Hi! I'm Claire Williams: writer, mom, adult with ADHD, troop leader, nerd, hooker, and lover of mashed potatoes.
Hello, steemit! As you can probably tell from my post title, I wear a lot of different hats--and I don't mean this kind:
And as you can also probably tell from my rather sparse blog, I'm a wee little steemit newbie--or do you call us "minnows" around here? I'm still trying to catch up on all of the new slang. My husband mentioned Steemit in passing a couple weeks ago while we were talking about Bitcoin, and I decided to check it out. As a long-time Redditor and a professional writer (a job that I got because of Reddit, actually), I was really intrigued by the premise of Steemit and signed up.
I've already made a couple of posts under other tags, but I've been meaning to get around to making my "IntroduceYourself" post all week. You're probably wondering about some of those titles in my headline, so here's a little bit more about me!
(Me.)
Writer: for the last two years, I've been a professional writer--creating what some people might call "clickbait bullshit." What this really means is that I actually get paid to write about the nerdy stuff I like--as long as I make it cool and eloquent and factual and interesting. I usually write list-format articles for my job, and yes, the main outlet I write for has ads on their site. So what? I put hours of research, sourcing and work into my 2k-3k word articles, and why shouldn't my employers make money so they can pay me a good rate, too?
...haha, kind of went off on a rant there--but it's a bit of a touchy subject for me. I'm proud of the work I do; you can see some of the stuff I've written for Looper.com here.
I'm pretty excited to write more content for Steemit and expand my horizons a bit. While you'll probably see some "listicles" from me here, I definitely plan to take advantage of Steemit as a more relaxed platform where I can cut loose in my posts: write in first person if I feel like it, be more informal and personal with readers--heck, even drop an F-bomb in a post. I also want to write here about other topics that are close to my heart, like music or mental health.
Mom: I've been with my husband since 2006 and we have two daughters, ages 9 and 3. I love my kids more than anything, and I love the freedom that working for myself gives me so that I can spend more time with them. Before switching tracks to writing full-time in 2016, I was self-employed for many years as a web/graphic designer and marketer.
Adult with ADHD: I'm going to be 35 years old this year, and in August 2017 I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, primarily inattentive subtype. I'm still trying to cope and adjust to this new reality--one that gives me a completely new framework to examine my past experiences, one that isn't defined by shame and stress.
I definitely plan on posting more in-depth here on Steemit about my ADHD and about mental health in general, under the #mentalhealth tag. It seems to be a relatively unused tag, and I'm not a huge fan of the alternative tags (#mental, #psychology, or #health). Those might be okay as secondary tags, but I'd really love to see #mentalhealth become a regularly used tag here.
One major part of my ADHD (especially when I've run out of medication...like now) that I struggle with daily is the unpredictable rollercoaster variance in my ability to focus. It might take me hours to do a simple task, and I'll be seething under the surface the entire time. Other times, my brain gets so engaged by what I'm doing, I'll get totally hyperfocused and lose track of time entirely. Case in point: I spent eight hours last night completely rewriting an old article of mine just to post here on Steemit earlier today.
I have been awake since the morning of Jan. 2nd (it's the evening of the 3rd now), but the post ended up doing really well--so I guess it worked out for the best! So right now, you guys are getting the extremely chatty, "locked-in," oversharing and social Claire. I'll do my best to keep that up, but please don't be surprised or disappointed if I sometimes drop off the face of the earth for days. Sometimes, I just need that mental reset away from everything and all my obligations/stress.
Troop Leader: For the last couple of years, I've been a volunteer Girl Scout Leader for my daughter and around 25 other girls in my area, ages 6-18. This "hobby" takes up a large amount of my time, but I hope to post some here about the cool stuff we learn together. Cookie season is coming up for us on January 13th, so let me know if you're looking for a new "dealer," wink wink. :D
(I really wish I could find the hi-res version I made of this, that doesn't look like it was compressed through a potato)
Nerd: Ever since I was young, I've been an avid reader. As I got older, I gravitated more towards the sci-fi and fantasy genres in particular. I like TV, movies, gaming, etc. I love Star Wars, Robert Heinlein, Tolkien, etc. I've been playing World of Warcraft with my husband since 2006. After a year or more away from the game, I recently got back into the Legion expansion--and I'm really enjoying it so far. I loved the Song of Ice and Fire books by George R.R. Martin, and I'm also a big fan of Game of Thrones.
