If you have followed me for any length of time, you know that challenges at home have often interfered with regular posting. I appreciate your sticking with me. I wanted to let you know that, once again, things are changing around what has variously been called King’s Corner and Speaking Impact.
Some of you have probably forgotten that you even subscribed! Others have come on board in recent weeks, usually via a post on Medium, where I have been doing most of my short-form writing in the last year or so. You may decide to unsubscribe with the recent updates, and if so, no hard feelings, and I wish good things for you. But you might want to browse through this post before deciding to do so.
So, here we are again
For those just getting to know me: my wife is partially disabled, and we have a severely disabled 15-year-old daughter named Hannah. She requires 24-hour nursing, but there is a shortage of nurses. So we wind up taking care of her ourselves frequently, often with little or even no notice.
That makes it hard to have a schedule.
On top of that, our oldest son died a little over a year ago. That has played havoc with my energy levels and motivation. (If you want to learn more about that, you can read about it here.)
Medium writing
I haven’t really done a lot of writing in recent months, but what writing I’ve done has been done on Medium. I had even let that go by the wayside when I got frustrated with the best way to share that content. Medium lets you set an article as available only to people behind the paywall, which allowed me to earn a little revenue from such posts. But it also meant that people who either would not or could not pay the monthly subscription fee would miss the posts if they had already read the three free posts from the Premium level.
Free posts on Medium are great for building a mailing list, but changes in my own business meant that building a mailing list was no longer my main focus. I needed to write posts that directly led to revenue, but I hated leaving people out who could benefit from the material.
But sometime in the last few months Medium made a change that, to me, changes the whole experience as a writer. They now allow me to share what they call a “Friends Link.”
I can share such links with you, right here on the blog, and through the email notices you get from me.
Basically, if you subscribe to Medium already, and you clap for the articles I share with you, I will still be able to benefit from that, which helps me take care of Hannah. But if you don’t subscribe, you will still be able to read my posts even if you have exhausted your free views of Premium Medium material for the month.
You’ll get full access first
So here’s what I’m going to do with this blog (and the mailing list) from here on. When I post something on Medium, I will post the Friends Link here as well as in a Facebook group I set up for such sharing.
If you want to get first notice of stuff I write and have access whether you subscribe to Medium or not, stay subscribed to the email list (or join it if you have not). As a subscriber, you will also have access to all the free tools I ever offer as incentives for signing up to the email list.
You could also (or instead) subscribe the the Facebook group. You would just want to make sure you had selected the “All Posts” option on Notifications to make certain you don’t miss a post.
Benefits of subscribing
I encourage you to subscribe to Medium, by the way. You can see some of the benefits in “Why I’m Paying for Medium,” but the gist of it is that it costs less than what you would pay for a single issue of most magazines while giving you access to hundreds of pages more than that. You help support quality journalism by doing so, which benefits you and everyone else, for less than what you spend at McDonald’s for a single meal.
But that’s entirely up to you, and by watching for the Friends Links here or in the Facebook group, you can see useful contents regardless.
Focus of what you’ll read
So, again, I hope you’ll hang around. I will continue writing about pragmatic, real-world, effective communication skills, including writing, speaking, and interpersonal communication. That will spill over into relationships and parenting, and even expand into dealing with disabilities, something I’m increasingly learning about.
I will also be writing about pragmatic spiritual topics. As you know from experience with me or can gather quickly, I’ve dealt with an awful lot of challenges, especially the last six years or so, and have relearned firsthand the importance of (for lack of a better term) genuine spirituality. I have gone from a fairly conventional religious upbringing into a rejection of it (what I bumper-sticker-like call my “God as Santa Claus” phase) to a more (in my opinion) mature and certainly more useful view and practice of Christianity.
I know that will be a turn-off for a lot of people, so let me quickly say that I share a disdain for what has become the judgmental, divisive practice that passes for Christianity among much of our population. I suppose that, itself, sounds judgmental, but I’m trying to briefly communicate that this is something that is both ancient and new in approach. Though I’m using the term here to make it clear that I have a viewpoint, I don’t really think of myself as part of Christianity so much as simply a follower of Christ, trying my best and sharing my experience and supporting you in your own journey, whatever it may be.
Give it a try
The only way to really see if what I share remains useful to you is to give it a try for awhile. I’m still me, after all. I’ll still be sharing my experience, hoping it will help you in your own journey through life. At least, you may be able to benefit from our family motto.
If you can’t be a good example, at least be a horrible warning.
Donn King
If you’re not already subscribed to the mailing list, now would be a good time to make sure you’re getting full access by joining us.
