Birthdays and names

September is here and that means only one thing.

A small but incredibly important point which likely draws as much meaning for you, the readers of my glorious wordlings, as it does for me, the crafter of such nonsense.

It will be my birthday soon!

Sigh.

Thus, the above image to properly reflect my feelings about the approaching number.

Not quite 40 yet definitely not 30.

Stuck in the in-between times.

If that doesn’t describe COVID life I’m not sure what does. Anyway, have a laugh and have some thoughts for birthdays like Mandarin speakers do for New Years.

If you want to say Happy New Year in Mandarin, the phrase is “Gong xi ni!” which roughly translates directly to “Congratulations to you!”

While I haven’t done a deep dive on the origins of that phrase, to me it always makes me laugh in a most sardonic manner.

“Congratulations to you, you survived another year!”

or in the context of my birthday…

“Congratulations to you, you old fart, soon it’ll be 40 and your hair will stop pretending to not be grey!”

Scary times.

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Some Lettery News about the NewsLetter

I mentioned before—to those lucky few who pay attention to my scribbles—that I’ll be slowly updating the format of this newsletter.

The first change was the no-prize renaming contest, and the voters asked for the ironically named Pryor Knowledge.

This one will remain the same. For those that want to hear what I’m up to each week, see what I’m writing about (or ranting or raving or crying), get paywall-free links to my stuff, or just want to see my pretty cartoon eyes pop up and say hello.

But on the other side, I wanted a space to share more of my serious pieces. Ones that have a light dusting of humor rather than a gigantic Dyson smashing it in your face as we see here.

I’ve sent out a few in the past that I was proud of, but almost every time it resulted in a good chunk of people unsubscribing.

And that’s my fault.

So far, in my dazzleless writing career, I’ve been stubbornly sticking to the generalist mantra.

One of the main problems with this is some people don’t want a smorgasbord of topics. They came to this newsletter through my humor, through my society pieces, through my massive guides to making more money on Feedium, or a plethora of other experiments—and they don’t want the rest.

And that’s perfectly fine.

For you. Not me.

‘Cuz I’m an occasional weiner.

So today I started another “section” in my Substack here where each week/two weeks I’ll share a full article. A serious one. About serious stuff. Definitely no tidbits of humor. Shirley not, I’m serious.

But yea, if you’re here to get free links to what I post every week and my lovely rambles, please remain subscribed to this!

If you’d like to hear my usually thoroughly researched thoughts and ideas on everything from Satanists, to downvotes, to Commies, to casual conversations in Asia—please enjoy the other section as well (for now I’m calling it A Pryori).

Don’t worry, you can opt out of the other one if it’s not your vibe.

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TLDR:

This newsletter will have 2 sections going forward:

1. Pryor Knowledge— will remain the exact same—you don’t have to do anything.

2. A Pryori—will be my more serious essays 2-4 times a month. If you don’t want these you can opt-out of this section and I’ll continue being the goofball that you love or hate or want to murder.

Don’t like this massively tiny turn of events? Want to point out something I probably missed because I’m a smartass idiot? Let me know!

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From J.J.’s Vault

(As always, these are paywall-free links because you subscribe.)

On Conversing:

• I sometimes use a test before I’m willing to engage with people about touchy subjects. It’s a bit cowardly, but it’s saved me many sanities over the years.

Medium on Medium:

• Titles and headlines are by far the most important part of writing. Well, in terms of getting initial readers anyway. But still, we could all stand to improve. And here’s some ideas on how to do exactly that.

• When was the last time you stopped to think about how you approach your writing/blogging/wordslinging? Are you making effective use of your time? Here’s a look at the ROI of writing and how it can help you.

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That’s it for this week! In addition to a humor picture book I’m slowly outlining more and more I also have another trick up my sleeve soon. Beyond that, I’ve pledged to myself, to take a massive crack at the more ‘serious’ articles for the next 5 weeks.

Why?

Because I want to go camping for a week after that and will probably be too lazy to open my computer more than once or twice. Oh, and I need to earn more money ‘cuz Medium has absolutely bottomed out my paycheck this last month. Le sigh.

Thanks for reading, as always!

J.J. Pryor