Well, That Went as Expected...

[lydamorehouse]

 I got exactly ONE patron, despite a rather intensive social media blast and even having a couple of my more popular friends boost the signal. 

Ah well, I tell myself that building a community may take time. 

In other news, it snowed here. 


Image: my front yard with snow covering a big maple, green lawn chairs and a table

This morning, as I went out to get my coffee and bagels, I was reminded of the opening scene in "Fargo," a movie with which I have a kind of love/hate relationship. I felt like some of the Minnesota stuff was played up a bit much (though, yes, we talk like that occasionally.) But, say what you will, that opening, which depicts a flat landscape where the sky is a slightly darker white than the snow-covered ground is exactly what it is like outside today here in St. Paul--without the flat. Least people from other parts of the world be confused, a lot of western Minnesota is flat like you see in the move, (though, FOR THE RECORD, Fargo is actually in North Dakota,) and like you imagine the Great Plains to be. However, St. Paul and Minneapolis are in the Mississippi River Valley and the landscape is very undulating and, in places, steep here. A river runs through it. And, as you go south of here, towards my hometown of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, you hit a section of country that the second Ice Age missed, the Driftless Zone.

My point, and I do have one, is that I found the grey on grey weirdly cozy this morning.

I should have been irritated because here it is the middle of March and we have enough snow on the ground that I needed to haul out my shovels, but... it just looked like the kind of day that, when you have nowhere you need to be, you can just pull out the fluffy blankets and snuggle under.

The roads are a slippery icy mess, however. I would not recommend going out in this, unless you have to. It's supposed to reach 40 F / 4 C either this afternoon or tomorrow, so it won't last. I feel bad for the folks in Denver, CO, who apparently got buried in snow. 

My plan for the day is to work on a novella (space lesbians!) that I got stalled out on and then do some more outlining for the upcoming book.  

Comments

[offcntr]

Two patrons!

(I missed the announcement yesterday, too wiped out from glazing.)

[lydamorehouse]

Yay glazing! And, THANK YOU SOOOOOOOO MUCH.

[yhlee]

It takes time - I had a small number of initial supporters (mostly driven by people who had seen and liked my flash fiction rounds on DW) but over the years the number grew! I put my Patreon link on my author website and in my Twitter profile, and every so often someone joins. Someone suggested it might also be worth dropping the link into the "about the author" bits of published books going forward.

[lydamorehouse]

Thanks for the pep talk. After whining here, I got three more subscribers... which, I'll be honest, puts me back on an even keel. Four people is not a lot, but somehow it feels WAY less loser-ish than ONE. :-)

I will take your advice and pepper the link everywhere.

[yhlee]

Yay!!!

Oh, one more thing - it helps to have a few public entries now and again so that people can see what kind of thing you do and what they'd be signing up for to get access to the exclusive! goodies! that! aren't! public! :)

Not to Quibble, He Said Quibbling

[lsanderson]

But Fargo is at the bottom of a huge ancient lake and a river still runs through that used to drain south when the lake was there and huge, but now drains north, and all that remains of the lake is the flat land at the bottom and the sides of the lakeshore which are miles and miles and miles apart at Fargo. Very little of the Great Plains are as flat as the lake bottom at Fargo, which is so flat that even a Netherlander can feel at home.

Re: Not to Quibble, He Said Quibbling

[lydamorehouse]

Ha. Cool info! I have mostly just driven through on my way elsewhere, alas.

[pameladean]

When I've got a few more new patrons socked away I will become a patron of yours. I have to really guard against supporting so many people that the monthly income shrinks visibly.

A slow start isn't a bad thing. New patrons often go through and read everything available in their tier (or so I surmise for the "likes" of older posts when new people arrive), so it's good to have a backlog for them. Yoon is right ,too, about having some public posts available.

P.

[lydamorehouse]

No worries. I am not actually trolling for patrons. I was just whining to a sympathetic audience.

I have one public post right now, but will def add more soon. Thanks for all the advice, truly!

[bibliofile]

Another feature of some grey days: when the light is strong enough to make the white bark on a birch tree contrast really well with the grey of the sky.

We had less snow than you, I think, and it mostly melted today. Fortunately, the streets are still covered with sand, as the spring street sweeping had barely begun.

Yay, space lesbians!

[lydamorehouse]

Space lesbians is fun, but my computer died today so I got nothing done, writing-wise.