sex writing

How to Write 1,000 Blog Posts

Kate Sloan

I literally cannot believe this, but… this is the 1,000th blog post to be published on girlyjuice dot net. WOW.

This somehow feels like a more momentous milestone to me than more time-based ones, because just saying “I’ve been blogging for eight and a half years” doesn’t give you a whole lot of info about what that has actually entailed. But it’s a whole different ballgame when I say it this way: I’ve been blogging here for 3,114 days, and have written 1,000 blog posts in that time, which averages out to 2.25 blog posts per week EVERY WEEK for nearly a decade. Yeesh. I’m so proud of myself that I’m not even trying to rein in the congratulatory self-indulgence in this paragraph!

With that in mind, I know a lot of bloggers and other types of writers follow me here, so I thought I’d share some of what I’ve learned about creating massive amounts of blog content over multiple years. It hasn’t always been easy, but I’ve always found my way back to it whenever I strayed or slacked for a while. Here are some tips that I hope help you if your goal is to make it to 1,000 blog posts or beyond!

 

Pick a subject you’re enthralled by. Maybe don’t start a blog about, like, 18th-century Viennese architecture, unless you’re actually so captivated by it that you think you have several dozen blog posts’ worth of thoughts to share on the topic. The vast majority of blogs burn out – and while there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that (I know not everyone is aiming to make their blog their job, as I have), if you’re in it for the long haul then it’s best to set yourself up for success. I chose to center this blog around sexuality because I could think of literally zero other subjects that I genuinely felt I could keep writing about forever, and it turns out I was right: the landscape of human sexuality is always changing, and so is my own sexuality specifically, making it a rich vein of blog post ideas.

…but also, don’t limit yourself to one subject. If this blog was only a sex blog, I don’t think it would be boring, exactly – there are infinite subtopics within the field of sexuality – but it certainly would be less fun for me at times. I’m only human; I’m not always horny. Sometimes I’m too depressed or ill or heartbroken to contemplate sex, and that’s typically when I dive into writing about relationships, fashion, feminism, or mental health. Thanks very much to the ladies of the Blogcademy for introducing me to the idea that your blog can be like a magazine: geared toward a particular type of reader, and the topics (yes, plural) that they’d be interested in.

Develop a storage system for ideas. Frustrating but true: far too often, when you have a fantastic idea for a blog post but are too busy to jot it down, you’ll end up totally forgetting about it. Either it’ll languish forever in the back of your mind – “I really should write that one of these days!” – or you will actually forget you even had the idea in the first place. It’s crucial that you develop a way to collect all your random blog post ideas somewhere so you can use ’em later. I try to always jot down not only the title/main idea of the post, but also a few notes about its contents; for example, for this post, I wrote down “how to write 1,000 blog posts” followed by a few bullet points about the kinds of tips I was hoping to give. This helped jog my memory later when I sat down to actually write this post.

Develop regular features. I do a “Monthly Faves” at the end of each month, “12 Days of Girly Juice” at the end of each year, and have experimented with various other recurring features in the past. These are especially helpful when you’re going through a period of being extra stressed/busy/sapped of all creativity (hello, 2020!) because they give you structure and some kind of prompt. You don’t have to come up with 1,000 completely unique and different ideas to write 1,000 blog posts (although kudos if you can)!

Read social media, forums, and the news. Not all the news, certainly (god, I think my brain would explode from sadness oversaturation), but at least enough to know what’s going on in your field at any given time. You never know when a random news story might thrill/incense/sadden/alarm you into writing something brilliant. Keeping an eye on social media and relevant forums also helps you keep your finger on the pulse of what people actually do/feel/think, not just what mainstream news says people are doing/feeling/thinking – so you can answer questions a lot of people are wondering about, provide guidance on issues that confuse most folks, or unpack your own feelings on the hot-button issue of the day.

