Totally Human Writer

GM

Keep your pretty little mouth shit, Jim.

Them: how is the writing going? Me: well, I made a fort for my cats. ... What shoukd I add? Any ideas for names for the fort?

Chapter 3 - Good Airs The quarter-life crisis arrives a few years into your career. ‘Is this it?’ You think. ‘I’m supposed to do this for the next 40-45 years? Maybe if I redouble my efforts, forgo avocado toast forever, and marry a countess, we might be able to afford a two-bedroom flat above a betting shop in a commuter town called something like Wallythorpe or Pynchbottom-on-Thames.’ I left for South America. Travel makes you live in the moment. The only looking back you do is to organise your experiences into a coherent blog for your family and friends — you know, so they remember to be jealous. My site was called Tall Travels. I wrote weekly. Raw, sarcastic, and poorly edited posts. I had all the tools I needed to create something great — a sharp observer’s eye, creativity, unlimited time and energy, inspiring people, and formative experiences. I particularly fell in love with Argentine culture in Buenos Aires — midnight dinners, literary discussions, film festivals, rock music, street art — I drank it all in… especially ‘yerba mate’, which I drank before the Hollywood celebrities. I learned Spanish, played 5-a-side football with locals, and wrote songs on a faulty steel-stringed guitar. Tall Travels was self-expression. I still believe that your primary audience should be yourself. However, that does confuse potential readers of your travel blog. They expect ‘10 Cozy Cafes in Buenos Aires’s Upmarket Palermo Neighborhood’, not ‘A Conversation Between Overweight Farmers on a 14-Hour Bus Journey’. My travel blog never looked attractive. In fact, I’ve always been against taking pictures. It feels like an alternate version of reality, and pressing your face to an SLR eyepiece and clicking the shutter means you are not really looking at life. You’re not really experiencing your trip. I took a few shots on a clunky digital camera — Machu Picchu, the expansive Bolivian Salt Flats, the grassy Pampas of the Andean foothills — but they never felt like mine. One time, I watched hundreds of tourists scramble to take the same photo at Iguazu Falls, then I wrote about it in the hostel. The posts were rants. I needed to process why everyone seemed to act so differently. This formed part of my ‘write a million words of garbage’ training. Writing comes easy when you are feeding your soul with so many new experiences. When everything is the same, you have to trick yourself to draw the words out. Like many forms of writing, travel blogs aren’t very honest. But, I captured the landscapes in the camera of my mind. The characters of Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina told the kinds of stories I’d never heard before. I wrote those stories later, after I processed what they meant. Mexico would be the next place to feed my writing journey. And luckily, I like spicy food. #unphiltered

GM. Does anybody know the number of people who asked for the Digitsl Euro?

GM from GC. Question to thise who organise bitcoin meetups and communities - where do you advertise? nostr:nprofile1qqsxvns8pl39uakaema9fy5uphjzajkssyqfx5r7yn0yvgs828xm02spzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgy936vc, Telegram groups, Facebook... anywhere else?

10 things I do at bitcoin conferences as a serious introvert: 1. Take notes with a pen amd paper. 2. Give out physical business cards. 3. Eat far too much from the breakfast buffet, including rich food that makes me fart. 4. Half-hourly trips to the bathroom to fart. 5. Make extremely bad jokes to break the ice (normally, my jokes are just bad). 6. Threaten crypto shills with pepper spray. 7. Carry around a bag of books, then forget to talk about them. 8. Become confident enough to fart in the presence of others, then look around and pull faces when the smell hits. 9. Wear smart shoes. 10. Begrudgingily pay €5+for airport coffee. How do you all fair at conferences?

GM. Airport vibes. Vitamin Prague. Let's go. ✈️✈️✈️

I've hit upon an a writing idea. It's partly thanks to nostr and being present here most days. After some introspection, I found I am tired of switching platforms, playing to certain identies, and aiming for writerly 'success'. The rules of the game are now changing much faster than one man can keep up with. I've been writing for nearly 20 years, professionally for 10, and the world of words only gets more complicated. I get closer to burnout every day. Whether readers find this valuable or not remains to be seen. And at the end of this all, I'll focus on wherever my ideas resonate most. I vow to publish a weekly post or article outlining one epoch or era of my writing career. That might sound pompous, like I've won two Pullitzers or the Booker. I haven't, but my writing has spanned blogs, magazines, hand-crafted books, self-publishing, indie publishing, coaching writers, winning competitions, workshops, podcasts, ghostwriting, copy and content, the rise of AI, social media stardom, new platforms, editing, working as a publisher, and marketing clients' books. As an experiment, I'll publish everywhere - Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Substack, Nostr, and anywhere else I'm already plugged in. This will be a retrospective of my first burst of creativity and work (2010-2025). As well as helping others discover my work, it'll help me to remember and cherish my journey. If my words help new writers, thats grand. Really, the results of this social media experiment may be more interesting than the stories themselves. My posts will be unplanned and unfiltered (aka poorly edited). Who will notice? What will they think? What conversations will arise? Will the results of this experiment be book worthy? Anyway, this is Part One of my writing life (more like a prologue, really). Expect one edition each week. And wherever you are reading this, drop by and say 'hello'. P.s. should I call this project 'UnPHILtered?'

