This is not my first attempt to write an entry to @theycallmedan's latest of initiatives to bring more folks to Steem by posting Steem-complimentary and enticing entries on both Steem and Twitter. For this particular initiative, entrants will be rewarded merely for praising three of the people on Steem who have impacted their lives the most. My first draft of an entry for this initiative was rote, in a form that most of the entries employ, and was boring even to me. I scrapped that one and began anew.

I have written posts like this several times before, and not because there were prizes or upvotes attached to the task, but simply because I was grateful. I was supported by a great many people on the blockchain in my early days, the days of running out of RC without knowing what RC even were, the days of making zilch on really good posts because not a single human had read them, the days of wondering if Steem was even the right place for me. @riverflows, @vdux, @mariannewest, @jayna, @carolkean, @wonderwop, @fitinfun, @wandrnrose7, @marcoriccardi, and many more will have my gratitude for their early support of me into eternity.

Steem abounds in generous people and without them I would have been long gone from the blockchain.

So I sat down to write yet another post about the wonderful people here for @theycallmedan's initiative, because that first time, I wasn't feeling it. Let me tell you why.

It is still very difficult to make money unless you either have money on Steem or pander to those who do. I know, I know, the recent fork tried to correct that problem so that good content is rewarded and bad content is not, but it's not really always happening, at least not in the creative writing communities which are my main focus here. For instance, fabulous freewrites by unknown or new authors as well as by long-devoted and well-known authors are almost completely overlooked by the big curators. Posts for other communities consisting of long and mediocre stories by persons of power and wealth are often rewarded generously. A recent post on behalf of one writers' community that denigrated the work of the @freewritehouse community was heavily rewarded by one of the largest curators here and by several others, essentially supporting the opinion of that author, not the worthiness of her post.

My list of persons above who encouraged me to persevere on Steem is made up primarily of members of the disparaged community, @freewritehouse. The posts for @freewritehouse rarely earn substantial upvotes no matter how brilliant they are. We are pretty much ignored by the powerful on Steem, perhaps because our posts make so little, a catch twenty two situation. Freewrites do receive fairly regular support from curangel and tipu. Trufflepig shows up quite often. Curie is in the house occasionally and so are appreciator, therealwolf, tombstone and others.

I don't read every single freewrite. I do read an awful lot of them though because I enjoy seeing the inner workings of a mind almost as much as I enjoy writing out mine. I follow most of the freewriters. Thank you to those of you who support the very valuable work of freewriters in any way.

The true rewards of writing for @freewritehouse lie in human support. Humans read the entries, many humans. Humans encourage the authors, humans upvote and comment on the low earning posts, knowing their 100% upvote will do little more than give a warm and fuzzy feeling to the author.

@freewritehouse is Human Powered, not Steem powered.

The effect of the denigrating post could have been demoralizing to our large and devoted community. I know that I was dismayed when I saw that the nasty post earned more than any freewrite, to my knowledge, ever has. The post was mean, the post was unnecessary, and the post demeaned what has been for me the most important Steem on-boarding community. But @freewritehouse, despite the efforts of the writers' house that chose to liken the posts of @freewritehouse to certain bodily emissions, has persevered. I am very happy to report that few if any have left us, we are all still writing often even though we earn nearly nothing, and we are all writing well, sometimes even spectacularly.

If you are thinking of joining Steem, please seek out @freewritehouse. I will follow you and many of the rest of us will too.

So why am I telling you all this? Because when I first sat down to write a post for @theycallmedan's latest initiative, I realized my heart was not in the content, and I was just writing it for the minimum upvote I would probably get. I was producing the very shit post my community has been accused of producing, posts that the accuser admitted she never even bothered to read. I was writing crap in order to earn, because despite all the efforts of Steem to modify human behavior so that good content is what gets rewarded, the reality is that bad and undignified behavior is still also getting rewarded.

I will be sharing this post on Twitter, but worry not. I have exactly two followers on Twitter, two of the very best persons on the Steem blockchain.

So my entry to @theycallmedan's contest consists of showing my gratitude to the two people who have sought me out on Twitter: @carolkean and @agmoore. Thank you for literally following me. I love you both. For my third person, I'm choosing @namiks, who generously delegated 500SP to me just days before HF20/21, without which I believe I would surely have left Steem by the end of September 2019.

This is my entry to @theycallmedan's initiative to bring more people to Steem, which you can find here. I hope my post is fodder for discussion, not retribution. We'll see.

None of the people I mentioned above had any part in my writing this.

Thank you so much for reading it. I really appreciate your taking that time to listen to me gripe a little about a place I have come to adore, the Steem blockchain.

image by @wales, Dean Moriarty

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Where you do you.