Talk to friends, family, partners – and people you disagree with. Conversations have been some of my best catalysts for good blog posts over the years. Sometimes all it takes is a simple statement like “I’ve been thinking about writing a piece on [insert vague topic here]…” and before you know it, you’ll be in a profound dialogue or heated debate with someone about the issue at hand. Often, conversations with smart people – whether or not they know much of anything about my chosen topic – can help me figure out a unique angle, an offbeat consideration, or a hot take. It’s most useful to converse not only with people you like, but also people who rub you the wrong way, because they may offer you a perspective you’d never considered before, or present a perfect ideological springboard for your argument. (Just don’t get sucked into debating alt-right trolls as if their arguments have any merit… Been there, done that; it’s never worth it.)

Pay attention to readers’ search terms. Certain services, like Google Analytics, allow you to see what search-engine queries lead people to your website. These are always illuminating; they tell you not only what you’re already helping people with, but also what you could be helping people with. Obviously, not all blog content needs to be helpful to the reader in order to be valid and good, but informational and “how-to” articles are often the most “shareable,” so it makes sense to focus on them at least some of the time. If you notice that a lot of your readers seem to be fruitlessly searching for answers to the same questions, maybe that’s a cue that you should answer those questions for them in a blog post.

Take the money (if you want to). It’s simply a fact of life in a capitalist society that you will be more able to devote time and energy to an activity if that activity pays. Not everyone gets to a point with their blog where it starts attracting hopeful advertisers – and sometimes that’s due to entire industries or genres of writing being chronically undervalued, which sucks – but if you do start getting that type of offer in your inbox, at least consider it. Some people are very hesitant to “sell out,” especially within a vocation that they adore, because they think money will drain the joy out of the whole endeavor – which indeed can and sometimes does happen. But for me, getting paid to blog has almost always just been a motivator. The more income I’ve earned through this site, the more I’ve been able to set aside other jobs and projects to focus on what I’m doing here – and (for me at least) that results in better, deeper, more interesting work.

Allow yourself to grow and change. While it can be tempting to stick with a successful formula once you’ve found one, your best writing will happen when you step outside the box you’ve inevitably created for yourself. Any reader who’s actually invested in you as a person will happily follow you into new territory (so long as you haven’t, like, taken the red pill or joined a pyramid scheme), and to the extent that you lose old readers when you switch things up, you’ll also gain new ones who are more in line with your present-day vision. I certainly would not have been able to write 1,000 blog posts solely from the limited perspective of the 19-year-old sex nerd I was when I started this blog – but writing 1,000 blog posts from my ever-shifting perspectives from ages 19 to 28? That was no problem at all.

 

What strategies have you found helpful in long-term blogging?

Intimate Intercourse: Dating a Sex Writer (Part 3)

Kate Sloan

Hello again! Welcome back to Intimate Intercourse, a series where I interview my boyfriend/Sir/daddy, who goes by Super Sleepy Dude, about various topics related to sex and kink. This week we’re discussing hypnokink! This is the final part of a 3-part interview; you can read part 1 here and part 2 here. In this instalment, we discuss the upsides and downsides of dating a sex writer, and his advice for anyone considering it.

KS: What are some of the things about dating a sex writer that are hard or weird?

SS: Okay, this answer is sort of like answering the “What is your biggest weakness?” job interview question, because it’s a problem that isn’t really a problem, but – if you’re dating a sex blogger that’s reviewed a lot of toys, and they have, like, 200, 300 sex toys, deciding what toy to use is actually kind of hard! There’s a lot of choices. There’s a lot of things to fuck you with, a lot of things to hit you with, and also stuff you haven’t reviewed yet that you might wanna use, even if you don’t like it or know you might not like it, because you have to. So that decision is a very frequent decision that I have to make, especially ‘cause I’m your dominant, and also there’s so many options. It’s a “paradox of choice” type of thing sometimes.

KS: [giggling] We mostly stay within a relatively small group of things, because it makes it easier to make those decisions.

SS: Exactly. I don’t have to, like, go pull up your toybox page every time we have phone sex, to be like, “Okay, let’s see here…”

KS: But I do think, like, I say a relatively small group but it actually isn’t that small, all things considered.

SS: No. It’s bigger than most people’s entire collection!

KS: Right. And you have an impressive grasp of not only the toys that I have but also kind of the function of each one and when it would be right for any particular moment, which I find really impressive.

