My name is Rich, I am 47 years old and the physical aspects of my world are currently confined to a 6 foot by 9 foot concrete box more commonly referred to as a prison cell. I have been in this cell for almost 15 years and will be here for another 12. I am the father of 2 beautiful girls and one amazing boy, whom are all grown now. I am a drug addict and I am thankfully in recovery for going on 7 years now! One of the many crimes I am guilty of committing and am in prison for is home invasion and felony firearm possession.
My reasons for doing this blog is that this 6 foot by 9 foot space is closing in on me and I'm just trying to expand my world in any and every way I possibly can. It is my desire to somehow take my silently wasting away in this box and loudly connect or plug in to life in a meaningful way with the hope that I might give and receive life's most valuable resource, connections. Connections with people.
I have had and I have lost many things, but one thing that holds true is that it´s the relationships we build and share with others that hold life's true essence. I am not a big religious person but I feel like you don't have to look much further than a true and cultured relationship to find god. It may be a brother, a friend, a husband or wife, a child, all relationships possess this magic if built with honesty, appreciation, understanding, acceptance and selflessness. Sitting in this cell in this very moment I can with 100% honestly tell you that it´s sharing a moment of closeness with another human being that I miss the most. That is what i fantasize about in the silence of my cell at night.
I hear inmates talking and trading stories about their big dreams of getting out and finding the most beautiful women, or making the most money, some still insist on making reservations on the devils playground, they excitedly reminisce about getting high or selling drugs, finally convinced they have figured out how to do wrong the right way.
But I am not here to judge, I just don't understand it all. The thought of talking, laughing, hugging someone who knows and accepts me completely and loves me and vice versa? The thought of that feels like a billion dollars to me. In a world where everyone seems to be trying to be who they think will be liked and accepted the most, where everyone is wearing masks of some kind or another. To know and be known and for true love and acceptance, to exist in that, it just seems like everything to me.
Am I making a bigger deal of this than is necessary? Are the connections not as rare as I think they are? Is my view of the relationships between people a negative and pessimistic one? I will admit that the sample of experience that I am drawing from is small and not very reliable. I just know what feels right and gives me the deepest and truest sense of value and that is what I am in search of. It is why I am on this page. In recovery they say that you can only keep what you have by giving it all away, I finally understand that.
So this is a part of who I am and why I have chosen to start this blog. I look forward to discussing many different topics. Also, I should probably tell you that I have never really been on the internet and do not have any experience when it comes any of this but I look forward to learning.
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doesnt it becomes normal to you to live that life after all those years living it
Very sorry about all this Rich. Wish you the best. Those must be very difficult circumstances, but congrats on your 7 years of recovery!
I want to give advice on the web stuff since you don't have experience but you said you want to make connections. My understanding is these days just hosting your own blog won't get much traffic by itself. The only reason I found yours is because your friend posted it to reddit. Are you able to access other sites besides this blog?
These days the thing for writers to do is run your blog on substack.com. You can hypothetically run both if you want. You would have to copy each blog post from here to substack, but that wouldn't take too long.
I'm not claiming substack will instantly give you hundreds of comments but I believe it will at least be more than here. You would get even more if you could post each of your blog entries to X (twitter), reddit, or instagram. Lots of people actually turn one of those sites into their full blog and get more traffic than otherwise. I could give some basic tips for those sites but I'll wait since I don't know what you're allowed to do.
Hi D and thank you for your comment. I´m the friend who posted Rich´s blog on Reddit and I also manage this blog for him. He writes and sends me a the text in a message and I put the text here.
Rich cant access the regular internet. I would like to get more connections for him and will check out substack.com. Any added tips are welcome and I always inform Rich of everything including all comments.
Hi Tove, thanks for explaining.
Added tips:
Nice job on the substack. There is another way to view someone's blog there, here it is for yours: https://rlivingston.substack.com/
I don't know why the site is designed that way but I prefer this style and would use that for sharing.
