I Must Be Out of My Mind

After deciding in October (and September, for that matter) that I probably have too much on my plate, I’ve gone ahead and added more. I was recently approved as the Detroit Personal Finance Examiner, applied for another title there, got accepted to write for e-How Money, and just the other day started writing at ListMy5.

The new Examiner title(s) and e-How Money should be fairly easy, given the fact that I’ve been working in the area for almost a decade. I’m glad to have gotten the e-How Money approval–they pay less than the LiveStrong/FRS articles, but I’ve lost my motivation for DMS articles the last couple of month, so I’m hoping some easier titles will get me jump-started on some of the higher-paying ones.

What has been very motivating, much to my surprise, is the ListMy5 writing. The ‘articles’ consist solely of  “Top 5” lists; introduction and conclusion are optional, and you must write at least 25 words about each list item. Easy-peasy, and just about anything can inspire a list! I’ve decided I’m going to get to 100 lists in November, and write at least one per day the entire month.  I’ve made a few pennies already – I don’t think this will be especially lucrative but it’s a brand-new site, which means over time as the site popularity and ranking grow, the individual lists’ metrics will grow as well.  With a good depth of articles on a variety of topics, there might be potential for some spare change, at least.

Aside from just being lots of fun to write, LM5 has spurned a couple of full-length article ideas for other sites. In fact, an LM5 article I wrote on things to do when you change your clocks for Daylight Saving Time led me to write an article for Suite 101 on the History of Daylight Saving Time.

I also, with all the new writing, set up my own personal website at jenniferawalker.com. I just figured that was easier than a long list of links to my various projects, and then I could just update the site instead of going back to update all the lists. I *love* the design of the site; it was inspired by the chocolate tour of Chicago that my mom, sister, and I took a few years ago. It still needs some fleshing out, and I may transfer this or my other blog to it, but I’m happy with it for now!

And October….

Apparently posting weekly here was a little too ambitious a goal! Again, Life (and the Boxer Club) got in the way. That has basically settled down now, but of course the holidays are coming up and I do have a couple of projects I need to work on. I think for the rest of this month I’ll work on getting my time management figured out (i.e., actually use some kind of time management system) and get back to my routines, which seem to work well for me. (My daily “to do” writing-wise list will stay as it is for now, even though it may not be workable in the long run. It would be fine if I weren’t working in an office four days a week, but since I am, sometimes getting the writing stuff done along with everything else I need to squeeze into my few non-work hours on those days doesn’t happen.)

Still, since this is basically a private blog and not something I’m writing in an attempt to get readers, I will try to keep at it more regularly. I mean, no one else reads it, so who cares if anyone is interested in what I’ll have to day, right? (That’s the problem I have with Twitter and, to an extent, Facebook. Does anyone really care what I ate for breakfast? And I really don’t see the point of posting the same info on both FB and Twitter – my FB friends are at least marginally interested in that kind of trivia, but my Twitter followers most likely are not. I hate to spam Twitter just with articles (I’ve got my feeds posting via twitterfeed) but given the mass of tweets going through every minute I suppose my few posts here and there aren’t contributing in any significant way to the problem. I have picked up a few followers on my Boxer Examiner account, which automatically tweets my RSS feed from Examiner.com, without trying, so that’s a good thing.

(I started this post on 10/14 and have just now gotten back to finish on 10/25, so it will no doubt be disjointed!)

I did get approved to write for the Personal Finance channel on Bright Hub, so that’s another avenue for some income. The topics there are a little off-beat so far – or maybe it’s just that I’m checking at the wrong times and missing the more mainstream ones! I just picked up one on whether home improvements are tax deductible; since I’ve been doing taxes for eight years now I figured I could handle that one pretty well. 😉  The hardest part about writing for Bright Hub, and for DMS and Suite 101, is learning the specific site/channel requirements. Especially in Bright Hub, different editors have different approaches and “must haves” or “must-nots”. None of it is unreasonable or even that difficult, but keeping straight which site/editor wants what can get a little tricky. Examiner.com is fairly hands-off editorially, unless there’s something really lacking about the articles, but they do prefer down-case in their titles which is different from just about every other site (and, honestly, drives me nuts – they call it “title case” for a reason!).

Anyway, I have no idea where I originally intended to go with this post, so I’ll just quit now!

Holy Carp, It’s September Already!

How did that happen?

