Please Heart my Substack Story in the Coffee Times Challenge #3*
Ain’t too proud to beg, but all I can do is swallow my pride and ask
Let me be clear and frank. I need help. Your help.
Not to win the challenge but to stay in it.
Cause as fellow contestant Karen Schwartz wrote in her story, I can accept not winning. But losing is out of the question.
What she and I mean by that is being disqualified because we did not get the required 100 hearts (likes) on our Substack stories by Feb. 10.
As of this writing, I have 33 hearts. Without your help, I may not make it. So if you’re in a hurry, but have a generous heart, here’s my amazing story about how I went from sad sack to Substack. Click on this ‘pretty link,’ and then click on one of the hearts to like my story: Thank you!
For the rest of you, let me explain a little.
I love a challenge! And so does Winston over at Coffee Times. His challenges are designed to encourage if not force us shy ones to shamelessly promote our entry posts. He does this by requiring say 1K claps here on Medium.
Or say 100 likes on Substack.
The instructions ask us to like all of our co-contestants pieces. Which we are doing. But there are only 19 of us.
But we should not let that stop us. This is why he wrote in a challenge update:
While CC3 only requires participants to do one promotional article with CT Medium, in real life, writing just one promotional article on CT Medium will most certainly not get them 100 likes.
They have to reach out to their own social sites and write more promotional articles on other Medium publications to market their own contest article. The more the participants write, the more likes they will get, and the more people will find out about their newsletter. (bolding mine)
So this is why I’m here.
Illumination and editors like Dr. Mehmet Yildiz and Marcus aka Gregory Maidman, in particular, have been so supportive of me posting here to get claps and likes elsewhere.
Which feels awkward and embarrassing to ask. I’m way out of my comfort zone doing this. And if there weren’t 18 other folks pushing themselves in a similar fashion, I doubt you’d be reading these words right now.
But if Karen can, I can. If T Mann can, I can. If Tamil can, I can. And thank you, Tamil for linking up all of our Substack stories to your post here!
How’m I doing, Winston? Okay so far?
So now, with preliminaries out of the way…
The theme of the contest is to write about our writing. How we came to it, why we love it, what we write. And to tell it as a story. Which I love doing.
So I wrote the story of how Melancholy Marilyn became the Sacred Fool.
Given how serious she was as a child, this was not a forgone conclusion.
Even though her dad was funny, he also drank too much and touched her inappropriately. Nothing to laugh about there. He was also a rageaholic, especially if you disagreed with him about the Vietnam War.
As a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force who served as a strategic advisor in Saigon during the Tet Offensive, he had a very large chip on both shoulders about protecting America from the Communist Menace threatening the world. Or at least U.S. capitalist’s strategic interest in Southeast Asia.
As you can guess, Melancholy Marilyn did not agree with sending young men to fight and die to protect the markets of big oil or pharma or whatnot. While the sons of those corporate leaders got draft deferments and ivy league educations.
So it comes as no surprise that…
Melancholy Marilyn couldn’t wait to leave home and add her voice to the protests. She even got arrested for sitting in at the ROTC building on her campus. By then an ROTC instructor, Dad was not pleased.
Melancholy Marilyn threw herself into the movement and forgot to make time for herself. She also threw herself into marriage and forgot to make time for herself and her passions like dancing.
It all came to a head when her husband was away for a month. And at the same time, she discovered Latin jazz and salsa dancing. She started going to SF clubs and eventually the dancing got to be way more than rhythmic moves on a crowded dance floor.
Until one day…
This double life caught up with her and thanks to an honest friend, she hit bottom and landed in twelve-step programs. Where she belonged, with other recovering sex and love addicts to help her sober up.
That’s where she learned about and met her Higher Power. And how to surrender, let go and let God run the show.
Revealing is healing. So Melancholy Marilyn told her story over and over. The more she told it, the easier it got. And more rote. So she spiced it up with humor. Humor she didn’t know she had.
And something new was born in her–the Sacred Fool!
She went on to hone that funny bone. How she said that and how it led to writing is what my Substack story is all about.
So enough ado. Here it is. Thank you in advance for clicking on the little heart. My heart. Melancholy Marilyn AKA the Sacred Fool, Moi, sure appreciates you! Click on this ‘pretty link,’ and then click on one of the hearts to like my story: Thank you!
Thanks in advance to all my supportive friends including Meg Stewart Marla Bishop Cindy Heath Shaunta Grimes Katie Michaelson Margie Pearl AC Troi Pene Hodge Filza Chaudhry Debbie Walker Aimée Gramblin Roz Warren David Perlmutter Juneta Key Kristen Reinhardt DRM Pat Sullivan Barbara Snethen Randall Potter Carol A. Hanson Barbara Ouellet Chris Hodges Amy Sea Sarah Paris Carol Lennox James Knight Diana C. Spyder Rachael Ann Sand Bebe Nicholson Marne Platt Susan Alison Sarah Terzo Coyote Susan Janet Mary Cobb (she/her) Andrea Aikin Margie Zanzano Audrey Stimson Andrew Rodwin Gary Chapin Toni Crowe Jean Campbell Lee-Anne Hancock Anne Chisom Diane Overcash BOFace Wendy Snyder Terianne Falcone
p.s. Some of you may have already heart-liked me, but I haven’t figured out how to check that out. So please forgive any redundancy and pestering on my part. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
*p.p.s. I just learned that if you’re not already a member or subscriber of Substack somewhere, clicking the heart may take you to a subscription sign-up form. That’s the only way Substack knows how to make sure it’s one heart per person.
Coffee Times offers a free sub, I believe, and will confirm. Or you can subscribe to my newsletter called Sacred Foolishness. There is a link on top of the pic of Duddles by the circle with my name. Click on the green word, subscribe.
I had no idea of this when I started this crazy adventure. My apologies for any affrontery or aggravation this may cause you. Again, many thanks for your support.
Marilyn Flower writes humor to laugh the changes she wants to see and make. She’s the author of Creative Blogging: Ninja Writers Guide to Character Development and Bucket Listers, Get Your Brave On. Clowning and improvisation strengthen her resolve during these crazy times. Stay in touch!