Author Archives: Maria Langer

I’m Not Your Support Person

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Just because my blog addresses one of your problems doesn’t mean I’m willing to spend time giving you more help or advice than what you find here.

The other day, I got an email and three texts from a fellow maker. He sells on Etsy and has had a bunch of problems with them, all of which he listed in his email message. He had read the post I wrote last year about why I left Etsy and seemed to think I would be his go-to source for help finding an alternative for his niche market handmade items.

I saw the email and got the gist of it after reading just a few lines. It was early evening — unlike too many other folks, I don’t sit with notifications turned on and respond to every bing emitted by my phone. Email, in fact, is one of the worst ways to reach me because I hate checking it. So I figured I’d give it a closer look in the morning.

Text Messages
Here are the initial three messages. I did get the email he’s referring to. I just don’t drop everything to answer emails from strangers. Does anyone?

I’m not much better with texts, which is the next way he chose to reach out. He sent three of them.

That got me kind of annoyed. Yes, I wrote a blog post about why I left Etsy. And I believe that every creator of quality merchandise should do the same. (I won’t repeat why here. Read the post.) But just because I left Etsy and wrote about it doesn’t mean I’m anyone’s source for one-on-one support for Etsy dissatisfaction.

Deja Vu All Over Again

It’s just like when I wrote computer how-to books for a living. Someone would buy one of my books for about $20 — of which I’d be lucky to see $1 of income — and they’d automatically assume that I would answer all of their questions regarding the topic of the book. I cannot tell you how many email messages and phone calls I got in the early 2000s. That’s why the Contact page on my blog says this, right at the top of the page:

Support and Frequently Asked Questions

I no longer provide support for my books, articles, Web site, or anything else by email, contact form, U.S. mail, or telephone. There are no exceptions to this rule. I simply cannot provide one-on-one support for my work — especially work that is no longer in print.

Note that it includes “Web site” and “anything else.” This person used the form on that page without bothering to read what was right on the top.

Unfair Expectations

More Text Messages
Here’s the first round of responses. When he came back with more nastiness this morning, I responded and then deleted the thread.

Rather than just delete the email message and text messages — as, in hindsight, I really think I should have — I answered him honestly, trying to be gentle about it. But he got snippy and sarcastic. When I told him that I’ve been dealing with requests for help for the past 40 years — okay, maybe just 30 — he came back with more nastiness and told me I should give up blogging.

Oh really? Being a blogger means you’ll help any schmuck who reads your words and wants personalized assistance?

I told him that after blogging for more than 20 years that wasn’t likely.

I also told him that he needs an attitude adjustment and he needs to stop expecting strangers to help him with his problems. (I wish I still had the actual text I sent, but I deleted the whole exchange right after sending that last one and, for once, Apple has actually removed it from Messages on all of my devices. Go figure.) I wasn’t being nice anymore. I was being blunt. I wanted this guy to go away and I really don’t give a damn if he likes me or not.

But that’s my point of view on the issue. Yes, I wrote about it. I wrote 2600 words about it. That’s all I have to say on this matter in a public forum. My blog does not exist as a gateway to using me for support. It’s all of the support I am willing to give, all packaged up in individual blog posts.

Solve Your Own Problems

And that brings me to this, which I see as a major problem in today’s world: no one wants to do their homework anymore. Everyone would rather just get all the answers from someone else, even if that person is a stranger.

Like me, this guy has become dissatisfied with Etsy. Well, Etsy isn’t the only place to sell. There’s Shopify and some maker co-op that the folks on Mastodon keep pushing and the solution I went with: setting up a shop with my Square account. A Google search for “where can I sell my homemade widgets” will get him started on possible solutions. Reading reviews and blog posts and forum posts about those solutions can help him learn the pros and cons of them — so he can pick the one that’s right for him and his business.

Expecting a perfect stranger to take him by the hand in a phone call and walk him through the process of finding his perfect solution is unrealistic.

I have a full life and lots of things to take up my time. (Including, apparently, ranting about situations like this in my blog.) I’m running three small businesses by myself and trying to bring in some extra income in early retirement, before taking social security payments. I should be working on my Great Loop book or making jewelry right now. (I hope to do both with the rest of my day.)

Maybe our text exchange will be a wakeup call for him.

Or maybe it won’t.

Migration Warning – Update

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I prep to move this blog from my current host to a new one.

Just a fore-warning… I’m prepping to move this blog from Bluehost to Hostzinger. I’m just plain tired of Bluehost’s poor service and support and the crazy high fees they want to charge me for three small blogs.

There’s a pretty good chance this blog will go down for a few days. If it does, don’t panic! Keep check in.

And wish me luck! I’m going to need it.

UPDATE

This morning (17-Oct-24), I duplicated this site on the new host using a domain name I already had registered there. Then I pointed the original site to this one. That’s why the domain name in the URL bar is different. Once the original domain name is transferred, I’ll fix all that. In the meantime, however, it looks like the site survived the move intact.

UPDATE

Bluehost dragged its butt making the domain transfer so it all happened while I was away. But as of this morning (25-Oct-24), the website transfer is done and operating. Email is iffy, but doesn’t affect anything here.

