I am using the Twitter thing these days, so if any truly devoted readers want to catch me there, I invite you to do so.
....
Sure, it's exhibitionism, but what the hey, I'm a writer, a narcissist, a wanna-be artist and a wishful deep-thinker. And I crave validation.
Catch you later!
Friday, February 27, 2009
Okay.. so the writing...
Yes, I can still post about my writing, can't I?
First off, it's kind of hard to make the time to do it! I keep feeling like there's a way that I could be managing my time better. Discipline, it seems, does not spring spontaneously from my, or anyone's, forehead.
This is unfortunate.
But I simply have to find a way to get all of my writing going steadily, while at the same time making full-time income. Perhaps I have too many irons in the fire?
In any case, what I have been spending the majority of my time on has been these two main areas:
http://powersderived.blogspot.com
This is my political blog. I'm trying to do it without left or right bias, but I think I'm failing at that so far... Is it that there's nothing useful being said or done by the left at this point? I find that hard to believe; there are plenty of intelligent, well-meaning and effective people on that side of the aisle.
The other thing I spend my time on is this one:
www.wexlfinancial.com
If you follow the link and look for the ticker at the bottom right, you can see how much we've saved clients. Well over 120 million at this point. It's a real feel-good thing that actually acts as my day job.
Other than that, I'm trying to carve out time to devote to Helium.com.... as I don't want to get lost as they start to take even more flight. That site is going to change the online publishing world as we know it.
I have to run now.. got phone calls to make.
Don't worry, I'm still going to keep at the writing... heavily. I've got stories aching to be told. I just have to learn how to do fiction better.
carpe somnium
First off, it's kind of hard to make the time to do it! I keep feeling like there's a way that I could be managing my time better. Discipline, it seems, does not spring spontaneously from my, or anyone's, forehead.
This is unfortunate.
But I simply have to find a way to get all of my writing going steadily, while at the same time making full-time income. Perhaps I have too many irons in the fire?
In any case, what I have been spending the majority of my time on has been these two main areas:
http://powersderived.blogspot.com
This is my political blog. I'm trying to do it without left or right bias, but I think I'm failing at that so far... Is it that there's nothing useful being said or done by the left at this point? I find that hard to believe; there are plenty of intelligent, well-meaning and effective people on that side of the aisle.
The other thing I spend my time on is this one:
www.wexlfinancial.com
If you follow the link and look for the ticker at the bottom right, you can see how much we've saved clients. Well over 120 million at this point. It's a real feel-good thing that actually acts as my day job.
Other than that, I'm trying to carve out time to devote to Helium.com.... as I don't want to get lost as they start to take even more flight. That site is going to change the online publishing world as we know it.
I have to run now.. got phone calls to make.
Don't worry, I'm still going to keep at the writing... heavily. I've got stories aching to be told. I just have to learn how to do fiction better.
carpe somnium
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
I need to post to this more, but I've been busy
trying to make money.
In the meantime, I'm very active on my new blog: http://powersderived.blogspot.com
I'm spending more time on the other blog because it's part of my non-fiction writing adjustment. I'm trying to do the journalism thing more so that I can get better at it and start submitting work to the big magazines.
So go check it out. Tell your friends. Comment. I'm trying to bump up the readership pretty fast.
I'll be back here soon.
In the meantime, I'm very active on my new blog: http://powersderived.blogspot.com
I'm spending more time on the other blog because it's part of my non-fiction writing adjustment. I'm trying to do the journalism thing more so that I can get better at it and start submitting work to the big magazines.
So go check it out. Tell your friends. Comment. I'm trying to bump up the readership pretty fast.
I'll be back here soon.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Hey! I made a new blog! (This is an update, because I changed the name of the new blog)
Howdy. I'm working on a new blog. This one is called PowersDerived. The URL: http://powersderived.blogspot.com/
This is my attempt to compile the workings of our government into one place so that any interested citizen can get loads of info about whatever is important at the time.
Right now I'm focusing on the stimulus and related issues. But that's not where I'll stop.
I'll be posting things about abortion, gay rights and so on. Check it out. Comments are welcome, with some parameters that need to be followed.
