"Regardless of how you might know her, she certainly is making a positive impact on our blockchain" --@wesphilbin

Not to mention Twitter and Sustainable Living Podcasts

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Freewriters, don't miss @wesphilbin's

Interview with @mariannewest

via @steembasicincome - learn more about this native of West Germany who was told she would never learn to speak English. If they could see her now! Leader of @Freewritehouse, which is predominantly English, with Spanish and German chapters.

NOTE: This is @carolkean, not our humble Marianne, writing this, and she doesn't know I'm writing it. Yet.

Read @wesphilbin's # Interview with @mariannewest in its entirety

if you want to learn how @Freewritehouse began with Marianne's first sighting of @improv's Freewrites and evolved into the powerhouse we know today. You'll find so many other things in this interview, whether you want to do well as a writer at Steemit or earn more SBI or take a more active role or....

There are things you can do to help grow and sustain this worthy initiative. See what @mariannewest has to say about

Adopt Me

As far as the Freewrite House is concerned we are going to continue to support writers of all abilities and experience levels... We are hoping that more of the writing community will step up and take charge of the many contests and initiatives I have started. For example, we'd love to bring back the adopt me program, where we featured one newbie for a week with resteems and upvotes and @kaelci sponsors them to 2 SBI.

Over 20 Club

Another initiative is the Over 20 Club where freewriters who wrote over 20 freewrites are invited to write about their experience and highlight their favorites. We give out a badge to those that respond and have a private room in our discord. We did games where people could win SBI and upvotes - again, we need someone in charge of that... it has been on hold.

WE-Write

We are bringing back the WE-Write that was our flagship and started as a special contest for our day 100 celebration - so long ago now!! We are at day 645 or 44 - I forgot and I wrote the number this morning LOL

There is so much to read in this interview!

I'm in awe of how many people Marianne can inspire, how much good one homesteading/immigrant/grandma can do for others, and how much one humble but hard-working, talented, intelligent, self-disciplined woman can accomplish.

Just a few more snippets, words from Marianne to Wesphilbin:

Sometimes we have to step back a little, and see what still fits into our lives.

Or what technology allows us to fit in and maintain. E.g., Marianne says,

My podcast is The Sustainable Living Podcast and the Steem account is @sustainablelivin. I had started to do a weekly garden corner and gave out SBI for that, but I got so busy with life and stuff that I haven't been able to keep that up - especially since Share2steem is not working anymore...My podcast is on hold as well for the same reason, but I feel confident that I am making progress with my life stuff and can come back to it full force when fall arrives.

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Not to mention the sense of futility that we have to overcome in an era of words falling on deaf ears:

I feel strongly that sustainable living is more important than ever - but sometimes I feel like I am either talking to an echo chamber - people who already got it and don't need to hear it from me - or, I am talking to people that are so far away from any kind of sustainable lifestyle that I just want to cry...

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Never give up

would be Marianne's mantra! Never think it was a all a waste of time and effort:

And if it all goes away, I have made some great connections here and certainly learned a lot about a lot of things...

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Do not despair,

do not feel like a schmuck, if you are not doing all these great things. Heaven knows I am doing the bare minimum. Writers half my age are struggling with medical conditions that make it hard to keep up with daily life, much less with the cosmopolitan, fast-paced, high-traffic world of Steemit. (Again: Marianne, you amaze me!)

More than one freewriter who comes and goes, health permitting,

warrants our appreciation. For now, I will limit myself to a Shout-Out for

@girlbeforemirror

Anything by @girlbeforemirror is worthy of your time and attention. Her artwork with a ballpoint pen, and her post celebrating the Biro brothers who invented and market it, deserves a much wider audience. That post is three years old no less relevant today. I will say more about it in another post. For now, I want to call attention to this one:

One of many things that really leaped out at me:

Every comment (from Steemit readers) has been so important to me. I live a life of relative isolation.

It has been 3 years this month that I have maintained this steemit account. I have had times of greater involvement, met many great people. Thank you to those who have enriched my life. Every comment has been so important to me. I live a life of relative isolation. My family come and go and endure a life of limits to accommodate me. Steemit has helped lessen the nothingness and hold the figurative paralysis at bay and also distract from the very real creeping of ailments that have proven difficult to address and less interesting by the months to the medical community.

The greatest assistance and compassion has come from lay people and "virtual" strangers, come friends.

Here's to 3 years of beta mode for me. I hope I am not still working out the kinks in 3 years time, I also hope to still be here, and be able to be so much more than a meat puppet marionette with broken strings.

We share that hope, @girlbeforemirror,

and we are here to support each other. Not everyone can do what Marianne does. If you're like me, you tend to slink back under your rock when you see how much other people are achieving. I'm forcing myself out more, and trying harder to do more. Instead of being apologetic for doing so little, I'm doing what I can. Of course I fall short of others, but this isn't a competition. And that, to me, has been a message from Marianne that I treasure. Power and Prestige can be sought in other groups, but this community is about cooperation and caring for each other.

Thank you Marianne

and thank you, everyone, for making this community so positive and inspiring.

Stay tuned to the #freewritehouse hashtag -- and watch for Friday Favorites, nominated by fellow freewriters, with SBI and other awards! Be sure to read other freewrites and nominate any favorites here:

Week 7/30/2019 - Win a Membership in Steem Basic Income - Tell us About a Favorite Freewrite