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Living in a Near-Cashless Society

Conversations within my various editors' groups occasionally turn to ways of accepting payments from clients. You get the conversations about using PayPal and similar services. There are the conversations about payments in cash. You get those hilarious conversations about clients wanting to pay via a royalty share, complete with boasted claims that the royalty share would be worth millions.

But whenever the conversation turns to clients paying by check, the group is often amazed by my response.

As much as checks might be nice for some people, I can never accept payment via check. No bank within New Zealand will allow you to deposit checks anymore. Even cashier's checks are now a thing of the past.

There is normally one person who asks how we pay our bills if checks are no longer accepted, likely assuming that we pay for everything via cash. But my answer to this question tends to shock them even more.

New Zealand has become a near-cashless society. Everything is paid for by way of electronic transactions, most of which occur via internet banking.

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LGBTQ+ Terms: A Glossary for the Unknowing Parent

I'll admit it: I liked the Netflix series of Sex Education. It's a racy show that explores the concepts of gender and sexual identity while at the same time reminding us that we are all human. And it is seriously funny. I still see Gillian Anderson as Scully from X-Files, but in every single one of the characters on the show, I can see someone that I know in person.

The show is aimed at teenagers, primarily those 16 years old and older. But if you have never seen the show, let me warn you now that there is open-door sex throughout the show, including in the opening scene of the premiere episode. But the show is not about sex. It's about understanding who we are as human beings, and yes, sex is a part of that.

This post uses medically correct terminology for human reproductive organs. If you are not comfortable with that, then you can stop reading right here.

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Nothing on the internet is private

On November 12, 2021, Victoria Strauss released a blog post on the Writer Beware blog about an editor and their shady practices. Within the editors' circles, there was concern about this particular editor's practices and how it might reflect on editors as a whole. However, most of the conversations I saw centered around the shocking nature of the editor's emails and communications.

I don't want to get into the disconnect between client expectations and services provided by this editor, because that's not the hidden trap that I want to highlight. I want to focus entirely on the fact that the whole world now knows exactly how this editor communicates. And the reason we now know this is because a screen capture of email communications was shared as part of the Writer Beware blog post.

That is the hidden trap.

Nothing on the internet is private. Not emails. Not personal messages. Not even chat room conversations.

If a computer or electronic device is involved somewhere within the process of passing information from one person to another, then there is a very real possibility that the information could be leaked and made public.

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Slay the Naysayers

Every writer encounters at least one naysayer, even in the early stages of their writing careers. You know the ones I'm talking about. They're the people who say things that make you feel bad about your choices, or they hinder your ability to make progress, they shake your confidence, or zap you of energy.

They come in all different shapes and size. And some of them are stealthy in their actions, not even realizing what they're doing and the negative impact that they have over your writing.

But there are strategies for dealing with the naysayers, so you can make progress towards your hopes and dreams. It all comes down to mindset.

In today's post, I want to share with you some of my personal experiences with the different naysayers and how I deal with them.

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Advice out of the mouths of babes

Some years ago, my daughter and I were having a conversation about what it was she would like to do for the coming year. She's a dancer, and at the time, she was interested in the idea of turning her dancing into a career. She was only 13 at the time, but even then, she knew that if she wanted to go professional, she was going to have to work hard to be the best she could be—and some.

The performing arts are just as competitive as the publishing industry, if not more so.

Anyway, I had received an email from her dance school about auditions for a competition dance team. She had never been part of a competition team, but she was being invited specifically to audition. When I asked her if she was interested, she hummed and hawed for a bit, then she said something that hit a little closer to home than she realized.

"I'm never going to make it if I don't take a risk and put myself out there."

BAM! The fist hit me in the gut, and she never lifted a finger. She was talking about her own dreams and her own aspirations, yet her words carried a message that was powerful.

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