This is my attempt to compile the workings of our government into one place so that any interested citizen can get loads of info about whatever is important at the time.
Right now I'm focusing on the stimulus and related issues. But that's not where I'll stop.
I'll be posting things about abortion, gay rights and so on. Check it out. Comments are welcome, with some parameters that need to be followed.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Today today today
is a Monday. Yep. Motivation is hard to come by today.
Better get after it.
Today, I'll:
Better get after it.
Today, I'll:
- Make some WeXL calls.
- Do some WeXL e-mail.
- Go home.
- Work on article(s) for Maximum Yield.
- Develop my article for the Ensign
- Work on stuff for affiliate website
- Wait for an important phone call
And that's probably it. I actually applied to a technical writer position with the Church today. I doubt I'll even get a call about it, but hope springs eternal.
Well.. off to it.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Reporting
It's really late: about 1:30AM. But I laid out what I wanted to get done today, and I wanted to report that I did it all.
Except going to the bank.
Heck, I even sent off two good sized invoices today.
Why do I worry that clients will see my invoices, consider my work, and decide I'm not worth it? Is this common to all, or most, writers?
Anyway, this evening I've come to a conclusion: Eric Clapton has got way more soul than you would expect from a white dude. Man, that guy is good.
More later.
Carpe somnium!
Except going to the bank.
Heck, I even sent off two good sized invoices today.
Why do I worry that clients will see my invoices, consider my work, and decide I'm not worth it? Is this common to all, or most, writers?
Anyway, this evening I've come to a conclusion: Eric Clapton has got way more soul than you would expect from a white dude. Man, that guy is good.
More later.
Carpe somnium!
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Up for 39 hours
and not going very strong at this point.
I've been keeping up with the feedback from the client in Korea. I get paid when the project is done, so I have a vested interest in moving the project forward.
I also did work at WeXL today, for the morning time.
We attended a blue and gold banquet tonight for our oldest, Thomas. It was fun; our first.
Tomorrow's plan:
Start my day by exercising.
1) At WeXL in the AM. Prospecting by phone and by going to business parks.
2) Home for lunch probably, or soon thereafter.
3) Bang an article together-- at least the rough draft, for Maximum Yield magazine.
4) Spend time keeping up with the project for my Korean client.
5) Do some Helium administrative stuff.
6) Check out the Ensign, Liahona, and New Era's editorial calendar. Outline an article based on what I find.
7) Add more to my brainstorm for my America essay.
8) Go to the bank.
9) Do a creative writing experiment: characterization.
And that is all. It ain't much, but I'll probably be fighting sleep all day.
Speaking of sleep, that's what I gots to do now. Good night moon.
I've been keeping up with the feedback from the client in Korea. I get paid when the project is done, so I have a vested interest in moving the project forward.
I also did work at WeXL today, for the morning time.
We attended a blue and gold banquet tonight for our oldest, Thomas. It was fun; our first.
Tomorrow's plan:
Start my day by exercising.
1) At WeXL in the AM. Prospecting by phone and by going to business parks.
2) Home for lunch probably, or soon thereafter.
3) Bang an article together-- at least the rough draft, for Maximum Yield magazine.
4) Spend time keeping up with the project for my Korean client.
5) Do some Helium administrative stuff.
6) Check out the Ensign, Liahona, and New Era's editorial calendar. Outline an article based on what I find.
7) Add more to my brainstorm for my America essay.
8) Go to the bank.
9) Do a creative writing experiment: characterization.
And that is all. It ain't much, but I'll probably be fighting sleep all day.
Speaking of sleep, that's what I gots to do now. Good night moon.
Finally, the update we've all been waiting for...
I've been somewhat cryptic in my latest status updates on Facebook, and they have basically been alluding to what's been going on in my writing world of late.
Let me start this off by making as clear as possible the pure and undiluted, and really quite distilled, fact that it is 6:40AM here and I have been working at the kitchen table for the last 10 (ten) hours. Not straight, because I get up every hour or so to stretch. And I had to go get some Rockstar.
