To my readers:

"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." --Ernest Hemingway

Dear Readers,

The Breadbin turns 12 this year. Twelve years, coming up on  1600 posts, well over a million words. Definitely a few clunkers in there, as well as some ancient entries of which I am not proud. (I advocated for STEPHEN HARPER. More than once. Dear God.)  A fair bit of repetitious repetition: whenever I've repeated a theme, I've tried to write in wider and wider spirals, covering at least a little new ground each time.

There's a lot of good writing in here, if I do say so myself. I've bared my soul to the world, warts and all; covered a wide variety of topics, some requiring (ugh) entirely too much research; tried to make you laugh, cry, and think.

My end goal is to make a living off my writing. That is wildly optimistic of me. I'm not putting myself down in saying so: A fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the people who consider themselves writers earn enough money to write full time. But writing is place-proof and age-proof: so long as I have the mental acuity and a means to put words to screen or paper, I can write. Past retirement. I picture myself writing a quick post on the day I die. I hope that can happen. I really do.

I believe I have the talent to supplement my income, at the very least. That well over a million words I've written over the past twelve years? I've done it for free.

Maybe free is what they're worth. Maybe not. I've never had the opportunity to find out.

Enter Patreon. Patreon is sort of like Kickstarter or GoFundMe, except instead of a single (hopefully large) crowdsourced donation, it allows for a small recurring one. It's entirely voluntary: you'll still be able to read my blog for free. But if you choose to, you can donate an amount you set per post, to a maximum of an amount you set per month...as little as a dollar a month to as much as you want.

I want to make it clear that none of you are under any obligation. I'd also like to make it clear (if it wasn't already) that I'm willing to write on just about any topic: you can PM me on Facebook or leave suggestions as comments here.  This blog is my blog, but it's also your blog.

Thank you for reading. I'll be going live with Patreon in the next few weeks.

--Ken