Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re thinking. What the hell are ads doing on this blog? The very blog whose author professed an ideology of ad-lessness? I assure you that the past two postless months have been filled with much kicking and screaming, along with some good, ol’ fashioned “I don’t wanna!”

In that same time, I’ve watched my personal debts continue to grow (hurray for interest!), and my social interactions dwindle (hurray for trying to work for yourself!) For the first few months of working on this blog, the work itself was enough to keep me going. I was spending 12-14 hours a day, in some fashion, working on this blog. I finally felt like a “real” writer.

It was good while it lasted.

Quoting “artistic integrity”, I swore off of advertisements, like so many of the bloggers who had inspired me. Unlike those who had come before me, however, I had abso-frickin’-lutely no immediate plans on how I was going to, you know, buy food and pay the rent.

Oops.

“Eventually,” I kept telling myself, “I’ll come up with an idea for a book, and that book will add so much value to people’s lives that they will gladly pay for it, and everyone will win.” Unfortunately, books take time, and there’s no way to suspend metabolism so that you don’t die of starvation while pursuing your quest to “make it.” Double unfortunately.

Speaking of metabolism though, the past two months haven’t been exclusively suck covered in suck-sauce. That raw diet I started? Still going strong, and I’ve lost 15 pounds. I’m actually back down to my college low, and once again, none of my clothes fit properly.

That’s a mostly good problem to have.

This weekend, my social life climbed out of the nosedive it’s been in more or less since I lost my job. You see, “normal” people interact with others five days a week just by going to work. Are these ideal interactions? Perhaps not. But they are interactions, nonetheless. Myself? Well, working at home and having no income with which to justify leaving home (i.e. to be around people in coffee shops, etc.), means that I’m at the mercy of other people’s Monday through Friday schedules. Yup. I get to see them on their weekends, and I spend the other 108-ish of my waking hours during a given week sitting by myself—mostly sitting at a desk wishing I would write something. Alas, being a social creature with no social life tends to fry your brains. Fried brains don’t lead to a lot of writing.

This Thursday, however, everything started to change. I went to a party at a friend’s house (admittedly, after everyone bailed on my plans to go out); Saturday I went on a date that was more enjoyable than I ever could have anticipated; and Sunday I got a surprise visit from a friend who was passing through town on her way back from a camping trip. At the conclusion of this already awesome spurt of social interaction, another friend texted and asked how the writing was going, and followed that up with asking why I was being boneheaded and not advertising if I wasn’t making any money. Ergo the ads, and this post.

You can blame her if you don’t like it.

Chances are good that if you’re reading this, you’ve also read my post on non-violent communication, considering it brought in 50-60,000 hits that first month, and continues to bring in a fair amount of traffic. The friend who I was talking about in that post still hasn’t had much to say to me, and I don’t blame her considering how poorly I’d handled the situation. Unfortunately for my writing, she was the one I was afraid to disappoint, a la using the sunk cost fallacy to my advantage. Not that I don’t regret being a disappointment to all of you, but she was the one that was really in my face about making sure I maintained the blog, even on days that I didn’t feel like it. With her no longer being invested in my success, and after deducting our almost daily communication from my already dwindling social life, it was a pretty big blow to contend with. Just because you can use the sunk cost fallacy to great effect doesn’t mean it won’t backfire. The people who have invested in your success can always decide to cut their losses and move on.

But, I’m back, and I’m feeling hopeful. Granted, I feel that my financial situation somewhat limits my ability to write on the topic of fear, and that’s still a major issue to contend with. I mean, how many “I’m sitting at home, trying to make it as a writer” posts can I throw up before you guys get sick of it? Still, the ads may help balance out the financial situation, so long as you guys can bear with them. And, if and when that happens, I might actually be able to tackle the more interesting things. Like jumping out of airplanes.

On top of all of that, though, there’s the whole “telling it how it really is” aspect. Would it be fair to anyone if I only recorded my successes? If I made it look easy? Well, it’s not all puppies and rainbows. And I would much rather you be inspired by my perseverance than by some easy successes.

What about you? What challenges have you faced in the past couple of months? Were you able to overcome them? And have accomplished big goals, like weight loss, that you’re really excited about? Put it in the comments.

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