Too bad there’s no internet cake.
It’s a year later, and we didn’t think we’d last a year.
Q: You didn’t?
A: No. We really didn’t.
I had a big, fat, stupid post talking about me and us and nobody else but I realized something: No one wants to hear that shit. So instead, I’m paring it down to the parts that people want to hear. The first thing I want to say is: don’t give up. That’s trite as all hell, isn’t it? But hear me out.
For the first three months, we thought The Metaworker was going to be dead before the end of the month. People could barely make meetings and we were barely getting submissions. But we stuck with it, we worked for it, and now we’re here. It’s August 9th 2016, and we’re going strong.
The advice I want to give anyone making anything collaborative is to make friends; with both the people you’re working with and with the people you’re pitching your ideas to. Help them out, encourage them, and be a good person. Don’t network. Networking is for people who don’t care about relationships with other humans, but want them in order to succeed. If that’s your goal, your priorities are fucked up and you’ll deservedly get neither friendship nor success.
The reason I’m putting that particular message out is that collaboration is why we got this far. Darin’s advertising campaign, Marina’s prompt responses and willingness to communicate, Elena’s organizational skills, all of them combined to keep us floating even when it looked like we would sink. Dani came in late, but she’s already been crucial in getting this damn site to behave. But it’s not just us. Before we were big, Ellen Webre encouraged her friends to submit to us, which literally kept us alive. Since then, everyone else who has liked and shared our posts has drawn attention to us and reminded the world that we’re here. And, of course, thank you to those of us who have submitted. You’re the stars of the show. This is all your work, after all. We’re just the editors.
So: thank you. If you’re reading this right now. Hell, if you’re just giving us hits, thank you. This is an absolute labor of love, and you’ve kept that love going. Here’s to another year.
