Freelancing

I guess I'm starting to take this writing stuff seriously again.

I've started freelancing over at TextBroker. It's technical writing, but the pay is more immediate than the mythical residual ad revenue from HubPages. Yes, pay. Honest to goodness dollars. Clients post articles that they need written, and you as a freelance writer claim these "offers" for a certain price per word. So far I've made about fifty bucks and I've only been doing it for a few days. It translates to something around five or six dollars an hour right npw, but you've got to start somewhere, and it's not bad for a supplemental gig that I can do during the downtime at my real job.

So far I've written about Six Sigma certification, ladder bookshelves, carnival party games, FedEx's Walk This Way child safety initiative, and country style hallways. I've got an article on Trivial Pursuit waiting for me to get to tomorrow morning. As you can see, there's a wide variety of articles available - I even saw one on how to buy a sex toy for your girl. I didn't take that one. It's really interesting, though, and I'm enjoying gradually learning new things. I'm only taking stuff I feel comfortable writing, but I'm pretty good at research, and as I write more, I learn more which in turn allows me to write more to learn new things and so on and so on. I'm having fun with it.

I'm also getting ideas for new HubPages articles. At this point, the HubPages stuff is on the back burner. It's stuff to write when there's nothing biting over at TextBroker. Up front money comes first. I can always build the residual income articles in between.

It would be nice if I could get in a groove with this and build a career in freelancing. It's not the most creative of work, but it's interesting and something I do well. I see it as a continual supply of writing exercises. Technical writing can only help my creative writing.

Time for bed now. More writing tomorrow.

Victorious!

I have just returned from battling The Monster for hopefully the last time. I just need to find its horcruxes now to dispose of the thing for good. But aside from clusters of roots, the blackberry bush in the back yard has been removed. I already have plans for that area. I want to put a bench there and make it into a pretty sitting area.

We never did get around to mucking out the garden areas. I guess we'll do that next week.

I thought I had more for this blog post, but I don't.

Blogging in Bed

I love being able to blog in bed. We have a tempurpedic, which is pretty much the Cadillac of beds. So while my fiancee is off at a bachelorette party (not hers), I'm having a wonderfully relaxing night. And after having "one of those days," I need a bit of relaxing. Beer, pizza, World of Warcraft, and playing with my iPad in bed = a wonderful time.

I'm starting to get into the HubPages thing. I've set up two accounts, one for me and one for everyday life in the house, called the Ordinary Couple. The OC is where I'll post the beer reviews and various self help stuff, like caulking a window and how not to grow a blackberry bush, for example. The Crifmer account will have game stuff and personal essays and creative writing. I'm working on a couple of short pieces to put up. I may also put up my roleplaying game on HubPages for free while I get artwork and format a pdf version. It won't have the custom dice, but I'll include equvalent tables, and maybe do up a pdf of papercraft dice. It's got a long way to go before it's suitable for public viewing, though.

I also rethought the Upgrade cards for Galaxy Corporate. It also makes logistics a bit easier, too. Not that means anything to you, dear reader, but I don't know why it hadn't occured to me before.

And just when I get to the lounging in bed portion of the evening, my fiancee calls asking me to meet them at the VFW. It's a good thing I took my time and enjoyed my beer rather than drinking my usual three beers in an hour. Two beers in two hours is a good pace. And I won't really be able to drink because I'm driving.

Well, off to have a good time, I suppose. Maybe I'll bring the iPad and blog from the VFW. I won't be able to post it until I get home since I don't have the 3G, but that's all right.

Now where did I put my pants?

Blogging at the Bar

Sitting at one of our hangouts, the 101 Pub, watching the Yankees and blogging. I love my iPad.

I'm really just writing this to rub everyone's face in the fact that I've got a pretty good life. Yes, that was mean.

I dug out a lot of my old writing from the archives in the basement, trying to find something decent to put up on HubPages. My estimated earnings from the Google ads so far is 58 cents! I'm making the monies! Yay! I found a couple things that I might revise and put up on HubPages, but most of it sort of embarasses me. It's typical high school writing, and most of my college stuff was sort of tossed off since I didn't have a lot of time to write all the stuff I had to write. A few things have potential, though.

I started a second account for various reviews and various observations of coupled/married life, called An Ordinary Couple. Yesterday's gardening adventure inspired the first article: An Ordinary Couple vs The Blackberry Bush. I've decided to get rid of the Monster. I'm not sure if the first round goes to me, or turned out to be a draw. Next time I'l wear my denim work shirt, though. I need some armor against that beastie.

Now I'm writing this on the patio out in the backyard. It's beautiful out and we dusted off our rocking patio chairs. To digress, Mom bought us a really nice patio set as a housewarming present (along with a couple of matching chairs for herself) back when we bought the house.

Anyway, we decided to wind out the day relaxing in the back yard with some beer. All in all, a nice day.