SS: Yeah. What else is hard about it? There’s a difficult-to-ignore extra layer of minor anxiety about something going wrong. Stuff goes wrong in sex all the time – you’re tired, there’s boner issues, there’s whatever – and there’s a part of me that’s like, “I don’t really want to fuck this up.” But it’s not rational. I don’t think you’re trying to write about a particular person’s one-off boner issue. That’s not interesting.

KS: No.

SS: So I don’t know. It’s just a thing. I don’t know, is there anything else that I’ve said was hard in the past, or that you think makes it hard for you, as a sex blogger, to date people?

KS: I mean, it pisses us off when people try to involve themselves…

SS: Oh, yeah, it really does. When people are sort of trying to insert themselves or make non-complimentary comments about us, that is kind of rough.

KS: The problem with that is that, yes, I’m a sex writer, yes, part of my skillset is making private, intimate experiences palatable and comprehensible for outsiders, but inherently, I’m not writing about every detail of everything that happens, and my readers don’t have all the context of our relationship because they aren’t in it, and so you can’t assume that you know everything about somebody just because they write about their sex life. And likewise, you can’t assume they’re going to be willing to open up about everything. We’ve had people ask us really inappropriate questions and just be gross about it, and it’s like, “Guys. Just be chill.”

SS: How do you feel about the thing where people say, like, “I love him,” or “I’m so into your partner,” or whatever?

KS: I mean, I am only made uncomfortable by it to the extent that you are – except when people are, like, hitting on you, which is kind of rude, to me.

SS: Yeah, it is kind of weird. I’m very flirty, so it doesn’t usually register as weird to me; it usually registers as like, “Oh, yeah. Okay, cool.” But sometimes it crosses that line.

KS: I just get very protective and very, almost like, “mama lion energy” around that, because I feel this sense of responsibility for what happens to you in my spaces, because I brought you into this…

SS: Totally. That makes complete sense.

KS: Yeah, I’m just like, please stop. Because my worry – not just with you, but with past partners when this has happened also – is that someone will experience too much of that and will decide it’s too much and will have to end the relationship. So that’s always kind of where my mind goes.

SS: Oh, how has that happened?

KS: None of my other partners have really been out as my partner who weren’t in the sex industry already, but if I wrote something about someone that was very flattering or complimentary and people were saying gross, objectifying things about the person based on that, then I would try to keep those people from seeing those comments sometimes, or just try to protect them from that, because I didn’t want them to feel like dating me was a liability.

SS: Yeah. Makes sense.

KS: Yeah. What are some of the best or most fun things about dating a sex writer?

SS: Seeing yourself from another angle, especially an angle of somebody who’s really into you or in love with you, is a gigantic self-confidence boost. I’d recommend it to anyone! Even if it’s private, even if you can just get your partner to write a thing that is never published that they can share with you, or vice-versa, I think it’s great. Hell of a drug! What else? Being able to meet tons of other people in this industry, that I really enjoy their work and think they’re making a big difference in terms of sex-positivity and stuff, is really cool.

KS: Were you starstruck when you met Epiphora and Lilly?

SS: Yeaaaah. A little bit.

KS: [laughing]

SS: Also, getting to see you do your thing. I’ve been in relationships with people where I can’t see them doing their work and being really competent at the thing, and that is a huge turn-on, I think, for both of us, so being able to watch you do panels and listen to your podcast and read your writing, being able to consume all of that competence is also great. And the toys. Yeah. Yes.

KS: Yeah, it is a fun perk that I am able to acquire toys for you to use and for us to review.

SS: Yeah.

KS: And I appreciate that you take that task so seriously, ‘cause I’ve had partners in the past who just sort of would give me very vague, brief thoughts on the toy, and I would always be like, “Hey, I need more than that.” So you’re a good partner for me in that respect as well.

SS: Mhm.

KS: One more thing… What would you tell someone who was thinking about dating a sex writer but was kind of unsure about it or scared about it?

SS: A couple things. The first thing is, I think that a lot of people who’d be thinking about dating a sex writer are thinking about dating a sex writer’s public persona. They don’t actually know that person… yet. So, don’t assume that they’re gonna be having sex all the time, or that they’ll be exactly who they are in their sex writing. That’s just one side of them.

KS: Yeah, I’m frequently depressed or giggly. I’m not always a Sex Person.

