Lurking on my Books page is the promise of a book entitled How to Be a Bazzillionaire: Why You Don’t Have to Be a Rich Person to Live a Rich Life. While my focus is on writing fiction right now (you can go to http://sarashay.com for information about that) I do have hopes of one day writing it and offering it up to the world. It’s an expansion of the concept of Rich Living that I’ve talked about here, and I’ve expanded the aspects to seven different practices. They are as follows:

Sovereignty
Presence
Humility
Generosity
Curiosity
Playfulness
Love

Just today, I finally figured out what sequence to put them all in. These aren’t exactly ranking things in order of importance as much as figuring out which chapter goes first in the book. Though there are some priorities–Sovereignty was originally the final chapter and then I realized it really needed to be first. I will be doing posts on each of these, so I’ll be explaining Sovereignty in more detail soon.

It seems to be an example of something I’ve been doing lately–rethinking what order to perform things in.

As a Catholic, I am a creature of ritual. Everything from the cycle of the Liturgical season to the order of the Mass follows a reliable pattern. I was able to follow along in a Mass celebrated entirely in Italian where the only words I understood where “Corpo di Cristo.” (Which were all I really needed to comprehend.) Living in that tradition gave my family and me a fondness for doing things in a certain way, such as driving down to St. Augustine every summer and effectively doing the same thing every day.

I cultivated habits in a similar spirit. Doing things in a certain order made them easier to do, especially when I was in the grip of bipolar depression. I’m quite sure many people are the same way with their habits. But recently, there are been a few habits that I’ve been taking a step back and thinking “Wait, why that way?”

Take housecleaning. (Condocleaning, technically, but let’s not get persnickety.) I live in a 675-square-foot condominium and every Saturday I try to clean it. For a long stretch, I used the Pomodoro Technique to time when I would work and when I would rest. From this I learned that the Pomodoro Technique is terrible for housecleaning. It breaks things up just when you’re getting into a groove and it doesn’t account for what happens when the dryer buzzes because Saturday is also laundry day. So I chucked it out completely. On top of that, I looked over the sequence I cleaned things in–kitchen, then bathroom, then bedroom, then living room. (I told you my place was small.) The bedroom’s the easiest. Why didn’t I save that one for last when my energy levels would be at my lowest? I pondered it and realized the reason–because the order formed a clockwise circle. That was really it.

Even the Church changes its rituals. I’m not old enough to remember Vatican II, but my parents are, and things were very different then. By modifying some of the externals, the Church was able to engage with the world as it was, not as it used to be. My family’s trip to St. Augustine has changed in the specifics over time, and won’t even be happening this year. There’s always room to make things new.

Today I deleted my accounts (multiple) on X/Twitter/Elon’s hobbyhorse. That Place, we’ll call it.

At the time I’m writing this, Mr. Muskrat has been systematically dismantling over two centuries of checks and balances to line his overfilled pockets. I’d kept the accounts because I was worried about some spambot seizing my name, but I really don’t care anymore.

The other rationale for staying was that it exposed my flowers to a global audience of millions. Then I did the math and figured out how many flowers I’d given away to people who saw them on That Place.

The number was zero.

I got more interest from Mastodon than I ever got from That Place. Most of the flowers I’ve given away were distributed by hand at various events. My hopes of going viral were dashed a while ago.

I’d been weaning myself away over time as it was, as more people I followed there migrated to Bluesky, where I’m spending more of my time now. Today, I pulled the trigger and deactivated my accounts.

It’s a relief, really. The place had been systematically enshittifying for years, especially after Mr. Muskrat took over. By the time I quit, I was only logging in to post flowers. It felt so good to delete the app on my phone and not have that X staring at me anymore.

I’ve listed my remaining social media accounts on the Q&A page, if you’d like a way to follow me. I hope to get a little more frequent with flowers, if only as a coping mechanism.

How do you break into comics? Post your comics on the web. Poof! You’re in comics. How to make any money in comics? That’s the big question.

–Evan Dorkin, in a Twitter post.

Evan Dorkin is a comic book artist who is probably best known as the creator of Milk and Cheese and, more recently, as the writer of Beasts of Burden.  If you know nothing about comic books beyond what arrives in the movie theaters, you more than likely haven’t heard of him.  Nevertheless, I think that Dorkin’s Big Question is one that every creator in just about any artistic medium in this Internet age needs to start asking and coming up with better answers for.

How do you break into publishing? Write some books and upload them to Amazon or iTunes. Poof! You’re in publishing. How to make any money in publishing? That’s the big question.

How do you become an artist?  Make some art and sell it online.  Poof!  You’re an artist.  How to make money as an artist?  There’s that big question again.

How do you break into film?  Shoot a movie and put it online.  Poof!  You’re in film.  How do you break into music?  Record some songs and put them online.  Poof!  You’re a musician.

How to make money at it?  That’s Dorkin’s Big Question.

I spent this past weekend down in Alabama for my third go-round at the Doo-Nanny.  I made twelve bucks selling bottles of water and soda and somebody tipped me a buck when I gave him one of my ten thousand flowers.  I didn’t sell a single piece, not even one of my wishing stars which I usually sell at least one of at these sorts of things.

The Monday after my return, I hung my art up on the walls, propped up what I couldn’t hang and decided to just leave them there.  And it felt so good to do it I should really quit things more often.  Not that I’m quitting the word art, exactly–I still have some ideas I’d like to try out and there’s one recent piece I’m quite proud of that I’ll be posting about Real Soon Now–but I’m giving up on any hope I ever had of taking this up as a day job.

And I’m finer than fine with that, and I’ll tell you why.  Because even if this art thing had taken off as a day job, it would only have been to sustain my writing habit.  So maybe I should just cut out the middleman and turn the writing habit into some kind of day job and then I’ll have this word art and flower-scribbling hobby to refresh myself when I need a break from doing that.

Now, how to make money writing?  Well, that’s Dorkin’s Big Question again, isn’t it?

“Hello world!” is, of course, the default post title for one’s very first WordPress blog post.  It seemed oddly apropos to leave it there.

My name is Sheila O’Shea and I am a writer.  I am a writer the way other people are smokers and drinkers–writing is a habit for me, a compulsive one that eases the pains of day-to-day living and leaves me out of sorts if I don’t indulge in it on a regular basis.  Unlike tobacco and alcohol, the pen-and-paper industry doesn’t seem to have the same advertising budget to get more people hooked on their product in the way that I make use of it.  This seems a shame, since of all three habits, writing is the least damaging to one’s health and well-being.

This is not a blog about fiction writing or freelance writing.  (My thoughts on fiction will be confined to a different blog.)  This about the addiction of writing for oneself, of different ways and techniques to make use of the written word to clear the head, untangle problems or simply to pass the time.  You don’t have to have ambitions as a professional writer to make use of them.  I offer these notions to the world in the hopes that more people will share my addiction, so the next time I’m caught out without a pen, I’ll have an easier time bumming one from somebody else . . .