Okay, so clearly my October hasn’t gone like I’d planned, and I think I have given up on posting a blog entry every day. It is a lot of effort for very little reward. I’m all about reward. So, less forced content and just…do what I do.

So, what have I been up to?

First and foremost I have taken over the Pinterest board for The Butchered Writers.

I have been active on Pinterest almost since its conception, but I’ve never really put any thought into my personal pinboard. I’m like a crow collecting shiny things there. I like it, I pin it to one of my dozens of boards. I almost never create my own pins, just hoard others.

For the group’s pinboard I have to be a little more strategic. There is a balance between creating new pins and sharing other peoples pins, and I’m trying to find the happy medium. But I must be doing something right, because the number of impressions has gone up 1.16k% in the past 30 days. Now, if only the board could get some followers and more engagement. I still haven’t figured the one out yet.

Speaking of The Butchered Writers, we have what I am calling a Halloween Horror Advent Calendar on our webpage. Every day we have been sharing a short horror story for free. Some of these have been pulled from Blood and Candy, a previous halloween anthology, but even more of them are brand new.

I have written 2 brand new stories for it myself. “Purdy,” a human horror with a southern gothic feel (and a pig), and “The Witch’s Grave” with a more supernatural antagonist.

Due to the work I’ve been doing with The Butchered Writers Pinterest, I have deiced to start one for myself as an author account. I haven’t done much with it yet and I’m not sure what to expect from it.

Outside of the 2 stories I wrote for the horror advent so far, I have not been doing much fictional writing.

I do have two projects in the works right now. I did get a submission for Bushy-Tailed Demons that I need to edit. I’m also working on a secret anthology that I was hoping to release this year, but I have a hard time stay on target, so neither of those will probably launch in 1025.

I am still brainstorming how to do my snail mail feral trinket lover newsletter. I still think it is a great idea and I love it, but I don’t know how to pull it off. Especially considering that even though I have a multitude of followers across different platforms I only have about 4 people who engage with any of my content, and most of them are members of my writing group. There is no point in trying to launch something if nobody is going to see it.

Meanwhile, I’m hoping to practice by utilizing my Substack and my Ko-fi accounts. Substack at least has more of a chance of me getting some readers as they are more social than anything else. A chance for someone outside my circle of 3 people to find me.

In all of the work I’ve been doing on Pinterest, I’ve also started using canva to create other things. I have a sticker for sell now that I created there (shown below) as well as a second one that is supposed to be on the way but I’ve not gotten yet.

I am also playing around with the idea of making printable on Canva and selling them on Etsy or Ko-fi. Activity sheets, zines, other things that might give me practice for my snail mail newsletter if I ever get it off the ground.

I KNOW that is not everything I wanted to cover in this but…it is what it is.