Script:

Hello everyone, I’m back here to continue with my flexible 30-day microcast challenge.

I had started this in December, but then I fell sick for a couple of weeks, so I decided to put a pause on this and pick it up again after the new year.

So today, I thought I would talk about my other, small, and also flexible 30‑day YouTube challenge.

I’ve had a YouTube account (@JessWriting) for a few years, but I hardly posted anything aside from a flip-through of a photo book. Late last year, I decided to try an unannounced challenge, where I’d post one video per day, or at least for most days. Usually that meant a YouTube Short, with one landscape video each week.

The goal wasn’t growth or analytics. It was more about momentum. I was new to recording and editing videos, and I wanted to build the muscle for it. I also set a small milestone for myself: reaching ten subscribers by the end of the year. I believe I started with three.

I had a lot of nature and hiking clips from a local road trip last autumn, so those became my training material. Unexpectedly, I found taking these short videos and sometimes spontaneously narrating over them on-the-go to be more enjoyable than I thought.

Somehow, by the end of the year, I hit ten, or maybe eleven subscribers. I’m very grateful for each one, and I might make a quick thank‑you short video soon.

I’m also thinking about writing a blog post and maybe a PDF about how I got my first ten subscribers. Not in a marketing way, just in a hobbyist, “here’s what worked for me” way.

My YouTube channel is kind of like my Dragonsinn website (est. 1999), where it’s more of a creative sandbox than a business or an e-commerce site. I did try to monetize Dragonsinn a few times over the years, but it never felt like the right direction, so it always pivoted back to a non-commercial vibe.

That’s today’s update about small steps and steady momentum.

I’m planning on recording every other day or thereabouts, so I’ll see you in the next one.