Busy week

I am not entirely sure how it happened, but I suddenly have as much work as I had during my exceptionally busy period last summer. That is to say, I'll be working a lot this week, and likely won't have much time to blog regularly. I guess the fruits of one of my New Year's resolutions - to double my income in 2007 - are already paying off.

On top of the abnormally heavy workload, I have also been spending several afternoons each week scanning and organizing the family photos with my mom. Some of these photos are very old - in fact, more than just a few are nearly 100 years old, with a couple being even older - and they haven't all been very well cared for, so we are scanning everything on high resolution. Once we are done, we will put them all in acid-free albums, to protect them as much as possible from now on. I have to admit, although it takes me away from my work for 10 or 15 hours a week, it is enjoyable work - it's like reading a story (or watching a movie), except the characters in it are your own flesh and blood. I am particularly fascinated with my maternal grandmother's side of the family - where the Swan name came from - so my favorites are the photos of her in her youth.

At any rate, I am taking this week one project at a time, so I will blog again when I come up for air.

A new standard of site traffic

My article running in Writers Weekly has introduced a new standard of site traffic. With exception of the first few days after my article ran, during which my site traffic went through the roof, since the article's publication I have maintained a steady rate of about 300 hits on my site each day. In fact, although it's too early to tell for sure just yet, I may be forced to upgrade my traffic allowance yet again!

If I upgrade my traffic allowance to the next level, I will be forced to make an important decision: whether to upgrade my hosting plan as well. An upgraded hosting plan will require re-uploading my entire website, including all of the images and other miscellaneous files; an upgraded hosting plan will also mean having to learn new features or having a bunch of features I will never use. However, if I simply upgrade my traffic and storage allowances, I will be paying the same amount of money as I would for the upgraded hosting plan.

Definitely something to think about...

The trouble with (wannabe) writers

Publishing my article in Writers Weekly earned me a lot of emails, guestbook entries, and other attention. I have to admit this felt rather nice - most of these people assumed I was wildly successful, and more than just a few sought my approval. However, I also got a number of highly amusing emails from would-be writers who wanted me to confirm their delusions of grandeur.

One such writer wrote to me to tell me how she had also always felt wrongly discouraged from being a writer. Okay - that I can understand. She also talked about how she dreamed of being a world-famous novelist. I gave her what I thought was some perfectly sound advice for achieving her dream: start small. Most of today's successful novelists started out publishing short stories, newspaper articles, or anything else that allowed them to make a reliable income writing and earn a name for themselves. I told her the more you publish, the easier it is to publish more, so start with the easy stuff.

Her response was rather hoity-toity. I had the distinct impression that she thought of herself as a real writer, and was talking down to me. She started out by telling me,

It gives me great honor to inform you that I have completed my first suspense-thriller. It is a novel that took six years to finish, and I am currently searching for a literary agent... I feel confident that an agent will see my raw God-given talent, which has been polished from my education, and give this first-time author a chance.

Wow, is she in for a shock. I wonder how she'll handle her first dozen or so rejections.

She concludes her email with this unbelievable statement:

I strive to reach nothing but perfection as I compose each inspiring, meticulous word. Hopefully, after people read my thought-provoking words, they will view life rather differently and contribute toward the betterment of mankind.

The last statement in particular reminds me of the kinds of things you hear out of beauty pagent contestants, each with Barbie's smile pasted on her lips.

Another would-be writer wrote to me asking for advice on starting his career. He started out by asking - no, demanding:

What are the proper channels a writer needs to seek to become a high-paid writer? Does one need credentials? Define credentials? Out of the choices of having a book published, working on a team, writing for a paper, blogging, or movie screenplays....what's the best one?

He then continued on to describe his disappointment that his writing hadn't been "discovered" via MySpace. (That part made me laugh quite a bit. Does he think there are talent scouts out there combing MySpace for the next Stephen King?) Finally, he explained his goals as a never-been-published writer:

I realize there are several routes I can take to make a name for myself, but the only one that reall [sic] appeals to me, is either 1) getting a book published and/or 2) being part of a creative team writing for a movie or T.V. show that's already made a name for itself.

And therein lies the rub...

This guy also thinks he is not just going to rise straight to the top, but start at the top. I tried to explain to him the natural order of things, but I don't think he understood (or appreciated) my advice, because I never heard back from him.

Although it might seem like I'm making fun of these people (okay, I am, but only a little), I'm really posting about this for a couple of very good reasons. For one thing, I think other already-established writers will see the humor in a bunch of wannabes being rather too big for their britches.

However, I am also posting this because it reminds me of who I - and probably every other published writer - was when I was just a dreamer and a wannabe myself. Back in high school, when I wrote whole novels only to stuff them in a drawer because I so feared editing, I too thought that becoming a writer was my destiny. And in retrospect, I think I was right, but only because I got myself here. Writers aren't born or discovered; they achieve their dreams at the price of their blood and sweat and tears. And although I've only traveled a short distance upon this path, I am proud of every single step I have taken.

As for the betterment of mankind... Well, it's quite enough for me right now to know that right now, somewhere in the world, someone is reading words I was paid to write.

Complaints about jury duty aftermath and stupid employers

If you would have asked me a week ago, "How do I get out of jury duty?" I probably would have told you not to, because it's a worthwhile experience. Right now I'm thinking of changing my tune.

