Yesterday, I was chatting away in our #newbieresteemday Discord channel when a great idea came to me. Well, it was actually @energyaddict22 that gave me the idea. We were sharing steem stories. He said, “that sounds like a good idea for a post.” Thank you Mr. Energy! I’m taking your advice, and sharing my story. It’s a short story, stay with me.

Scene: January. A woman is very frustrated with Facebook and it’s politics. Having to read one more fake news story or listen to a “friend” (not friend) whine about their kids again was going to kill her!

So, there I was... in the Congo. Ok, no, I was in my living room. Bored to death because I deleted Facebook and had no new brain candy. Then a friend, who has helped me learn about blockchain, shared a new social media platform with me, Steemit.

I joined up right away! Get paid to share my silliness with the world? YES PLEASE! It took about a week to get my account activated. I knew nothing, nada, zip, zilch about what I was getting into. I had never blogged before. Not truly. My Facebook was just reblogs of issues I was passionate about. I had never written my own content.

With no true focus or reason for blogging, I started sharing on Steemit. I was so lost! What’s all this voting about? How do I get followers? Forget followers, how do I get a profile pic uploaded? Haha! There was so much I didn’t know! I know now just how much I DIDN’T know. I was using my Master key to login?! Oiy... newbie.

Anywho... I started doing my own research to figure out how to slay this beast. Thankfully, there are many people out there writing support blogs for Steemit. I read that, as a newbie, I needed to comment and engage. I can do that!! I’m a super chatty bish with lots to say! I started coming out of my shell to find posts that I could genuinely comment on. I’m proud to say, I’ve never said “nice post”. Lol who does that? 🙄

Back to the Congo... my comments were not very successful in gaining followers or earning pennies. My posts (they weren’t that great) were not interesting to anyone... I was now more frustrated with Steemit than I was with Facebook! I was seriously about to quit.

A few days before, a nice gal named @beeyou had followed me. Lord knows why she did? But she did. I followed back and saw a contest that seemed easy enough for me to handle. It was the ABC’s of Curation. All I had to do was follow a couple blogs and share what they meant to the ABC’s. Sounds easy right? I made my entry. Remember, I’m on the edge of freaking out over this stupid new media platform, when one of the founders of the event @davemccoy, made a friendly sarcastic comment on my entry. I maybe took it too seriously and snapped back at him a little. Sorry Dave! Haha! Well, I totally failed at understanding the directions. But they were very sweet and understanding. I earned my first #newbienickel on that comment. I was very excited!

From that day forward I haven’t thought about giving up on my Steemit dreams again. I just needed a community to support me. The Newbie Resteemday Initiative, #newbieresteemday, took me under their wings and adopted me. I joined their Discord channel, https://discord.gg/YzJbaBZ, so I could bombard them with every question I had! There were a lot. Someone was always there to get me the support I needed. @simplymike, @penderis, @beeyou, @maverickinvictus, @deliberator, @jan23com, to name a few of the people that went out of their way to help me out! Many thanks to you! Also, @truce! He’s not part of NRD officially, but he was the first person to be friendly and help me out!

How many other newbies are out there... lost, confused and frustrated... about to quit? More than we know I’m sure. I hope at least one of them reads this and reaches out for help. #newbieresteemday is only one of the great groups out there. Find a group that likes you even though you were kinda bitchy to them and join up! 😆

Nobody likes a quitter! This Steemit beast is not to be ridden alone. YEEHAW!

gifs compliments of Giphy and @amariespeaks