Everyone has a story – and all our stories have something in common… we all started from nothing and knew nothing. People want to hear stories. They want to hear OUR stories — they want to know who we are, where we are from, what we are doing, who and what we love, what we have learnt and where we are going. People also want us to hear their story! Being a part of the Steem network is an individual journey for every single one of us and through this initiative we will share our stories not only with all who are already here – hopefully inspiring, guiding and informing them… but doing the same for everyone else in the world too. Through our stories we will prick the curiosity of those who have not yet arrived and illuminate and widen the already open doors to our one in a million blockchain.

We invite and encourage each and every one of you to participate and share your stories too! You can find the "how to" details at the end of this post.

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MY STEEM STORY - BY @JAYNA

• Where my Steem Journey began
I was introduced to Steem by my brother-in-law, @preparedwombat in June, 2017. He shared the idea with me of a social media platform that earns cryptocurrency, and he said he invests a little money and a little time to build the value of his account. He talked about the posting platform, Steemit, about some of the different interests represented across the Steem blockchain, and how anyone could find a niche.

_{He also said he believes that Steem has an excellent future. I had heard of cryptocurrency and blockchains, but I didn't really know what they were or that they had any relevance to me.}

I simply decided to try it out. I liked the idea of building something for the long term. What if I could get involved with this "best kept secret" and create a long-term investment that allowed me to retire a little earlier than planned? What if the value took off like Bitcoin? What if I could retire much sooner, and travel more, do more of the things I love to do?

Even better, what if I could work on my creative writing at the same time? My imagination was fully engaged.

I saw that there was an opportunity to further explore my passion - creative writing. I could connect with fiction writers from around the world and share my stories. This was how my adventure with the Steem blockchain began.

• My initial challenges & how I overcame them

I had so much to learn! How do you create an account? How do you connect with others? Why are there multiple ways to publish content on the same blockchain (Steemit, Busy.org at that time), and which one should I use?

I had some fears. I was afraid of doing things the wrong way. I felt very small and insecure, and was not sure how to venture out.

How much of “me” should I reveal? Did I want a pseudonym, or did I want to show up as the real me?

I decided to just be myself, in the way I am on social platforms like Facebook. This allows me to not feel like I have multiple personalities. I chose to use my first name as my Steem name.

That decided, I chose to jump in and get involved. I found a community of creative writers and joined them, both on Steem and on their Discord server. This is where the most tumultuous parts of my adventure occurred. I will provide the “reader’s digest” version.

I discovered that there were very strong ideas and intents among members of the fiction community on Steem. Many believed that no one should ever post any kind of fiction, even on social media, unless it has gone through a stringent editing process. Others believed that writing is about self-expression and exploration, and that here on the blockchain you should post what feels meaningful to you and not treat the Steem social platform like a publishing house.

This led to a falling out among some of the writers, and they separated into philosophical factions. A subgroup I had formed, called Write Club, was at the center of some of these arguments. Some of the leaders essentially went to war over whether we should be allowed to exist. And we finally had to split off to our own server, and do our own thing.

At that time, I was also running a 50-word short story contest on Steem. This was a weekly contest and went on for a very long time and had excellent participation. This initiative, like @mariannewest’s wonderful @freewritehouse initiative, was also subject to scrutiny by writers who considered themselves professionals and thought everyone should adhere to professional standards.

Eventually, due to the arguments and philosophical differences, most of those groups left the blockchain.

I’m still here. I chose to omit drama from my experience on Steem and in my fiction communities on Discord. Write Club still exists. We are low-key, dedicated writers and have zero drama. Some of us are still involved in Steem, and some are not. And that leads to chapter 2 of my experience here on Steem.

Today, I only publish the occasional short story on Steem for a contest or challenge, and my fiction writing is a separate journey. I chose to go in a new direction and just use my Steem account as a sort of daily journal. I’ll circle back on this shortly.

Another challenge I have had to find a way to overcome is making time for Steem. I would love to be one of the people who is active all day. But that is not possible for me.