SS: [laughing] Yes. And then, maybe you’re flirting with that person or you’ve met them at an event or whatever, and you think it’s more of a real possibility, not just a thing that you’re fantasizing about, like, you might actually get to go on a date with them – don’t make it entirely about that, either. If I was a sex writer, I wouldn’t want to be dated for my job, or for the clout or whatever. I’d want to be dated for who I am. So it’s just, again, it’s just one facet of this person’s life. And for some people, it’s just a job, it’s just an income source. So, be aware of that. And then, the last thing I would say is, think past just the next week or the next month about whether you are okay being public. Don’t be like, “Oh, that’s a problem for later,” or, “I don’t have to worry about that,” because if you can’t [be public], you really need to be upfront that it’s not going to happen. And if you think it’s a possibility, discuss that with the person that you’re dating as you’re working through that process. I would say that if you have worries about coming out and you want to talk about it ever, DM me, because I could talk about that forever. And I will try to convince you to do it.

KS: [giggling] That’s so cute. You’re an evangelist.

SS: Yeah.

KS: Okay. Thank you, I love you, I’m very glad we’re dating.

SS: I love you too, little one. You’re a very good sex blogger and I am glad we’re dating.

Freelance Friday: Ruination & Regret

Kate Sloan

Q. Has there ever been a time/incident where your work “ruined” masturbation or other specific sex things for you (temporarily)?

A. This is, unfortunately, a frequent occurrence for sex toy reviewers. There’s increasing discourse about how monetizing hobbies can make them feel less fun, and I’ve found this to be true about both masturbation and writing at different times in my life.

There were, for example, two years in a row where I issued myself a daily masturbation challenge in May (#DidYouJerkOffToday) and found that by the end of the month, I could barely dredge up any enthusiasm for getting myself off. Yes, even orgasms had lost their lustre. How sad!

I’ve dealt with this by drastically cutting down the number of toys I accept for review, and by generally only accepting toys I think will be good or at least amusingly weird. My most frustrating experiences of sex toy reviewing usually centered around toys that were not good, not bad, but mediocre: decent enough to get me off, but not fun or flashy or earth-shattering or world-shifting. When using a toy is just as boring as trying to string together sentences about that toy, you know your vocation has truly drained the fun from your sex life. So I try to say no to that type of toy these days.

Sometimes people (mostly Tinder matches) express concern that because I write about sex and dating, my actual experiences of sex and dating aren’t authentic because I must be constantly filtering them through the question of “Can I write about this?” I’ve actually taken great care not to do this. I deemphasize actual dates and sex sessions in my writing, usually choosing to write about sexual and romantic concepts more generally, so that I only write about specific incidents when they’re interesting enough that I feel moved to do so. This keeps me from ruining my own romantic life by being too goal-oriented about my writing.

My partners have sometimes gotten frustrated when we needed to test a terrible toy multiple times – Lelo Ida, anyone? – and, as Epiphora has documented, this can put a surprising strain on relationships. It’s for this reason – as well as the whole “I’m in a long-distance relationship” thing – that I almost never accept couples’ toys for review. My job is ridiculous and nonsensical in many ways, and while my current partner is as GGG as I could ever hope for, I’m not prepared to risk my relationships’ stability just for a review!

Q. Have you ever published something you later regretted (e.g. because it was too personal)?

A. The week after an OkCupid boy cruelly ghosted me, I lamented to my therapist that I was already embarrassed by the post I’d written and published about it. The piece had spilled out of me in a tearstained whirlwind, and it had seemed so important that I get it out into the world. But in retrospect, it’s messy, and melodramatic, and god help me if that boy ever stumbled across it. I wish I had waited even a week before pulling the trigger.

This has become a less frequent problem since I’ve gotten serious about my blog as a full-time job over the past few years, because these days I always pre-schedule content, sometimes weeks in advance. I can’t count the number of times I’ve written something vulnerable, queued it up, and then thought, “Actually, no,” and filed it back into my drafts. There’s a piece in there right now called “10 Thoughts Upon Learning My First Daddy Dom Is Someone Else’s Daddy Now” that will probably never see the light of day, because I wrote it in 2017 after a grotesque breakup and that level of grief is akin to a state of intoxication: not a good space for decision-making.

