About Everything Notebook

Here's more about Everything Notebook.

Here’s more about Everything Notebook. If you wanted to find something here that you didn’t find, please read the privacy and terms page, ask a question in the FAQ forum if it’s a general question, or contact me.

Why start a blog in 2024?

Isn’t blogging “dead,”at least dead to the way it used to be? Is blogging even worth it anymore?

It depends on what you mean by “worth it.” If you’re talking in terms of money (which most people who write about whether blogging is worth it mean), the answer is that it’s pretty difficult to make a lot of money blogging. There are those at the top of the pyramid who make a bundle. There are more of us down here at the bottom who just blog away and don’t make much. And, in general, the “rule” of blogging is that you “should “should” have a very niche website.

But not all of us are blogging entirely for money. Sure, I try to monetize most websites I make. Blogging does cost money — more or less depending on your website hosting and features, and I’d like to at least have my blogging hobby pay for itself. But I’m here because I will…just make blogs. I tell myself that, if not for the Internet, I may have actually written that novel. But I know it’s probably a lie. I’ve been making — and often ending — blogs for a very long time. But when I quit, I just end up making another blog.

Over time, I’ve made and collected: essays, files, WordPress snippets, random thoughts. And created this blog to house those things. I have other websites, but this is the place to fit those things that don’t fit elsewhere, though I may share from them from time to time.

Aren’t there things like Medium? Sure, but I like having WordPress sites. I like having my own content in my own spot. I hate the sound of one clap clapping on Medium (if you know what I mean). So here I am. As I usually do, I may open this website to *some* outside guest posters as well.

Read on for more:

What you might find here.

As I mentioned, and as the title implies, you might find a bit of everything:

  • WordPress snippets
  • Thoughts on blogging
  • Essays, personal or opinion
  • Poetry
  • Stuff about words & Etymology, along with a glossary of such things
  • Recipes
  • Craft files I made in the past
  • AI “art” — note that I don’t consider myself an artist for sticking some text in a box but find it handy to use for blog featured images so I have a collection of some weird images — or some photos I’ve taken.
  • General curmudgeony stuff and random thoughts.
  • Whatever

You might also find some things I wrote on a blog called DukkhaGirl years ago, which had some readership but which I ended because of a conglomeration of family issues, economic issues necessitating a return to full-time work, and hackers. I thought of redoing that website, but didn’t really want to entirely write about meditation and Buddhism, even in a snarky way. I may put that stuff on it’s own page as I’ve realized a few links, even now, exist to that website.

I write reviews, including book reviews, on another site. But I love reading and may also put a few short posts about books here.

In the case that one of my other blogs falls through — I decide I want to end it and it won’t sell — that content will likely end up here as well.

Who are you and why do you write with a pseudonym?

While I don’t believe there’s true anonymity when you blog on the Internet, there’s a few reasons that I use a pseudonym – I’ll probably write more about one of these reasons in it’s own post eventually.

But I’ll make it shorter, here.

I started writing as “Perplexity” when I wrote DukkhaGirl. I had written an essay in my own name where I mentioned my — then young — daughter. As she got older, she pointed out that it was a short line from reading my name, to her first name in my essay, to finding her and then knowing “stupid” (I think cute) things she said as a kid.

Much of my writing, there, was very personal. And some of it, here, will likely be, too.

While I never write, except in extremely general terms about patients I had, I do, sometimes write about people in my personal life, from a perspective of telling my own story.

But the problem is this: I’ve done a few crappy things in my life, too. Do I want someone writing about those things with my name? So I both write in a pseudonym and if I want to write essays that include others, I tend to use a “cast of characters” who represent those people in my life. To make it more difficult to make connections to actual persons who have their own stories which may be different from my version. To protect both the guilty and the innocent.

But about who I am. I’m a woman in the Pacific Northwest, gradually going over that hill, who once wanted to be a writer but went into a medical position instead, had a family, and in semi-retirement found that she was no longer motivated to pursue writing by sending out query letters, trying to freelance.

So I write blogs. I guess I like it. And I’ll continue as long as it doesn’t significantly impact my health or my pocketbook or make my family hate me.

How can I get in touch with you?

I prefer email contact. If you have an online shop, sometimes “they” (meaning Facebook shops or Google merchant center) require you stick a phone number on your website, but I did that once and a few people started treating it as a recommendation line for things to do in the area. I don’t have a shop on this website, except for attaching FotoMoto to some of the image lightboxes, so I’m not adding that here.

So, here’s how you can contact me:

  • A form on the contact page or emailing hello at everythingnotebook dot com.
  • Register, log in, and ask a question in the forum or the forum on the FAQ page.
  • You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest. However, note that while I post to these accounts and you CAN use them to contact me, I do not spend a lot of time scrolling through social media and am sometimes delayed in my response on social media channels.
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