A really funny blog that you should go read

One of the reasons I love Twitter: I found this blog through a tweet from another really funny blogger who I follow. For those of you who are slow to catch on: it's satire. Go read it.

http://www.queenbmommy.com/

I suggest you start at the oldest post and work your way to the newest, as there's a bit of a plot line, and you should read them in order to get the full experience. If you do go visit the site, pencil in a good chunk of time as you'll probably end up reading through the whole thing, and then be tempted to brainstorm a snarky comment or two to leave.

I'm thinking about packing up the laptop and headed out to a coffeeshop somewhere to get some work done. I've been having a harder time concentrating on work since I came back from Virginia. I have so much I need to do in the next few weeks:

-labor intensive homemade gifts to make (which I'll probably be revealing/showing off after Xmas on my blog, just in case the gift recipients check this),
-Christmas presents to buy, and wrap, and send,
-house to clean (this is a big job),
-flyers to make (it's time to start looking for tenants for Feb/March- scary thought),
-mortgage details to finalize (we close on the dollhouse December 15th),
-Time Warner Cable to deal with (I hate them with the fire of a thousand suns),
-Christmas decorations to put up,
-arrangements and preparations for next semester to make (I'm signed up for six grad credits for next semester, and they are in 700 level, joint masters/PhD courses, so I'm feeling pretty anxious about holding my own and want to read ahead),
-and so on and so forth.

So since I don't have any real "deadlines" right now (not having a steady paying gig as of yet, or any accepted article pitches), it's easy, when I sit down at the computer to forge ahead on self-prescribed writing projects, to let my words get crowded out of my head with thoughts of all the stuff that DOES have a deadline. I think maybe if I remove myself from this environment, things might get a little easier. Also, there would be no cats climbing all over me and trying to sit on my laptop as I write at Starbucks, so that would be a big help too.

Do you have to spend money to make money?

In light of the abrupt end of my best gig and the fact that

1) writing clients aren't stumbling onto my website and booking me in droves (darn it- was hoping things would just fall into place like that), and,
2) The income from my personal blogs doesn't seem likely to bring in any more than could buy me a few cups of coffee . . .

I've been thinking seriously about other ways to find writing and editing work.  And I'm starting to think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and pay for the privelege of even being considered for projects.

There are a number of freelancing sites out there that charge a membership fee in order to bid on projects.   The two I'm considering are Elance and Guru.com.  Elance seems to be a popular site, and a good friend recommended Guru, saying one of her friends gets a lot of good work from it.  It just seems a little counterintuitive to take a chunk of what little I've already earned and spend it already. 

The main reason I've been hesitating on this is something I touched on a bit in an earlier post.  It's a little disheartening to be competing for jobs against seasoned veterans, on the one hand, and low-balling outsourcers on the other.  I know there's got to be other freelancers out there like me- hoping to get a chance to overcompensate for a limited resume with overenthusiastic service and attention to detail.  But then again, there's just another category of competition for jobs!  It's just a little scary to be putting money out with no guarantees of getting it back, much less making some sort of return.

I think I'm going to do it though.  Husband says I should.  The logical, non-cheap side of me says it's a necessary expense if I'm serious about doing this (which I am).  Mom (whose advice I usually, though not always, take) says to do it, suck it up, pay my dues, and work some low-balled jobs to develop some experience and a reputation.  So yeah.  Maybe I'll do it tonight.

I'm curious though- anyone reading this have some experience with these sites?  Any advice?  An opinion?  Reassurance that I won't be throwing my membership dues into a black hole?  I'd love to hear from you in the comments section.  Thanks!

Confessions of a struggling start up freelancer

Finally, I'm able to do my first 'official' blogger post- one that isn't a previously written post migrated over from Wordpress.  The process was tedious and annoying, but ultimately, didn't take as long as I thought, and at least it's over.

I put off writing my first blogger post until all the ones from Wordpress had been migrated, in order, so as not to be confusing.  I'm glad I did.  Had I written this any time yesterday, this post would have been embarrassingly depressing and full of self pity.  I probably would have deleted this morning when I woke up.  I was feeling deeply despairing yesterday.

Truthfully, I don't feel much better today- but at least, I have a little more perspective.  The root of my despair is the creeping tendrils of self-doubt that I can make this work.  It began yesterday, mid-morning, when I found out that my main writing gig has 'reached the end of their budget for this round' and has no further work at this time.

I'm not even sure what that means- how long until the next 'round of budgets' starts up?  Will it ever?  I'm thankful for the opportunity I had to do the work that I did and said so via email to my contact with the company.  Now I'm in a bind, but it's not their fault- I committed the cardinal sin of freelancing: I got dependent on one job and ceased trying to diversify.