I would pick one major social media site at a time and try to promote the substack from there. See how it goes, then add another site if you want. It can be overwhelming trying to do everything at once.
Reddit: there are fewer subreddits (aka subs) than I realized which would be suitable for this. Many subs have strict rules, and most subs with lax rules have low participation. I would keep posting to r/prison, but post an entire article from Rich, make that the reddit post. Just do it once in a while since it seems that mod doesn't like too much spam. Young people like to log in to their social media sites, read content directly on there and comment on there. Giving them a full article where they already are increases the chance of comments, and since you have a substack there's a greater chance they'll click it if they also have a substack account.
It is worth trying r/TrueAskReddit also. Pick one of Rich's articles that are structured as a question, such as "Could you ever trust me?" and "Are things really that political out there?", add context in the title that lets the audience know about Rich's situation, then put the entire body of the article into the body of that reddit post.
If you happen to find related discussions elsewhere on reddit now you can reply with one of your reddit posts or the substack link, asking for help.
Instagram: You can use free tools like Canva to place a standout line from an article over any photo (real or abstract), use the resulting image in an instagram post, then post the entire article in the body of that post. At the end say "Please check out my substack in my bio", don't put the link in the post.
Or take an article, break it up into 3-5 sections and make each section an image with Canva. You can place all 3-5 images in one instagram post like a slideshow, with the comment "full article in bio". You can use either method for different articles if you want.
X aka Twitter: You would also post entire articles here, then put the substack link at the end of each one. But without Premium you'd have to break each article up into chunks and post them in a thread. That's fine, people like reading that way. Paying for Premium allows you to put an entire article in one post and gives you more traffic, but it isn't mandatory. Either way, getting traffic requires you to get involved: follow people especially any prison-related accounts, comment on their posts and link them to your own posts while explaining the situation.
Facebook: seek relevant facebook groups (prison-related, criminal justice, personal essays, social commentary). Join them and again make posts for each article. Each group has its own rules and culture so observe what everyone else posted first. Some you can post the entire article, some maybe only an excerpt and a link. One I found that looks promising is called Families Supporting Prisoners. You might be able to find a group specifically for prisoners in whichever state Rich is in.
Whichever site you use, put the substack in the bio of the account. Wherever you go do a little reading of other accounts to see how they do things.
I'm sorry but I have even more advice, I'll put it in the next post and will keep it short haha. But it might be more relevant than this one.
So in my research I found a list of independent projects that want to publish writing from prisoners. They are their own platforms and have nothing to do with social media. Some of them offer small payments for articles. I will post a link to each, specifically their pages about how to submit writing as a prisoner, since that can be hard to find from their main page.
https://prisonjournalismproject.org/write-for-us/
https://prisonwriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Helpful-Info-for-New-Prison-Writers-PDF-.pdf
https://minutesbeforesix.com/wp/submissions/
https://www.themarshallproject.org/life-inside
https://humansofsanquentin.org/about/faq/ (see first question)
Again just try one at a time, they each have different requirements but hopefully at least one is suitable for you guys. Hope this isn't overwhelming, let me know if you have any questions.
Wow, thanks so much for helping us! I will check out the links specifically for prisoners as well.
My phone is too old so so can’t download the Substack app. 😃 I do everything through the website. Need to buy a new one soon. I didn’t come to Rich’s substack when I clicked the link you provided, have no idea how to change anything layout wise.
So many awesome tips, thank again!!
Hi Tove, really glad you like it! I also do everything on my computer, no phone involved.
I don't know if there's an error or miscommunication but the link works for me. You don't need to change any layout, just opening that link automatically presents the same blog but in a better layout. Every substack account seems to work this way and they would use that link when it comes to sharing. But if it doesn't work for you it's not a big deal.
Also I found some other subreddits that would be good to post in:
r/Assistance (select Emotional Support flair when writing the post)
r/OffMyChest (cannot post links, just post article with context)
r/WhatMenDontSay
FYI I can't reply to you directly so just posting a new comment. Good luck.