As most of you already know by now, I started a new job at the beginning of the month. I’m now senior editor at Modern Consensus. On Jan. 3, my second day on the job, I smashed my right index finger in my car door, and ended it up in the ER twice, first to stitch up the finger, and again to stop the profuse bleeding. 

It was a bad smash. Early in the morning, after only a few hours sleep and a grueling yoga class, I stopped at a dog park. My dogs dashed out of the car, and as I was watching them, worried about coyotes, other dogs and cars in the vicinity (predators loom large in a tired mind), I wasn’t watching the finger, so I closed the door on it. My finger was so stuck in there, I had to actually pry open the door to get it out. 

The finger is much better now, though still numb at the tip. But the good news is I can type with all my fingers again. No more hunt and peck, which is why I’m finally writing this update now. 

Previous to Modern Consensus, I worked seven months for an ATM publication. Some of that was interesting. I was learning about cash and the world’s move away from cash. I got to cover bitcoin ATMs and the regulation—or lack of—in that space. But on the whole, I missed writing about the crypto space. It kept calling me back. Literally, I was still getting calls from people who knew me from my work around failed Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX. 

I should mention why I turned to full-time work in June 2019 in the first place. Months prior, with encouragement from prolific nocoiner blogger David Gerard, I discovered the freedom of blog writing. Blogging is great. Nobody steps in to rearrange your sentences, wildly move paragraphs around, cross things out, or stick things in that feel like they don’t belong. (Editors do that kind of thing.) You are your own boss. The problem is, no one is paying you for the work either, so unless you are living out of a van, and don’t have rent or a mortgage, it’s a tough road. (Gerard, by the way, has a full time gig as a system administrator, so blogging is something he does on the side.)

Freelance work, which I’ve also done a lot of, is a tough road, too. A decade ago, you could make $1 a word as a freelance journalist. Now you are lucky to make $0.50. Writing, in general, has become a brutal profession. Nowadays, everyone is competing for clicks and views, and that means SEO and keywords, and at times, sacrificing any sense of individuality. But life is about compromises.

That said, I am very happy to be working for Modern Consensus. It is a small team, but a small team of very experienced and dedicated journalists, who know their stuff. And if it weren’t for the talented Lawrence Lewitinn leaving that small publication that he cofounded (he’s the one who actually came up with the name “Modern Consensus”) to join CoinDesk, there wouldn’t have been an opening for me fill. Now I get to research and write about crypto and finance and frauds full time until my eyes bleed.  

I still plan to continue writing for my blog though, even if that’s just newsletters and small updates here and there. It’s something I enjoy doing and a chance for me to speak my mind the way I want to.