Fun and true story: a crazy fan theory I wrote on Reddit back in 2016 actually got me my job as a writer. I want to avoid potential spoilers, but I thought I had figured out the birth name of a main character on the show after watching the season six finale. The theory blew up and got covered by media outlets all around the world. George Takei even shared it.
(Yes, that battery % is completely normal for me. My crappy 5s literally will not work unless I have it plugged in)
So anyway, after that theory went viral and I got quoted by a few outlets like Huffington Post as they cashed in on my post, Jeff at Looper.com reached out to me and offered me a job writing for them. I've been with them ever since, and actually get paid to write about my bullshit fan theories, or expound upon the costuming details in The Last Jedi. This is pretty much my definition of living the dream.
(One banana sticker to the person that can name one of my favorite metal bands, based only on the picture above.)
Hooker: Lol, I knew this one would raise some eyebrows. So, I have a pretty dark secret:
I spend a lot of my (very limited) free time...crocheting.
Other random stuff: I believe strongly in the healing power of mashed potatoes. Seriously, I could eat nothing but fluffy clouds of potato paste whipped with butter and cheese for the rest of my life and be entirely happy, as long as I have Pepsi to go along with it.
I can get really snarky and sarcastic sometimes, so please don't take offense if it seems like I'm being negative. I'm really not, I swear--it's just the way my odd (and usually unpredictable) sense of humor works.
Along with Emperor Snarkatine, these three are my fictional spirit animals:
I have perfect vision, but I cannot stand bright lights shining in my eyes. I wear sunglasses pretty much anytime I'm outside, even if it's cloudy. Because ADHD, I also frequently lose my sunglasses. When that happens, I'll usually look like this for a day or two until I go buy another $5 pair from Walmart:
On occasion, I'll spend hours looking for the most bizarre items for sale on Wish and other Chinese shopping apps, and then send pictures of the best ones to my friends and pretend to really want them for Christmas/birthday. Nobody's ever actually bought anything I've picked out yet, but I'm really holding out hope for the isolation pillow-hat thing. That could come in handy someday, and it even has an escape hole for your cat.
Sometimes when I get really bored, I design silly photoshops of random ideas that make me laugh. Usually, I'm the only one that actually thinks these are funny, but I still like them.
Anyway...that's just about everything I can think of for now. Hopefully you have a little bit better idea of who I am and what you can expect to see from my blog here on Steemit. If I haven't scared you off, then I hope you had as much fun reading this as I did writing it! Hope to see you again soon.
- Claire
Welcome to Steem Community @claireducky! As a gentle reminder, please keep your master password safe. The best practise is to use your private posting key to login to Steemit when posting; and the private active key for wallet related transactions.
In the New Steemians project, we help new members of steem by education and resteeeming their articles. Get your articles resteemed too for maximum exposure. You can learn more about it here: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@gaman/new-steemians-project-launch
Welcome to Steemit! I used to be a hooke-...a crocheter as well. But that was a long time ago, and I've forgotten how to do the deed. Out of curiosity, since you said you were basically a clickbait writer (and got me to click your post so it obviously worked on me) what are the biggest keywords/phrases in that writing style? I'm assuming "you won't believe..." is one of them?
I actually don't write any of the titles on the pieces I do for Looper. We have a list of topics we can pick from or pitch on, but the titles are all decided ahead of time by their metrics team or some such. I try to avoid a lot of sensationalism in the actual body of my posts since the headlines often are over-the-top to generate traffic.
That being said, I think most "clickbait" titles have to have some sort of emotional connection to the reader as part of the formula. For example, I did a fairly straightforward article on rare/expensive Pokemon cards not that long ago for Looper. If I had tried to write the title, I might have come up with something like "Rare Pokemon cards that could make you a bundle," which fits that formula...the "you" as a part of the headline invites the reader to make a personal connection/reaction to the piece.
You should try to pick up a hook again and see what happens! I stopped crocheting when I was around 12, and picked it up again out of instinct when I tried a few years ago. It was like getting on a bike, the muscle memory was still there for me.
Interesting, I wouldn't have known that all the titles aren't written by the writer, and that you'd have to basically write off of a title.
My mom taught me when I was around the same age, and I think I made a hat. Seems like a good thing to do in the winter, when you can't really go outside at night. Maybe I'll see if my mom still has some stuff I could borrow :)