That title may seem like a strange contradiction, but hear me out.

Discord is a fantastic chat app. We'll get that out of the way right off. The Steemit crowd had already embraced Discord as their chatting platform when I joined. That was my first experience with it. And of course we continue to use it today. It's a really great way to network and get to know each other.

I've met many great folks there over the years and had some really wonderful conversations. I hung out with the Writers Block and their various successor groups as they fractured apart for the first few years, then I stumbled into The Alliance and met @enginewitty who has really been an amazing person to know. We both have future plans to get together for some fishing—his passion—when I make it to the States and our schedules line up. Everyone in that group is wonderful and very supportive: @snook and @saffisara, many other people whose Hive usernames I can't think of at the moment, and the whole crew. Just going in there to say hi everyday fills me with a warm feeling. Seriously, if you want a great place to hang out with great people, join the Alliance. Of all the places I am in on Discord, that one has my highest recommendation.

^{Image by StockSnap from Pixabay}

I've also found myself in the Mancave the past year or so and had many great conversations with @raymondspeaks and @bozz. I'd love to have a beer with either of them somewhere and just shoot the shit sometime. @trumpman has a sense of humor that is off-putting to some around Hive, but he's a great guy and I've had some nice talks with him as well. A few interesting talks with @themarkymark about 3d printing too, which he seems to have developed a real passion for. I can't blame him for that—it's really cool. If you find him on Discord, ask him to show you some of the things he's printed. They're really neat. One of these days I'll invest in one of those printers and join in his enthusiasm. I also met and interacted with @traciyork there and her involvement in Hivebuzz is really what motivated me both to start sponsoring HPUD and to start my focus this year on getting my Hive Power up to 25k.

There are many other Discord interactions I could talk about. Many future ones I hope for as well. For example, I have a secret hope of being invited to this secret room @tarazkp and @slobberchops hang out at that he mentioned on one of his posts. I don't think I'm nearly as witty as either of them so I probably couldn't keep up with them in a chat situation, but that said I do enjoy my interactions with them on their posts and wouldn't mind getting to know them more.

Anyway, I could keep dropping names but that'd be a long and boring post, so let's move on. Point is, I've met and interacted with a lot of great folks in Discord over the years and I hope to continue doing so in the future.

But...

With a buildup like that, you knew there had to be a "but", eh?

As good as Discord is, for a guy like me who gets distracted by every shiny thing and every bleep and bloop, it can also be also be terribly distracting. I can easily lose a few hours just chatting with people on there. While I certainly do get a lot of benefit from it in terms of enjoyment I also waste a lot of time that I could be using to write Hive posts or just writing in general.

That last point is kind of critical. My kids are getting older and that means they are becoming more expensive. Just their school bills alone are killing me. Then when we add in cram school and extras (both boys want to get into kendo and the youngest wants to get into soccer, and neither of these things are cheap) I'm looking at a lot of bills here. I remember talking to Ray at the start of this year about writing gigs and me trying to find some. Specifically this would be things like writing articles for online magazines or other sites that buy writing. But as with many things, while that idea hung out in my head for awhile, I didn't act on it. Too many other things to do and then when I did have time, well, Discord was there to fill it.

Yesterday I wrote a short piece on retirement and that also got me thinking about finances. All these things in mind, I want to try to find some places online to write for. This will help my daily life by helping me pay for my kids with the extra money I make and could even help out with my Hive journey by giving me more to invest here. Well ok, let's not jump the gun. For now my focus is just on making enough to help pay for daily life things.

^{Image by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi from Pixabay}

Can I do it? I don't know. We never know until we try, eh? I've been writing online since 1996 when I made my first website on my university server and updated it by hand everyday for blog posts. I'd like to think my writing is pretty good at this point after doing it nearly daily for 25 years. Wait... 2023 minus 1996... Good god... 27 years! How time flies. Over the years I've built up a pretty good amount of knowledge about Japan, Japanese history, Japanese culture, and especially Japanese poetry. Other misc things as well.

But to aid this deep dive into trying to figure out how to write for magazines and sell my writing I'm going to need to seriously reduce the major distraction in my life that is Discord. I'll still be on there, mind you. I need to at least check in sometimes as I manage Blockchain Poets; also, attending the weekly Pimp meeting is a much. But otherwise I'm going to try to limit my time to around 30 minutes or less per day. I know, I know: I'll probably fail spectacularly at this on countless days. But this is my goal and hopefully I can gradually get there.

This in mind, you will still see me on Discord going forward, but those times may be much less than they have been in the past. And if you do see me on, I may have the app hidden and muted so I may not be too responsive. I won't be ignoring you so much as being too preoccupied pulling out my hair trying to figure out how to get paid for my writing so I can give my kids the experiences they want without going broke.

Anyway, no knock against Discord. Like I wrote at the beginning, it is a great communication tool and has allowed me to meet and interact with a lot of great people. I fully recommend it to any Hive user. I'm just reducing my time using it as I try to step into magazine or other paid writing.

If you have any tips, any suggestions, any sites to try, or—even better—any contacts to refer me to, feel free to give them in the comments.

My name on Discord is dbooster#6252 by the way. Feel free to send me a message if you want to chat. I think I have it set so only friends can DM me... I'll have to change that. Anyway, just keep in mind my responses may be a bit slow going forward.

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.