I have had to find a way to stay involved, even though I have a very demanding job, and many involvements. The goal of writing a daily post keeps me on track! And I try to find time throughout the day to find great content by a range of people from those I have never encountered to high profile people to those in my communities. I really enjoy reading a range of content types, supporting other Steemians with comments and upvotes, and replying back to those who have supported me.

The moral of this part of the story is that it may take a while to find yourself here, and you will encounter a wide range of philosophies around involvement here, but there is a place for you and you just need to find it!

• My Steem blockchain knowledge

I would like to say that I am a Steem expert after two and a half years here, but I am not. As far as the technical aspects of Steem go, I will let others provide their knowledge. I will only provide these tips:

A) You can post from several different posting platforms to the Steem blockchain. These include Steemit, Actifit, Steempeak, Appics, Busy.org, Partiko, and Dtube. You can also connect up your Wordpress blog to the Steem blockchain using @steempress. I do this for my creative writing posts, and I love it!

B) Put some thought and effort into every post you write. Make it meaningful in some way. It should be worthwhile for someone to read. Then they are more likely to follow you and engage regularly with your content.

C) As you find Steemians to like, you can keep tabs on when they post using apps like the Ginabot and Steemify. These apps will send you notifications based on when your favorite Steemians publish posts.

D) Learn how to manage your voting power. It takes time to replenish it. I try not to let mine dip down below about 88%. And when it does I wait a while to curate and upvote.

E) Use Steemworld.org to keep tabs on your account, your voting power, mentions, etc., and manage witness votes and delegations. It’s a great one-stop tool for many things!

For my part, I have adopted a set of principles to follow. These include taking time every single day to scout out great content, be involved in communities to the best of my ability given my time constraints, support others, write from the heart, and always stay positive and take the higher ground.

• My Steem favourites

My favorite thing about Steem is the variety of content you can find here. I love Actifit posts, recipes, pet posts, philosophical posts about life and everything, travel posts, restaurant reviews, photography, and videos in which people share information about Steem and other things of interest. In other words, I think of this as a big playground and a place to learn about other people’s interests and how other people live around the world! Some of my specific favorites are #WednesdayWalk, #Caturday, #Actifit, and #BeautifulSunday.

• My golden nugget advice

Be real. Be yourself. Don’t get involved in drama. Find some great communities and connect with them on their Discord servers. Find a way to fit Steem into your life that feels comfortable for you. There’s so much to do and see here, and so many wonderful people to connect with that it can be overwhelming! But you will find your way.

• My Steem hood & its peeps

As mentioned earlier, I use Steem as a daily journal. In the middle of the drama with fiction writers, I found Actifit, which supports another passion of mine - health and fitness. I wear a Fitbit and it connects to the @actifit app, from which I write a daily post about my day, how I got my steps and other life tidbits. I also join challenges and contests, and post a wide range of things from travel stories to recipes. I feel very comfortable with this m.o. I just write whatever I feel like sharing on any given day, with pictures I took of wherever I was!

I also found Power House Creatives (aka @steemitbloggers) and fell in love with this community because there is mutual support and the group is kept very vibrant and active through a set of daily requirements that are quite manageable. The community is run by @jaynie, a person with such heart and passion! And there are so many amazing Steemians in this community.

_{Another favorite is @thealliance, which is run by my buddy @enginewitty (aka Witty). These guys are some of the silliest but most dedicated folks on the Steem blockchain.}

And finally, I love the @steempress community. These are my favorites, and if I had more time I would be on all of their Discord servers daily connecting with them. I also love @mariannewest’s #freewrite community. These are people with such heart who are dedicated to sharing their life stories and fiction pieces -- written five minutes at a time!

Here are some people I am tagging to encourage them to participate in the #mysteemstory challenge: @preparedwombat, @enginewitty, @snook, @katrina-ariel, @adetorrent

POSH: https://twitter.com/jaynatweets/status/1230377669734391809

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