When I showed that piece to Bex, he asked me, “Does it say useful, important things, or is it navel-gazing? Will it teach people something, or was writing it just a good way to process your feelings?” This is still my metric for the usefulness of personal essays. The great Glennon Doyle, a memoirist and blogger, says, “I never put my writing out there until I’ve figured out how this thing that happened to me is really about all of us,” and she’s so right: the specifics of your personal experience, while they might be cathartic for you to get out on the page, probably aren’t artful or interesting until you shape them into something more universal and broad. That’s not to say there’s no place in the world for telling our own unique stories – heaven knows I do it all the time – but I have noticed that the pieces I most regret publishing are the ones filled with unprocessed emotions, word-vomited up without care or consideration.

My friend Kate Sinclaire often says that if you want to do porn, you should first imagine the worst possible person to discover your porn doing exactly that, and if you can live with the reality that they probably will, then you can go ahead and do it. I think the same is true for sex writing. It might seem like a terribly good idea to publish an emotional screed about that Tinder hookup from last week, but what if the person you fucked finds it and reads it? What if your boss does? What if your grandmother does? Self-censorship can poison your creativity, but you need a certain amount of it, or you’ll drown in regret pretty quickly. Imagine the most embarrassing possible person reading your piece, and if that feels alright, then you can hit “Publish.” But please don’t do it before then, you impulsive little imp.

 

Got questions for this series? Drop ’em in the comments or in my contact form.

How I Became a Full-Time Sex Writer

Kate Sloan

Friends, this blog is SEVEN YEARS OLD today, and that feels absolutely wild to me. I was not always the delightfully busy, proverbial-phone-ringing-off-the-hook sex writer you see before you. Even people who seem like they sorta “have their lives together” had to start somewhere. I’ve read my hero Alexandra Franzen’s post “A chronology of my life as a professional writer” many times seeking answers and comfort, at times when it seemed like the writer thing just wasn’t going to work out… and so it feels like good scribe karma for me to explain, in a similar fashion, how I got to where I am now. As the youths are saying on Twitter nowadays: Buckle up.

2000 or thereabouts. I am a voracious bookworm, a semi-closeted nerd, a precocious weirdo at age 8. I spend hours chronicling my days in my Little Mermaid journal – and, secretly, penning erotica in my ornate Anne of Green Gables journal. Later, I will rip all the filthiest pages out in a bout of shame – but for now, the anatomically ill-informed trysts on those pages fill me with joy.

2006. I’m knee-deep in a musical theatre obsession, and believe, genuinely believe, I will be a Broadway performer someday. I devour all the books I can find on the subject – Audition, Making It on Broadway – and go to voice lessons and memorize monologues and make lists of my dream roles. One night, at a family party, during a discussion of all the kids’ various ambitions, my wise older cousin turns to me and says, “I think Kate will grow up to be a writer.” I laugh, because she’s wrong: clearly I’m going to be singing and dancing on Manhattan stages instead. Right?

2009. My (hot, British) English teacher pulls me out of science class to tell me my recent essay for him was exemplary and that he wants to use it in future lessons. My glee cannot be quantified. That same year, I win first prize in a student poetry contest, and I get to read my extremely gay poem onstage in front of a bunch of literary types. They give me a $100 bookstore gift card which I promptly spend on a lot of Bukowski.

2010. I take a Writer’s Craft class where I get to explore various different forms, ranging from Shakespearian verse to sitcom scripts. Later, one of my favorite teachers lets me take a one-on-one literature/creative writing class with her, tailored to my tastes and goals as a reader and a writer. She assigns me twisted fairytales, feminist essays, Angels in America. I write a play about romance, non-monogamy, and gender confusion, and they do a staged reading of it at my school’s Fringe Festival. I cry a lot in the aftermath, having heard my words in other people’s voices and been utterly lit up by it.

2011. That same teacher recommends me to Shameless magazine as someone they should profile, and they do. It’s my first appearance in a magazine, albeit not a byline. The article captures my frazzled artistic life at the time: improv, painting, poetry. I’m still not settled on the “writer” identity, though I’m getting there.