You see, I thought this rentwiki assignment was going to last a lot longer.  There were two other writers contributing to the site, but their contributions were small and slow-going.  I seemed to be the only writer giving it full priority.  I did the mental math, multiplying the number of neighborhoods still needing to be reviewed, times the amount being paid per wiki, and I saw nearly $10,000 worth of work still needing to be completed.  I felt like this assignment was my safety net- my guarantee.  Even though I hadn't found any other 'major' assignments, I didn't have to panic- I'd at least be making what I'd computed as my minimum needed, for a couple of months, thanks to this gig.  I thought.

Last night I couldn't work on anything.  I stared listlessly at my screen.  My head pounded dully.  All seemed lost.  I got to the point where I couldn't even look at the screen anymore.  I curled up, fetally, on my couch and squeezed silent tears onto the microfiber.  I fell asleep with my head in my husband's lap, and it was a fitful sleep, jarred into a painfully half-awake state with each tiny shift or soft noise.  I felt heavy and sick and bewildered.

Now that I've woken up to a new, sunny day, I don't feel as hopeless, and I'm trying to think positively.  I know I lost sight of the bigger picture last night.  Sometimes, it's just too hard not to.  I quit a decently paying, steady job to take a blind leap into an uncertain field.  In the few weeks I have been plugging away at the freelancing, I've come across things that have scared me-

• sites and clients that expect high quality, researched work for less than one cent a word (check out Textbroker and read what some clients expect you to do for seventy cents per 100 words)
• Post after post on Craigslist of clients expecting you to write for free to 'gain exposure' (I've found plenty myself on the SA Craigslist, and Deb at FWJ does a great series on these as well, like here)
• Doses of reality like these excellent pieces on how there isn't enough time in the day for a freelancer, and the realities of the blogger payscale 
• Sites where freelancers compete for jobs, and I'm stuck in the unenviable position of competing with, on the one hand, people with tons of experience who are already highly rated on that site, and on the other hand, folks from outsourcing countries whose cost of living is completely different, who are willing to work for $3/hour.  (If you think I'm kidding, spend some time looking at provider profiles on ODesk and see how many well-written, educated people from other parts of the world have their rate listed at $5/ hour or less)

It's enough to make even the most confident person a little scared.  I wouldn't have quit my job to start freelancing if we couldn't afford to live on just one income for a while, so it's not the money, exactly, that's worrying me.  It's  the fact that there's been very few times in my life that I haven't been successful at things I've taken on.  I don't want this endeavor, one closer to my heart than most others, to be the exception.

Yesterday, I mourned the fact that things haven't fallen perfectly, immediately into place for me.  Today, I recognize the irrationality of thinking that they would.  

It's time to get back on the horse.  I'm going to redouble my efforts, toss my net far and wide, explore, and network, and do it all with the joyousness that I should rightly feel, knowing I have the luxury of pursuing my dream, and the freedom to fail a little bit before I have to admit defeat and crawl back to corporate America.  

Repeating myself

Now that I am writing A LOT more, both time-wise and quantity-wise, than I have in recent years, I've been a little disturbed to notice that there are a few words and phrases that pop up at an alarming rate in nearly everything I write. Some examples:

"Peruse:

1 a: to examine or consider with attention and in detail : study b: to look over or through in a casual or cursory manner 2: read ; especially : to read over in an attentive or leisurely manner (from www.Merriam-Webster.com)."

Peruse: turns out, I love this word. I know this now, because all of a sudden, I'm using it all the time. "I was just perusing your blog . . . as I was perusing information on the history of the neighborhood . . . I perused the bookshelves, looking for good resources for the freelance writer . . ." The fact is, my new freelancing job pretty much centers around perusing various things (well, actually, "writing" is the primary verb of my freelancing career. But "perusing" is a close second).

Another one I feel I've been overusing is "pursue" (cleverly, phonetically similar to peruse- coincidence?). This one, however, I attribute to the fact that I've filled out what feels like a million little 'bios' on various sites, and on each I've said some variation of "I've recently quit my full time job in property management to pursue freelance writing . . ."

The one that's been really bugging me, though, is what I feel is an overuse of what I'll call "reversal words." I KNOW there is a better, more educated sounding terms for these words and phrases- one that is escaping me right now, to my English-Major-embarrassment. I'm talking about "however," "although," "but," "though," "still,"and the like. I find it hard to get through an article or post without using a minimum of one of these words- and it's kind of driving me crazy! I know there are some literary types out there that frown on the use of these words. I'd love it it those folks could give me a little lesson on how to avoid them altogether.

I guess when you go from a casual amount of writing daily, to doing it prolifically, you're going to feel a bit repetitive simply because your volume has increased exponentially. Still, (there I go again!) I've been trying to look for alternate ways to 'reverse' the flow of a paragraph or article. It will make me feel better about my writing.

For all you writer types out there reading this (if there are any!), I'm curious: do you have any words you find yourself using over and over again? Are there writing tropes that you just can't get away from?

{Originally published on November 8th, 2008 on my Wordpress blog}