Journaling My Year

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I start, on January 1, to keep a daily journal and 10 1/2 months later, I’m still at it.

Over the years, I have tried and mostly failed to keep a daily journal of the things going on in my life. I’d start with good intentions and then stop, mostly because I forgot to keep writing. Then I’d start up again, swearing I’d keep at it, but then stop.

What I Tried

I tried handwritten journals in beautiful blank books. Stopping midway through one of them was especially painful since I really wanted to fill them and have a record of a long, uninterrupted period in a really nice looking book.

I tried using calendar-style planners with a whole week on each spread. Not much space to write there; I could simply put down a few bullet points about my day. These suffered the same fate. I have many partially completed calendar books floating around my home.

I tried marble notebooks like the ones we used in elementary school. The local Fred Meyer sells them for just 50¢ each once the Back to School buying rush is over. I have a lot of them. (I have a paper addiction.) They fared no better than all the other handwritten options.

And yes, I tried digital journalling. I tried apps designed just for that purpose. (I was very excited about Apple’s Journal app until I actually tried it; what good is a digital journal if you can’t export or print it? How many people will be using the same Journal app in 20 years? Definitely not me.)

Scrivener Document Sidebar
As you can see in the sidebar for my Scrivener Journal document, I was very bad about writing journal entries.

I also tried using Scrivener, the darling of the writing world. I created a Journal file with folders for months and files for days. The screenshot of the document’s sidebar shown here should give you an idea of how that went.

Understand that my desire to journal every day has been very intense throughout my life. Heck, this blog was started as a journal of sorts. Not a daily journal but just a journal of the interesting things I was doing or thinking that I wanted to share.

That desire ramped up as I aged and I started forgetting about things I’d seen or done. The only remnant — or trigger, in some cases — of a memory was a photo I took at the time. But I don’t take photos of everything. I worried that I was permanently forgetting the things I did, things I might want to remember in the future.

Things that would be so simple to just jot down right after they happened.

In a journal.

Another Try

This came to a head when I was trying to write up the days of my Great Loop trip in the My Great Loop Adventure blog I created to document the entire trip. It isn’t easy to blog in detail every day so I slacked off. And then, when I was trying to fill in the gaps in the blog, I realized that I just couldn’t remember the details I wanted to share.

I needed to do something about this. My memory was starting to get iffy and I didn’t want to lose days of my life. I had to try journaling again and stick to it this time.

The Journal I bought
I bought a yellow one in the largest size; they come in a lot of colors and three sizes.

I started on January 1. I prepared by buying a very nice journal book on Amazon (don’t judge me) that had 365 pages. One page per day. They were not dated or numbered but they did have spaces for both bits of info. And lines close enough together to fit a few hundred words.

I started on January 1 in Key West FL, where I was on my boat with my friend Jason. And, for the first time ever, I’ve kept to it, providing an entry for every single day of my life. It’s now October 16 and I have entries right through yesterday.

Covid Entry
I backtracked to fill in the pages for days I was really suffering with Covid. All I remember from those days was sleeping.

I’ll be honest: I don’t always write every evening or the following morning like I want to. Sometimes I miss a few days and have to go back. I’ve found that going backwards from the current day usually helps. The only days when the entry is unreasonably short were the few days that I slept nearly the entire day due to my bout with Covid in August.

Why It’s Working this Time

Why am I finally doing so well at journaling this year? I think there are three reasons, one of which I already touched upon.

  • Motivation. I’m tired of forgetting days and weeks of my life. I’m tired of looking at photos I shot 3 years ago and seeing places I forgot I’d visited. I don’t think my memory is any worse than the average person my age — it’s not like it’s a problem — but the only way I see being able to remember stuff is to jot notes about the day at day’s end or the following morning.
  • Success leads to more success. After ten and a half months of keeping this up, I feel that I’d really be letting myself down if I didn’t continue to do it. So the more I write, the more I want to write.
  • 365 single pages to fill. The book’s design makes it easy — and, in a way, required — to journal every day. There are exactly the right number of pages to fill. (Actually, there were 366 days this leap year, but I can always insert an extra sheet if I have to.) Second, the pages aren’t that big. There are only 25 lines! That’s nothing for someone like me. And who says I have to use every single one?

I bring the journal with me whenever I know I’ll be away for more than just one night. I try to write my entries at the end of the day, but if I miss that, I’ll try to do it in the morning when I’m having my coffee in bed.

What I’ve got so far is a summary of what I’ve been up to so far this year. Sometimes I write about when I woke up, how I slept, and what I ate. Sometimes I write details about a travel day’s experiences. Sometimes I write notes to myself about how I have to do something or change a dumb behavior. And once in a while, I write what’s on my mind socially, politically, or romantically.

And yes, I can squeeze a lot into 25 lines when I need to. I don’t write full sentences. It’s not like it’s going to be published anywhere. It’s just something I can look back on in years to come to remember what those pictures I might have are all about. Or to fill in the gaps when I didn’t take pictures.

One thing is for sure: it’s definitely going to come in handy when I fill in the gaps in the My Great Loop Adventure blog.