Early 2012. I take a year off between high school and university, trying to figure out what the hell I want to study. One night, at my commencement, I’m mesmerized by the ASL interpreter onstage, and ponder whether I should go to school for ASL translation, something I’ve often idly thought I might enjoy. But then I realize it would probably be best if I studied something I already know I enjoy and am good at… like… writing. Something clicks. I race home that night and write in my notebook: “MAYBE I SHOULD GO TO JOURNALISM SCHOOL??”

March 2012. I apply to a shitty retail job at a sex shop. I do some Googling about sex toys to make sure I know my shit incase they call me in for an interview – but they don’t. However, in the process, I discover sex toy reviewers like Epiphora and Lilly, and I think, “Hey, I could do that.” I start a Tumblr-hosted blog. I name it Girly Juice. “Could be a fun summer project,” I note in my journal.

April 2012. The owner of a website called Sex Toys Canada reaches out to inquire about a partnership. I’m still new to the sex toy reviewing game, so I eagerly negotiate a deal whereby I will get $140 in store credit each month in exchange for writing 2 articles for the company blog. I acquire my first “free” toys, including an Eroscillator, and feel like a business genius. (Over a year later, I will renegotiate and get them to start paying me in actual money. Only $50 an article, but still.)

September 2012. I start classes at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism. It’s hard – especially “streeters,” where you have to interview random people on the street for a story, the bane of my socially anxious existence – but I feel invigorated and inspired by the smart writers who surround me and the wonderful work I get to read every day.

2013. I get an unpaid internship writing and editing articles for a dating newsletter aimed at middle-aged women. A recommendation letter from my supervisor at the end of the summer says that I have “excellent written and verbal communication skills, [am] extremely organized, can work independently, and [am] able to effectively multi-task to ensure that all projects are completed in a timely manner.” I try to parlay the internship into a paying position, but they don’t go for it – probably, in retrospect, because their economic model hinged on not needing to pay people like me.

2014. I’m invited to write some pieces for on-campus publications, the Eyeopener and the Ryerson Folio; far from limiting me, my sex “beat” just makes people think of me first when they need a sex story written. A J-school colleague of mine interviews me for a story she’s writing for Herizons magazine about labiaplasty. In seeking out the mag so I can read the story, I realize they’d be a great fit for lots of the stuff I like to write about. I pitch the editor a feature story about toxic sex toys, and she loves it. My friends and family rejoice supportively about my magazine debut, a heavily-reported story called “The Greening of Sex Toys.”

2015. I attend a sex bloggers’ retreat called #DildoHoliday, and teach a workshop on generating content ideas and staying on task, since I am, according to one of the retreat organizers, “the queen of productivity.” Throughout the year, I’m interviewed for the University of Toronto campus newspaper, the Offleash podcast, Kinkly’s Sex Blogger of the Month feature, and Sex City Radio. Everyone seems suddenly interested in this weird sex writer girl.

Early 2016. I do my final-semester internship at the Plaid Zebra, where they let me write about sexual health, social psychology, and dick tuxedos. It gives me a taste of what it might be like to be a full-time staffer at a publication – and I discover that I think I’d rather freelance. I take a gig writing monthly articles for a sex toy shop’s blog, to supplement my growing income from blogging and journalism.

July 2016. I pitch an essay to the Establishment about dating faux-feminist men. They accept it, I write it, and… it goes viral. For several days, I basically cower in my bed, overwhelmed by the onslaught of tweets and trolls and threats. I wonder, many times, if the sex-writer life is really for me. I conclude that it is.

Early 2017. I work a sex toy retail job, briefly, before they fire me for no real reason. At first I panic about how I’m going to make ends meet, but then somehow the sponsored post requests and freelance story assignments pour in at exactly the right moment. The sex and relationships editor of Glamour reaches out via DM to say she loves my blog and would welcome any story pitches from me. I write for her – and Teen Vogue, and the Establishment, and Daily Xtra. I dutifully update my portfolio every time a new piece goes up. The Daily Mail writes about what a slut I am, and I’m terrified it’ll incite the trolls again, but it doesn’t, not really.

