Creative People Often Skip the Small Details

As creative spirits, we often lope right past the small [VERY IMPORTANT] details. Oh, and I've got some great tips for you today!

Image: Pixabay License
(Isn’t this happy dog the cutest?)

---

Thank you for reading F & F Newsletter. What you’ll learn about today:

• Fiver affiliate links

• Substack new toolbar feature you don’t want to miss

• A quick trick you can use to rid an article of Oxford commas

• A quick update on where your tip money is going!

---

As creative writers and poets, we often make creative leaps and bounds right over important details that should have caught our attention. When we were kids, people told us we had our “heads in the clouds.”

It’s not so bad. The clouds tickle.

But occasionally, I am reminded that I am a creative person that needs to take note, slow down, think about that small stuff and commit it to memory.

For examples: Had I paid attention I may have noticed a few things that would make my writing life more…well… better.

Overlooking Brand New Substack Toolbar Features

Did you know that Substack has a feature called “Poetry Block”? While in the editor, you click on the “more” tab at the far right, then scroll down to “Poetry Block.”

THAT’S a good thing for me to know (and use!) Hm, those…small…details….right?

When you’re in the editor you can see the note: “Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published.”

This sample poem shows you how it looks in the finished email:

i have been a flower in a tree.
i have been so high up, no one could see
the immeasurable me, the impetuous me

the always, always superfluous me

this is what happens
when a tree has its leaves 
on upside down, when the roots don’t grow
underground

and the rain goes up instead of down

the birds fall dizzied from their skies.
gumballs float and swirl and helix themselves
right up and into me

can’t you see? i did not ask
to be me — to spend my life
among the bees

i have been a core and colorful whore,
a generous whorl of magenta
lace and edge — 
i reach downward towards sky

— Misunderstood (i have been a flower in a tree)

Fiverr Affiliate Link Blunder

Another small detail that recently escaped me — that Fiverr has AFFILIATE LINKS and I have never used them. It says, specifically:

Thats potetially $100.00 per person…Do you have any idea how many people I got started on Fiverr?

I help them learn how to get started and how they, too, can make thousands there. I have an article published in Better Marketing about how to get started on Fiverr—the Better Marketing folks actually ASKED ME to write that tutorial.

And I am not using any MAKE MONEY ON FIVERR affiliate links?

Man, an affiliate link in place for that, or at least when I got other people started on that platform, would have been nice. I could have earned a few thousand dollars off simply knowing and using this feature I overlooked. I guess my advice on this matter is — be more deliberate with your linking and make sure no opportunity to carefully place an affiliate link is missed.

When you are a writer, much of your money comes from the collective coins being dropped in jars all over the internet. Don’t forget about one.

The Battle With the Oxford Comma

One last detail that I loped right over and into the field of colorful creativity blooms was this: I forget to check, double check, and re-re-recheck my articles for one particular client who has a very specific requirement: NO OXFORD COMMA. You’d think after they scold me a half-dozen times that I’d check it again and again.

But Oxford commas feel like home to me. My brain loves and coddles them.

But if I want to continue with this big fish client — I’d better get my Oxford commas in a row and march them right off the side of a cliff.

Here’s a trick for getting rid of the Oxford commas in your article:

Ctrl + f and then do a search for “, and”

Once they are all highlighted, go through and review them all. Delete those pesky Oxford commas if your client requires you to NOT use them.

---

That’s it for today folks. I have a long list of articles to work on today, research to do, and a few small details I want to give my undivided attention.

This Substack newsletter is NOT and never will be behind a paywall. This means the minutes I spend with my Substack readers are generous and important to me, otherwise—I wouldn’t do it! This is why writers such as myself use a Virtual Tip Jar — It’s so people who are especially touched, moved, taught, or blessed by the work that we do, can leave a “thank you” when they feel so led.

For the next year, ALL OF THESE thank you’s will be dedicated to one purpose: buying my condo down near the coast of South Carolina. It will take me that long to save up a down payment so ALL of my reader’s contributions will go to that goal.

Thank you for reading F & F Newsletter.

~Love in words & 💗,

Christina