Old Decathlon Olympics Journal

Oct. 9th: Gift Points, My Keep, & YOU CAN TOO...

Saturday, October 9th, 2004

I have given away millions of gift points on Writing.Com. I absolutely do it for my own pleasure. Some were given because a writer amused or amazed me, other times gift points were given because a writer touched my heart, or made me cry, especially if a writer made me cry. Sometimes I gave gift points just to make another person say, “Whoa!”

I love gift points. Gift points provided me with the very first opportunity to ever own a MILLION of anything, especially a MILLION of something my children couldn’t get their hands on, or weasel out of me. I really like that.

Then I began to notice all the different charities set up to help Writing.Com members with upgrades and such. I couldn’t understand why so many members needed help when so many opportunities exist to make your own way on Writing.Com.

Let me “Show instead of tell”, as I am so often reminded to do by so many other Dear Writer’s on Writing.Com.

Today, I earned a grand total of 5,400 Gift points. Granted, I don’t do that well everyday, but often enough that I realize that everybody else could with a minimum of effort. So, you ask, “How did I earn 5,400 gift points?” I did four auto-award reviews worth 375 gift points, one auto-award review worth 300 gift points, one auto-award review worth 500 gift points, and since the Writing.Com Review Mixer is giving double gift points from October 8th through 31st, I earned 500 more gift points for reviewing members I had never reviewed before. I also earned 2,500 gift points for an Honorable Mention in the Dynamic Dialogue Contest.

If I can earn gift points like this, why not everybody else?

In a way, I am in the hole with the Dynamic Dialogue Contest, because I donated over 12,000 gift points in a sort of bet "ON" myself. I actually thought I could win. Damn! Considering the competition, I am extremely lucky to have even placed. I got to stop that betting thing I got going on "ON" myself. Gambling never pays off – NEVER!

Anyway, my point is that I use to donate to many of these groups that help people keep their memberships until I applied Scripture to the matter. Yep, the Bible says, “The poor will always be with you.” I don’t think it actually says anywhere in the Bible, “God helps those that helps themselves.” But in my humble opinion, it should. People can argue that I have the time to do the reviews for auto-awards. Well, the minimum requirement is 250 words, and usually my minimum review is between 1200 and 2500 words, sometimes more depending on what the author wrote. I EARN my auto-awards, oh, and I forgot to mention that one of the authors sent me an additional 100 gift points to add to what he already auto-awarded me.

I am also in a contest this month where the top prize is over 1,000,000 gift points, and that is in addition to the Olympic Decathlon.

Have I told y’all how much I value my membership on Writing.Com? I did mention that I love giving gift points away, didn’t I? Well, I got to have them to give them. And what do I get out of all of this?

My writing is improving to the point that I have been submitting work to magazines that just might pay me REAL money if my submissions are accepted for publication. I believe it could happen – if I live long enough.