I got a call Wednesday from the Colorado Judicial Department. Apparently a business here in Denver (whose name I won't name) has the same EIN as my SSN. I called the IRS and verified that it is possible and legal for the numbers to match, since my personal information was in a laptop stolen from Metropolitan State College of Denver a little over a year ago, and identity theft is always a possibility. Of course, although the numbers being the same doesn't mean that they did steal my number, the fact that it's legal for the numbers to match doesn't mean that they didn't.

And I've got another problem, one that is more immediate - and one that reflects more on the Colorado jury duty system. The reason I found out about this coincidence is because the CJD sent my check to the wrong place. When they put my SSN into the computer, this business popped up, so they sent it there - without stopping to find out why the name and address on the check didn't match that on my form! Idiots! So now they've told me that I need to wait another couple of weeks while they try to get the check back from the business, before they can issue me a new check. I'm furious - it's hardly my fault that they didn't have the wherewithall to notice that the information on my form didn't match the information in the computer.

Right on the tails of that experience, I get a response from a job ad I had replied to, and it turns out they don't pay up front - they pay their writers per hit on their page. That policy of "paying" writers really angers me, because it does not at all reflect the amount of work that a writer puts into an article or - in this case - an ongoing blog. (Ad revenue sharing instead of straightforward payment pisses me off too - if I wanted to get paid like that, I'd put ads on my own website and blogs!)

So, me being in a bad mood, this guy got a response that was slightly less polite than my norm:

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, as a full-time freelancer I am dependent on my writing as my sole source of income, and as such, I do not take jobs that do not pay me for the work (whereas you are offering to pay me for the traffic). In my opinion, paying writers per hit is like paying your plumber for each time you flush your toilet after he fixes it.

I hope all my readers understand that getting paid per hit or via an ad revenue sharing plan is not sufficient pay for a writer!

Another rant about Freelance Work Exchange

Back in May, I wrote a post about Freelance Work Exchange. The post is about one particular user's complaints about the service, but since posting I have read and heard several other people's issues with the company, ranging from the near-impossibility of canceling their accounts (and stopping the monthly automatic charge from going through) to the fact that most of the jobs found on their site can also be found elsewhere on the Internet - for free.

Today I have a complaint of my own: I'm sick of seeing their ads. If you look for writing jobs on Craigslist, you know the scenario:

Looking through the list of Craigslist jobs, you see one that looks particularly interesting. You click on it, and find that there is no email, only a URL. When you click on the URL, you are directed to yet another site - which turns out to be Freelance Work Exchange. What you thought was a legitamate job ad is actually nothing but an attempt to get you to spend your hard-earned dollars on what some might call a worthless subscription service!

Yesterday I replied to just such an ad - there was an anonymous Craigslist email address, so I clicked on it and sent my cover letter and resume, without first looking at the URL in the ad. (Yeah, I know - stupid.) Today I received a response back from a "J.H." The short email says simply that they found someone for the job already, and then "Here is the site we used..." And that's it. I followed the link and discovered, much to my horror, that the site led to Freelance Work Exchange.

I rather doubt that the people who posted the ad - and responded to my email - were really the employers. More likely they were the FWE folks themselves, using a job posting as a ploy to market their services. If you ask me, that's downright dishonest.

So I would like to make a request of all my readers: next time you are searching for writing jobs and you see one of FWE's fake job ads on Craigslist, PLEASE FLAG IT. Let's send the message that we are sick of following false leads, and that they are no longer welcome on Craigslist!

Good advice for writers

This was originally a follow-up post to my article "How Society Supports Low-Paying Writing Jobs," which ran in WritersWeekly.com in December of 2006. In the original post I plugged a consulting service for writers. After I found out in 2007 that the consultant was spamming other writers, I decided to retract my referral.

Sorry if this decision affects you, but honestly I think everyone is better off this way!

Resolutions for 2007

Happy New Year's to everyone!

It seems a good occasion to reminisce about the past year. I am happy to report that I achieved both of my New Year's resolutions for 2006: to publish a piece of fiction, and to start work on a novel. In fact, I went beyond the original resolutions: I published two short stories, and wrote a whole novel.

Encouraged by my luck with 2006's resolutions, I have formed a few more for 2007. They are:

1. To revise my NaNoWriMo novel and get it ready for submitting,

2. To submit my NaNoWriMo novel to at least one publisher during 2007,

3. To start work on my next novel,

and

4. To double my freelance income in 2007.

The first two resolutions I am hoping to fulfill during the early months of 2007, followed soon after by the third. In fact, I am hoping to write two novels in 2007 - one by November and another during November, when I do NaNoWriMo again.

As for my income - my main goal is to start making enough extra a month that I can afford (among other things) to bring Panama out here in the spring or early summer. Stabling a horse in the Denver Metro area is expensive, and although I could find less expensive stables by putting him a 45-60 minute drive away from me, I want Panama close enough so that I can visit him and work with him daily. He'll be almost two years old by then, and I will need to work with him a great deal in order to make up for the lack of attention and training he has had so far. I don't want to have to worry about just barely squeaking by each month, either, which is why I want to double my income rather than simply making enough more each month to pay the stabling bills.

Well, there you have it - my goals for the New Year. If you would like to share yours, feel free to comment to this post. Best of luck to all my readers in 2007!