A Fishing Story, or Why I'm Leaving Gather

For those of you who don't know, gather is a social networking site where you get "points" for participation that can be used to buy gift cards. However, in order to get a lot of these points, you have be extremely active. There are three ways to get a lot of views and comments on your articles: (a) write articles with no real content, such as "name a word that starts with A," (b) write something controversial so people will attack you personally, (c) Comment A LOT on other people's articles.

Since I wasn't feeling the first two options, I chose option C. The problem with option C is that it takes a lot of time. I ended up spending literally hours a day reading and commenting on other people's stuff. Which is all fine and good until you stop and think: If I'm spending hours commenting on others' work, I am not spending that time writing my own stuff, marketing myself as a writer, visiting friends, reading books, leaving the house, etc. It is a great avoidance technique, really.

So, when I started getting attacked by a troll, I took it as a sign. It reminded me of this time when I had a toxic real life friend and I couldn't find the nerve to tell her to leave me alone. One day, after I didn't call her on her birthday, she called me and said, "My mom doesn't want me to talk to you anymore." My response was, "Okay. Sounds good to me." So when the powers that be at gather agreed with the troll and decided to start deleting my articles, I decided that sounded good to me too.

If I'm ever going to make ist as a writer, I need to be more serious about it and not spend about 20 hours a week on a site that might, but probably won't, make me 50 dollars in a month and will result in my getting attacked for publishing anything worthwhile.

In other words, I need to fish or cut bait. And baby, it is time to fish.