty much the same time. I get totally lost and end up leaving without saying anything. I feel like I’ve just walked into a really happening gathering or party where everyone else already knows each other. Even when I’ve seen a conversation that I could (in theory) join, I feel like I’m some sort of awkward stalker, just jumping in. I don’t know how to ‘chat’.
I’ve joined a couple of groups on there and I keep messing up one way or another. I think “chat” just isn’t my thing and I’m hoping that I can still meet and connect with people on steemit even if I never get the hand of chatting elsewhere!
Reputation Score: I don’t understand what this is, exactly, what it means or how it grows. Mine just seems to have randomly grown… AND I’m not even sure if it’s something I need to know!
The Importance of Redfish-minnows and the like I don’t really understand exactly what these terms mean. I get that redfish are the newbies just starting out, and I understand that there are a list of qualifications to move onto the next level… but I don’t really understand what all is required, but even more importantly, I don’t understand what moving up a level really means to each person. Is that the thing that makings your voting power worth more? Or is that from your reputation score? Or are they all the same thing? Representative numbers/labels just saying the same thing?
How to use whaleshares. I won some of these in a writing contest and read the accompanying post of ‘How to Use Whaleshares’, but I am still utterly and completely confused.
My oldest son here, he has the exact face I make when I'm trying to navigate one of these issues!
I think it’s just a learning curve that I need to learn to navigate a little better. I find that a lot of times when I ask questions as a newbie, I get answers that feel like they’re written in a foreign language. I get an answer like, “Oh, it’s really simple actually…” and then they explain something using terms and words that I don’t understand. I think I’m finally sort of getting the idea behind steem, SBD and steem dollars… if I even got that phrasing correct!
My plan at the moment is to just keep writing daily, challenging myself and finding new things to write about… and new people to read/connect with and hopefully I don’t do anything seriously frowned upon out of ignorance.
I’m also trying to get up the nerve to post a series… basically a serialized version of a story I started this summer and really want to continue. I’m a tad bit nervous about putting some of my ‘real’ or rather… long term(?) more in depth writing out there, instead of just the writing exercises I’ve been doing with time limits and whatnot.
Soooo… if you have written a post that clarifies some of these basic knowledge type skills into old lady language, please share the link in the comments so I can learn from you!’
GOING FORWARD
My plan for my second month is to continue to do #freewrite challenges and other creative writing contests and challenges as I feel inspired, but I am really ready to start posting one of my longer stories in daily installments… I think! I’m a bit nervous to post my writing that has been done outside of the restrictions of super short writing time frames! Still, this place has been so wonderfully encouraging, I think I’m ready!
Thank you to everyone who has left me supportive comments and upvotes and all the encouragement in general. I truly feel at home here because of you!
an older photo of me from the night I went to a local comedy club for open mic night and did... not so great. STILL I tried something new and I will try again... this photo reminds me to try new things and NOT to let fear rule the day!
Other posts of mine that you may be interested in:
My Real Life Stories:
My First Tattoo (and other stupid decisions)
The Christmas that Almost Wasn’t (Broke Ass Parenting Win)
Annnnd... if you like stories of a more 'morbid' nature, you would probably enjoy most of my freewrites! Here is the most recent somewhat gruesome one:
The Family Skeletons
Oh, I can SO relate to so much of this! I can't do the chats. The other day, I tried again. I was not really at all upset, I was just sitting there trying to figure out what was going on. It is too much input for me, it overwhelms me and all the sudden I had tears running down my face. I laughed at myself, but that is just stressful for me. I like to chat like THIS, in the comments. At a leisurely pace, one person at a time lol!
Oh good! I mean, I'm glad it's not just me! I like to be able to write a response when I have the time to think or respond and know that the person can read it when it's convenient for them. I just find the whole chat thing very overwhelming. Of course I don't care much for mingling/small talk in person at events full of people, either! Put me on a stage in front of a crowd and I'm so much more comfortable than I am when I'm expected to actually mingle and communicate with everyone!
I have to give you a big applause for your effort this entire month! Not easy to navigate around steemit especially when we are new to this. Good Job!! i look forward to your free writes