sorry to announce that my son has given up posting regularly on his youtube channel. he claimed three reasons - too busy (he's taking two college classes), burnt out, and tired of it. one reason he didn't mention is that, being in our house, he doesn't really need the money. for a while he bought treats for his sisters, or bought updated equipment, or he let his younger brother borrow money without consequence, but, most of those pleasures wore off. it wasn't really worth it to him.

i'm glad he wasn't that person who busted into youtube all mad about their unfair monetization programs. he would frequently complain about that but his view was that their unfairness was really more a reflection of their randomness or failure to control natural algorithm errors. he used to say that it would really aggravate him if he depended on the money but he doesn't, so it was really more of just a learning experience where he found out how some megalithic company's fits and starts could mess with a person's income.

now keep in mind that i'd practically given up on promoting my writing...here i was, lucky to get a few bucks even on a good month, and no particular bump for the holidays, when people are supposed to be buying books, and there he is, hauling in over a thousand in december or maybe january, just because people pay more for advertising on that month. and i thought, wtf, maybe people don't read anymore, they just watch youtubes, and in particular youtubes about teens experiencing angst in the growing-up process. i got a little depressed but i didn't stop writing, except when my father died, and that took five or six months out of me, so i kind of neglected my own promotional activities and instead of writing the usual stuff, short stories and haiku, i got kind of into exploring my puritan ancestors whom you can read about on this very blog, those guys who came over, started the first school, flipped off the crown, and had a feud with cotton mather. in fact i got so absorbed with that that i almost forgot about other things and over nine hundred haiku sat there languishing while i couldn't write a single new haiku. now i am quickly trying to wrap that up so i can set it aside and let the whole five thousand haiku sit there and season for a while.

my son was kind of a mainstream animator, and now has a body of work, about teenage angst for the most part, in the form of about two dozen movies all on youtube and all fairly successful in youtube terms. his audience is disappointed as they looked forward to his new creations. but both the creations and the abrupt cancellation came from his heart; he was, in fact, burnt out, and it wasn't worth it to him to keep up the grueling pace for revenue that he didn't really need. i'm sure he will start up again someday, and maybe someday soon, with a new direction. in fact that channel was maybe his third or fourth; he'd done it before, and he'd even been successful. he's got a much better handle on what people actually want, than i do.

i do, however, have one book, a single one, that seems to be doing well on acx, which is the audiobook provider. i have no idea why this one would do better than the others, perhaps underpricing, or, it just got picked up by a group of people who pass around recommendations. but in any case it's the one thing i do sell. and i didn't quit. the main reason for that is that i do it mostly for myself, and not for any other thing. i've had trouble switching my writing over to doing it for money. i don't really want to do it for money. i want to just do it.

but, as a result, i have nine hundred haikus, just languishing. and quaker plays, and flash fiction, and a book about language. and an esl reader, and esl articles, and two novels. and, the best of all, an autobiography/true stories collection. the year is ticking along, and i don't finish this stuff. the haikus, maybe i'll finish. one by one, i'll get them off my table. and by the way, i'm glad he's not logan paul, too, because i'm really not watching him all that carefully. he could probably be making youtubes about anything, and he would get away with it for a little while, though my wife watched a little better than i did. maybe that's what was bugging him. maybe he's ready to just make things that nobody watches, or that at least his parents don't have access to. another son turns thirteen today - happy birthday! - and that means, two teenagers in the house, and more coming. got to keep my eyes open, and hang in there. chou