June 2017. I start my new dayjob as a social media writer for a firm that works with adult-industry clients. It’s 10-15 hours of solitary, largely self-directed work per week. The steady work allows me to relax and not worry so much about whether my more creative work will be able to support me. I stop shopping for button-downs and pencil skirts in a gesture of supplication to some future office-job self; I accept that maybe I am just A Person Who Works From Home Now, and that therefore it’s okay for me to buy star-print leggings and sparkly T-shirts instead.

Early 2018. A Spanish newspaper calls me “the Canadian Bridget Jones.” At my boyfriend’s urging, I pitch a story to a dream publication of mine, Cosmo, and they say yes. When it goes up, my perfect brother tweets, “My sister is now a Cosmopolitan-featured writer!” and I don’t quite believe it until I see his words.

Late 2018. I win an award from the Association of LGBT Journalists. I get nominated for Best Blogger in NOW magazine’s Readers’ Choice Awards. I write big meaty reported pieces for The Walrus and an op-ed for Herizons. I sell several sponsored posts a month, and do odd jobs copywriting and ghostwriting for various sex shops, dating sites, porn sites, and adult content creators. I do my best to follow Alex Franzen’s advice: underpromise and overdeliver. Then I’m invited to teach a sex writing class at the Naked Heart Festival and it validates me, affirms me. This is really my career. Wow.

2019. Herizons offers me a column; I accept. I do more copywriting and ghostwriting and social media writing. I pitch, and write, and network, and brainstorm. The sex writer life, to my delight, goes on.

 

Big takeaways, if I had to choose a few:

  1. Even if your heart is in a particular genre of writing, consider branching out into other areas. I wouldn’t be able to do my fun, creative blogging and essay-writing if it wasn’t supported at least some of the time by social media work, promotional copywriting, etc. – not to mention, going outside your comfort zone helps stretch your creative muscles.
  2. Pitch, pitch, pitch, and pitch some more. Pitch publications you would love to write for, not just ones you think would “let you” write for them. Aim high!
  3. Getting paid for your writing – particularly blogging – can be a slow, long haul. Don’t expect anything to happen overnight. It is more than okay to supplement your income with a dayjob along the way, and even once you become more established. We all gotta eat.
  4. Trolls, h8erz, and rejection letters from editors can all feel much bigger and more important than compliments, fan letters, accolades, and achievements – but they’re not. Do your best to let setbacks fade into your history; they don’t have to define you, as a writer or as a person.

Thanks for being here! It’s been a pleasure spending seven years with you – or however long you’ve been around. ❤️

Freelance Friday: Structure & Secret Readers

Kate Sloan

Freelance Friday is my recurring feature where I answer your questions about the odd blend of blogging, journalism, and copywriting that is my career. You can read more writing-related content in my Blogging & Writing section!

Q. How do you structure your day so that you stay productive? I feel like if I worked from home, I would sleep until noon, procrastinate on my work constantly, and take terrible care of myself.

A. This is usually one of the first things people ask me about when they find out I work from home. Most people have some experience with aimless, unscheduled days – whether during a bout of unemployment, a gap year, or just a holiday – so they know it can be a mind-numbing and even despairing reality. So, they wonder, how do I, and others in my position, manage to do it every day?

It’s a fair question. When I first eased into the telecommuting lifestyle, I did exactly the type of shit you’re describing here. I slept too late, stayed up too late, skipped meals or overate, left work til the last minute or did too much all at once. I was like a teenager whose parents have gone away for a week in Bermuda. It was, shall we say, not ideal.

What I’ve found helpful isn’t glamorous or sexy: it’s just rituals and routines. I’m a Taurus through and through, so it takes me a while to warm up to changes in my daily habits, but once I do, they tend to stick. While I love the freedom and flexibility of the freelance life, I also recognize that I need to impose some rules on myself if I’m going to get anything done.

My dayjob, blessedly, requires me to get up around 9AM every weekday. I am a sleepy person and I have seasonal depression; if I didn’t have a reason to get up in the morning, I likely wouldn’t until late in the afternoon – so thanks, dayjob! I usually do an hour or two of that work before getting dressed and heading out to a nearby café to work on blog stuff, podcast stuff, journalism stuff, or more dayjob stuff – whatever needs doing that day.