Obviously, I haven’t kept up with this blog as I’d hoped (weekly updates). My other blogs have suffered a bit, too, including the personal blog I started a week or so ago. (I know, crazy – I can’t keep up with the blogs I have, so I’ve added another. I’ve called it “Hanged for a Sheep” – because, if you’re going to do something crazy, you might as well do it big, right?)

August Progress Report #1

I actually didn’t think it had been as long as it has since my last post! I’ve been doing OK on my goals this month, although circumstances have limited a few of them.

Yeah, OK….

So I’m a little behind in updating this blog! (Good thing no one reads it except me! 😉 )

The good news is, I have been writing in the meantime. I’m pretty much done with Helium, Associated Content and Constant Content, though. The potential is good for all of those sites, I know – and I did sell one article at Constant Content a few months back – but for the amount of time I have to spend on writing the payout just isn’t worth it. If I weren’t working almost-full-time elsewhere I might keep at it. (Then again, I might not, now that I have some other, better-paying gigs.) Plus Helium’s rating system just drives me crazy; it’s bad enough that I have to no only rate several articles a day, but rate them the same way that most others do, to get paid, but when articles that clearly violate the site’s Editorial Guidelines are constantly ranked in the top spot, I just can’t get on board. (And that’s not sour grapes; most of my articles are ranked very well. First person, however, is not allowed and yet many of the top-ranked articles are written in first person. Good for those writers, I guess, but the disconnect drove me crazy.)

So – I was accepted at Suite101 and my first article there about why someone might become a dog trainer got an Editor’s Choice Award – not a bad way to start out!

September Goals

I’ve just finished up my first full month freelance writing (plus four days at the end of July), and I think I’ve done fairly well; I made three figures, anyway! Now it’s time to look ahead, and decide where I want to be at the end of my second month, and at the end of this year. The main reason I started freelance when I did was because my “real” job was cut down to four days per week; I’d really prefer not to get a second outside job, so am hoping that writing will in time make up the shortfall. I have vacation days to cover the “missing” day through September, which gives me a little time to “ramp up” my articles and my earnings, and hopefully at least equal what I made in August. (I had some new writer bonuses, plus the contest prize, that were a significant part of my August earnings.) By the end of 2009 I’d like to be at least double August’s earnings. If I were writing full-time, of course, I’d be more ambitious, but technically I’ve only got one day per week to write, so I need to be realistic about my goals.

Associated Content

Once I got my feet wet on Helium, I wrote a few articles for Associated Content. Again, I started out with a few topics on Boxers, and then a series on holistic pet care. I recently took my top-viewed article on Helium, about homemade dog toys, and re-wrote it for Associated Content.

Associated Content is different from Helium in a few ways.

Helium

When I decided to start freelancing in earnest, I joined a few sites, read through their forums, and then figured I might as well just jump in and get my feet wet! My first few articles were published at Helium, on a topic I know well – Boxers. I expanded a little bit with a few articles on general dog topics: vaccinations, grooming tools for short-haired dogs and homemade dog toys.

At Helium, you get little blue stars next to your name for reaching various writing goals. The more stars you have, the more you get paid for writing to new titles. Part of the star requirement is that at least 10% of your articles are in “competitive” titles – which means they have at least three articles written to them.  (Articles on Helium are ranked for placement against the other articles in the same title, but only if there are three or more.)  Since my first few articles were to “onesie” or “twosie” titles, I didn’t have any competitive titles and so didn’t have any writing stars.  Then I found the competitions.

Hello world!

Welcome to my blog!

Why “swell elegance”?  Well, that’s the dress code for the American Boxer Club annual Top Twenty Competition – an event in which most of the handlers, and all of the judges, are in black tie.  The spectators’ dress covers a wide range, from black tie to cocktail wear to khakis to the occasional pair of jeans.  It’s a diverse group, gathered together for a common purpose.

I’ve recently started doing some freelance writing, which is primarily what I will be blogging here.  My writing thus far, and I’ve no doubt into the future, has been like that packed room on Top Twenty night: an eclectic mix of style and formality, covering a wide range of topics, but with (I hope!) a common thread of educational and enjoyable information.

With that in mind, I’ll be making a few posts about what I’ve written so far, and then start a more “real time” blog with updates when new articles are published.  At this point I’m only really writing one day a week (though I sneak some in on the other days!), so please don’t give up on me if I’m not here blogging daily!

For now, check out my articles on Helium and Associated Content.

Thanks for reading!