A quick note on paid posts

Just a quick note on locked posts: Anytime I lock a post, I hear from people wondering why. And I thought maybe that was obvious and we’d covered it here but apparently not. So….

There a few reasons I’ll set a post to paid only. I still haven’t quite gotten used to people reading the things I write, and I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to people talking to me about them. I am aware that this is a problem, but there it is. Sometimes something I write is a little more personal than say, a post about my van.

This probably sounds strange, but I’m a private person. I don’t know how I reconcile that with what I do for a living. It’s a mindfuck to say the least. Weed helps. But with some things, I feel better limiting the audience, even a little. Some days the simple fact of comments gets into my head. It’s why I keep comments locked to paid only, fewer to respond to, less chance of someone getting into my head. Sometimes I worry something will be too easily taken out of context.

That being said, the locked posts are almost never what I’d consider my better essays. Most of the content on here has and will remain free. But, while I’ll write either way, I don’t need to publish it anywhere. I do this to make money, which buys me time to write. I thought I’d hate it, posting here. I figured I’d grudgingly do it to buy enough time to finish another book. But it’s made writing fun again—lower pressure I guess. It feels like blogging. But somehow, and I still have a hard time believing it, I get paid to write, and this is part of it. I’m as shocked as anyone that I can support myself off it. Helps that I’m extremely cheap. And if reading the paid posts is what makes it worth subscribing, that works out pretty well for the whole making money part of the job.

So, thank you. I do not hold it against anyone for not subscribing, for cancelling, for dipping in and out. Do you. I don’t even check, I promise. I’m as annoyed as you are that everything’s a subscription these days. But here we are. I do appreciate those who do subscribe and share. It really is fucking mindblowing that I get paid to do this, and that y’all are willing to pay me. Let’s never speak of this again. It’s uncomfortable as hell. Leave the cash on the nightstand.