Am I getting ahead of myself? Can't tell.
Okay. So my client in Korea keeps feeding me lots of work. I could probably work on it full time two to three days per week. But there's so much other stuff to do during the daytime that I end up doing the lion's share of the work at night. So I have just finished something in the realm of 20 hours of work for this client. This is, of course, at my hourly rate of $25.
So that's nice. Tasty in fact. It's a lot of questions and extension activities, but I'm getting pretty good at it and I think it plays right into my strengths as an educator and writer.
I have to say right now that I am extremely grateful for this work. How wonderful it is to do something you love. Sure, this gets a little tiring and tiresome, but it pays and it is essentially what I love to do.
That's not all. I landed another client: it's basically a partner company of WeXL, the company I market for right now--which is another day job. And that day job is going okay, although with the recent goings on, I've had to keep the time I spend on that one to a minimum since it doesn't deal with deadlines so much.
So I wrote a website and sales letter for that new client, am in the process of tweaking that copy as they finalize things, and have already been paid on my invoice. Sweet!
I have a good friend who works with this new client as well, and he passed on the name of a fellow who was looking for a ghost writer to work with him on a large-ish instruction manual. I met with them three weeks ago and it went well. I spent some time with the material needing written up and sent along a sizable (very!) estimate, which is, albeit, negotiable.
Wow, I haven't slept in 24 hours (almost) and I think I just used 'albeit' correctly in a sentence. I'll just soak that up for a second.........................................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Okay, I'm back. That should be able to be parlayed into good work, and ongoing work with that company as well, since the main client is a marketing company that specializes in web marketing. Funny, I specialize in web copy!
That's not all! HA!
I sold an article on Helium.com's marketplace. Incidentally, if you want to make some extra cash (it starts small but snowballs with diligence and patience) check out:
http://www.helium.com/marketplace?placement=CL45690
That article sold for $32. Not terrible. It was about how to make homemade bread.
I cashed out over $100 from Helium.com this last month. That was the result of my large collection of articles on there, about 8 or 10 new articles, and one sold marketplace article. Considering I spent about ten hours over the month on Helium, that's not terrible for a writing website.
Dang, my Pandora's playing U2's Mysterious Ways. I love this one. Actually, it's pretty much my favorite U2 tune.
But that's not all!
I got an e-mail from a publication out of Canada, one that has a print and online version and a readership of over 250,000 (does that mean they have 250,001?). This was the editor of this magazine that e-mailed me. She invited me to contribute regularly to their American offshoot. It's about gardening-- one of my favorite subjects to write about!
But that's not all!
But that IS all I can say right now. When the deal happens or doesn't happen (that's all the detail I can give right now, sorry!) I'll pass it on. But it could be big. I mean... uh... insanely big.
Kristi. Melinda. Kaye. Mike. (Amy too).
I owe you a huge thanks. Your advice (mostly Melinda and Kristi, but the others' support of this advice) to maybe focus on non-fiction was inspired. I know it. I am not abandoning fiction, but there's something I need to do in the realm of non-fiction. I can feel the shivers of excitement right now.
I'm not kidding. I'm trembling with this right now. Maybe it's partly the Rockstar, maybe it's the lack of sleep. I've simply got a certainty that I'm going the right way at this point. No doubt about it. And as I write that, the HOLY GHOST, who is the teacher and Comforter, confirms this certainty.
Why does so much of society, including me far too much of the time, discount our most important sense? I mean, our physical senses can be deceived so easily. But our other sense: the one many of us call soul, or spirit, or heart, or intuition is actually not so easily deceived. Yet we so easily mistrust it.
That's all for now.
Or not. Actually, the WeXL thing is going well too. It's neat to be marketing something, and beginning to be successful with that something, that actually helps people. I'll actually help a client save over $650,000 in interest alone over the next eight years!
Now that's all. The update I'd been needing to post for a while.
My head's above water now, so I've got to go leap in again. I'll do the bed thing first, though.