It's 1 year since my fiction book about the possibilites of time was published by Konsensus Network. https://bitcoinbook.shop/products/fifteen-shades-of-time?Format=Paperback I wrote it before I'd ever heard the word 'timechain'. But somehow, my obsession with time brought me to Bitcoin. Thank you to my readers, and thanks to Satoshi too.

Built a little website this week (not my core skill). Projects like this absolutely fall under 'writing avoidance', but I get so much energy from them. People with fiat jobs arrive home after an exhausting commute to Uber Eats and 4 hours of Netflix. I stay up past my bedtime making this. Here's to building Madeira 2.0. bitcanario.com #circulareconomy

GM. It's a fine day for a nostr:nprofile1qqsfpncy8ps7tddfjukt0dff5ka8rvs46mg7x9x8f824ymkpx0cakucpr3mhxue69uhky6t5vdhkjmnhv9kxktnwdaehgu339e3k7mgpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqh8zfjd.

Quick update for our short animation nostr:nprofile1qqstdhxam7rxw5586xjwscsdj24fqhp93kzsh7xvjg7nnhc7mlh9aecpzemhxw309ahx7um5wghxgetvda6x26eww34j7qg7waehxw309ajx2a3wdehhxarjwpkxz7t8wfhh2mny9e3k7mf0pe7r2q project at nostr:nprofile1qqs9rzzjrvedgzm5pgfc35jyugny9k34zhq0kw0swpt39ymsqz8t2xqp99mhxue69uhkw6nddpkksemfxuurj6r2vaj8jetj09ek2un8v3n8vcnwvd6x2tnx095szxrhwden5te0dfczuur4wfcxcetjv4kxz7fwvdhk6tmjmnc. All contributors of $21 will be listed as film supporters. You'll also get the 'Tales from the Timechain' eBook and the audio book story for the film. Merch and other goodies available too. https://geyser.fund/project/noderoidsaga #filmfunder #node #animation

Freemium services have ruined us. Fiat's 'buy now pay later' philosophy has hacked our value perception, and it incentivizes us to make poor, short-term choices. We accept services that don't hit the mark because they are free. We trade low functionality for zero investment. We trade our time for advertisement minutes. We trade our freedom for Big Tech's digital panopticon. I do it too. The answer (as usual) is FOSS. Encryption and sound money help us realign incentives with reality. And when we offer our time or work for free, it cannot be 'freemium'. We can only trust those who are up front and say 'I expect nothing from this.' I've been pondering this subject as I shifted from coaching (selling via the freemium model) to writing for money. My energy is not invested into creating taster courses or useful writing tips. I run the Gran Canaria Bitcoin community and help friends set up self-custody. Going all in on bitcoin makes you honest about your time, effort and money. And it feels great.

Coffee with a friend of mine yesterday. He's an ex-banker. Retired. Writing a book about his life. We got onto the topic of Vietnam's de-banking and CBDCs. ...he wasn't really engaged. "Cash is going away," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Do you care about the Digital Euro?" I asked. "Programmable money is the biggest danger to our freedom." He didn't even know what the Digital Euro is. He's not a stupid guy. He just has no reason to care (until it's too late). He played the fiat game and won. He's not looking for reasons his perfect world will crumble. We get so het up about Chat Control and Core vs Knots, but we forget most people, even bankers, don't know what money is. Fiat slaves are too busy hustling. Fiat Barrons are too blazé to care. The fate of money will be decided by the few who choose to stand and fight. That's US, nostr. That's us.

GM from the bus stop. Time for another sunny hike. 🌞🌴🥾😥

Setting up a node has been pure pain so far. It is still not synced after 2 weeks. About 12 hours fiddling. Constant checking. 2 friends helping. $230 on parts. Adapters borrowed. Waste of time so far. Yes, I've probably bought the wrong stuff, used the wrong OS, got slow Internet etc, but it should NOT be this hard. I'm ready to throw the thing out the fucking window. Whoever said it is cheap or easy to run a node is already an experienced programmer, or has expensive computers lying around.

Cryptoshills be like...

Guess where I am...

A very tropical GM to you.