Today is True Story©'versary Y'all!
For the practice of it!
[Phlip note: I know today is Monday, I still got y’all on Thursday!]
Several years ago – September 1, 2017 – I made a silly BookFace post that started with the words “True Story©” and proceeded to tell an absolutely unhinged short work of fiction. It made no sense, I did it because I was bored and people REALLY enjoyed it. Because people enjoyed it and I am often thirsty for positive reinforcement, I did it the next Thursday morning and a habit was formed.
In the intervening years, I have continued to do this – at a monetary and time cost to myself – because I have always wanted to write and needed something to motivate me to do so. For anyone who has been around while I have been doing this, and I can honestly say that there are six who have been on for the WHOLE ride (no matter how many “both of you” jokes I tell), have actively seen that I am approaching this developmentally. Where each story early on was designed to stand alone, I have taken more the stance of crafting every one now to be revisited later. Not only that, I craft them to be revisited in a manner where they’re all connected somehow.
This was due to a couple of times where I legitimately didn’t feel like writing, like where I was not in the headspace, but felt I NEEDED to in order to regain some normalcy. What I found in myself is that there is always room to expand on a prior story and not always a fully-bespoke new one was necessary. Sometimes this means I will run up the score and have several pieces pre-written by IMMEDIATELY jumping on the followup in the same sitting as the first.
Armed with a new habit in my writing styles, I evolved a bit, and that is how the stories from as far back as 2023 are going up on YouTube at a rate of three a day. Something about the new approach has awakened something in me creatively and the ultimate benefit of that (and a RAINY summer) is that I have been ahead of schedule by at least like two or three weeks since July sometime. It is easier and lets the process transpire when you’re not pinched to make things happen.
So yeah, my adsense account hasn’t yet made me even enough to bother with withdrawing, so the reality is still that I am paying to do this. I continue to do it, though, because it is fun and keeps my mind moving so there remains some benefit to it regardless.
My ultimate dream is to get the right eyes (or, now, ears) on what I am creating in order to one day type words in exchange for some real money. The very fortunate reality in the meantime is that I am supported well enough by my full-time job and side hustle and still have a surplus of time enough to do this without feeling like I am wasting my time.
Further, I have observed that when my creative streak is activated and/or sustained that it is a sign that I am in a good space, mentally.
I say that to say that sometimes I may forget it’s Wednesday and miss a week, but if I miss two then you should probably check on me. I have learned in this AI narration project to try and constrain the presentations to 1800 or fewer words which I will now apply to a lot more multi-part stories.
Rather than be faced with badly overdoing it and diluting my output, I have decided to apply my productivity to improving the past experience for you guys as well.. If you have a look through the True Story© archive from 2025, you will see that all stories have been updated with their companion video embedded. 2023 are posting to YouTube three per day and will be added back to the original links as I find time to edit them when the videos go public.
At the end of it all, True Story© is as much about y’all as it is about me. I am so into giving people what they want and like that I am more than receptive to feedback. Anyone who has offered it, has seen adjustments made and/or even seen their ideas worked into a story. It has been about evolution… I change up from how I THOUGHT I wanted to write – how I LEARNED to – to what I know can be digested by the people who might receive what I am saying.
Even if I have not achieved the huge fame and fortune for my creative output, I still feel the benefit of keeping at it so I will continue to do so.
Happy True Story©’versary, y’all!
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