Let me start this off by making as clear as possible the pure and undiluted, and really quite distilled, fact that it is 6:40AM here and I have been working at the kitchen table for the last 10 (ten) hours. Not straight, because I get up every hour or so to stretch. And I had to go get some Rockstar.
Am I getting ahead of myself? Can't tell.
Okay. So my client in Korea keeps feeding me lots of work. I could probably work on it full time two to three days per week. But there's so much other stuff to do during the daytime that I end up doing the lion's share of the work at night. So I have just finished something in the realm of 20 hours of work for this client. This is, of course, at my hourly rate of $25.
So that's nice. Tasty in fact. It's a lot of questions and extension activities, but I'm getting pretty good at it and I think it plays right into my strengths as an educator and writer.
I have to say right now that I am extremely grateful for this work. How wonderful it is to do something you love. Sure, this gets a little tiring and tiresome, but it pays and it is essentially what I love to do.
That's not all. I landed another client: it's basically a partner company of WeXL, the company I market for right now--which is another day job. And that day job is going okay, although with the recent goings on, I've had to keep the time I spend on that one to a minimum since it doesn't deal with deadlines so much.
So I wrote a website and sales letter for that new client, am in the process of tweaking that copy as they finalize things, and have already been paid on my invoice. Sweet!
I have a good friend who works with this new client as well, and he passed on the name of a fellow who was looking for a ghost writer to work with him on a large-ish instruction manual. I met with them three weeks ago and it went well. I spent some time with the material needing written up and sent along a sizable (very!) estimate, which is, albeit, negotiable.
Wow, I haven't slept in 24 hours (almost) and I think I just used 'albeit' correctly in a sentence. I'll just soak that up for a second.........................................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Okay, I'm back. That should be able to be parlayed into good work, and ongoing work with that company as well, since the main client is a marketing company that specializes in web marketing. Funny, I specialize in web copy!
That's not all! HA!
I sold an article on Helium.com's marketplace. Incidentally, if you want to make some extra cash (it starts small but snowballs with diligence and patience) check out:
http://www.helium.com/marketplace?placement=CL45690
That article sold for $32. Not terrible. It was about how to make homemade bread.
I cashed out over $100 from Helium.com this last month. That was the result of my large collection of articles on there, about 8 or 10 new articles, and one sold marketplace article. Considering I spent about ten hours over the month on Helium, that's not terrible for a writing website.
Dang, my Pandora's playing U2's Mysterious Ways. I love this one. Actually, it's pretty much my favorite U2 tune.
But that's not all!
I got an e-mail from a publication out of Canada, one that has a print and online version and a readership of over 250,000 (does that mean they have 250,001?). This was the editor of this magazine that e-mailed me. She invited me to contribute regularly to their American offshoot. It's about gardening-- one of my favorite subjects to write about!
But that's not all!
But that IS all I can say right now. When the deal happens or doesn't happen (that's all the detail I can give right now, sorry!) I'll pass it on. But it could be big. I mean... uh... insanely big.
Kristi. Melinda. Kaye. Mike. (Amy too).
I owe you a huge thanks. Your advice (mostly Melinda and Kristi, but the others' support of this advice) to maybe focus on non-fiction was inspired. I know it. I am not abandoning fiction, but there's something I need to do in the realm of non-fiction. I can feel the shivers of excitement right now.
I'm not kidding. I'm trembling with this right now. Maybe it's partly the Rockstar, maybe it's the lack of sleep. I've simply got a certainty that I'm going the right way at this point. No doubt about it. And as I write that, the HOLY GHOST, who is the teacher and Comforter, confirms this certainty.
Why does so much of society, including me far too much of the time, discount our most important sense? I mean, our physical senses can be deceived so easily. But our other sense: the one many of us call soul, or spirit, or heart, or intuition is actually not so easily deceived. Yet we so easily mistrust it.
That's all for now.
Or not. Actually, the WeXL thing is going well too. It's neat to be marketing something, and beginning to be successful with that something, that actually helps people. I'll actually help a client save over $650,000 in interest alone over the next eight years!
Now that's all. The update I'd been needing to post for a while.
My head's above water now, so I've got to go leap in again. I'll do the bed thing first, though.
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