Cafés are a crucial part of my workflow, and I’m certainly not the first freelancer to feel that way. Whether it’s the caffeine, the noise level, or just the impetus to put pants on and join the real world, there is something about cafés that helps me power through work that might’ve felt impossible if I was sitting at home in my pajamas.

Over the past year or so, I’ve become more methodical about taking a proper lunch break, rather than just working through it like a fiend. I’ll buy or make something filling, and settle in with a book/podcast/TV show/YouTube video while I eat. I found I was more prone to burnout back when I would half-work through my lunch, so now I force myself to get out of “work mode” for a while when mid-day hits.

My major not-so-secret secret weapon for productivity is a to-do list. I make one in my Notes app every day, and cross things off as they get done. My partner has access to the list, and his supervision makes this tool even more potent. It’s simple as hell, but keeping a to-do list religiously has boosted my productivity a lot.

Lastly, while it’s important to build structures that help me do my best work, it’s also important to build structures that let me relax at the end of the day. Freelancers and other self-employed types – especially those prone to hypomania! – are notorious for never really “clocking out,” and as necessary as that sometimes seems, it’s not healthy. When I’m done my work for the day, I close all my work-related tabs and apps, shut my laptop, and physically walk away from it. Often I’ll unwind by smoking some weed, reading a book, listening to a funny podcast, and/or writing in my journal. Then I’ll typically eat a late dinner and call my partner around 10–10:30PM. Our end-of-day phone conversations provide a grounding conclusion to my day, keeping me focused on something that isn’t my inbox or my Twitter timeline, which always feels so needed after a full day of work.

Q. Has anyone you weren’t “out” to as a sex writer ever found your blog and confronted you? How did you handle that?

A. While I wasn’t always “out” as a sex writer, I’ve never really been embarrassed when someone read my writing who “wasn’t supposed to.” I always figure that if they’re offended by it, that’s on them, not me.

Of course, that isn’t true in every case. If I was writing cruelly or nonconsensually about someone, it would be reasonable for them to get upset about that. I’ve definitely done this in the past, but I’ve learned from my mistakes. Nowadays, usually the only people I roast on my blog without their express knowledge are people who’ve deeply hurt me – people who genuinely fucked up in some way. Anne Lamott says, “You own everything that happened to you… If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better,” and I believe that, to some extent. Someone who dumps me in a coldhearted way, or ghosts me, or leaks nudes of people I love, knows they’re being a dick when they do that, so I have few qualms about lampooning these people on my site – which they probably don’t even read, anyway.

The caveat is that I’m never unnecessarily cruel and I never identify people who don’t want to be identified. I wouldn’t write mean shit about a Tinder hookup’s dick size for no reason; I wouldn’t publicize an ex’s name, or describe their appearance in overly specific detail; I wouldn’t spill other people’s secrets or their deepest shames. It’s just not nice. I’m not saying I was always perfect on this front, but these are the standards I hold myself to now.

That said – yes, there have been times when I’ve discovered someone was reading my blog who I wish wouldn’t. For example: a dude who had, months earlier, lied and told me he was poly when he was actually monogamous, thereby making me unknowingly complicit in him cheating on his girlfriend. Or an ex who’d broken up with me in an especially explosive and scary way. Or a guy I’d stopped talking to after he crossed numerous boundaries. While I don’t necessarily begrudge these people reading my site, it is weird when they tell me they read it, especially if they do so as part of a half-assed apology or an unwarranted desire to “reconnect.” It feels like a boundary violation. If you are reading this post knowing full well that I probably wouldn’t want you to be here… perhaps think a little about why you’re doing that, what you’re getting out of it, and how it might make me feel if I knew.

I’ve been much better about getting partners’ consent to write about them and running relevant details by them before publishing, ever since a boyfriend told me, during a breakup, that I’d made him feel used for material. Those consent practices are important, but it’s also important for me to be able to write about shitty behavior when people are shitty to me. It grinds my gears when a partner or a hookup does something reprehensible and then says, “Don’t write about that on your blog” – because the implication is that they want to appear good and sweet to my readers, without actually being good and sweet to me. Fuck that. If they wanted me to write warmly about them, they indeed should have behaved better.

If you have questions for this series, you can leave them in a comment below, or email them to me!