I’m not disappearing – I just got some actual work! I’m so excited – yep.. excited to work! Hey, money does indeed make the world go round ;)

But, I’m not using my ergonomically correct keyboard.. oh nooooooooo.. I’m using a freaking straight old wired flat keyboard, because someone was stupid enough to leave a full glass of water next to my keyboard and when said person when to drink that water (in the dark) said person inadvertently knocked it all over the keyboard and killed it. But I’m not naming names – but that said person is really really really angry at herself :-)

Seriously, I have to go out and find an ergonomically correct keyboard before my hands fall off… wonder how much those suckers cost??

Anyhow, I’m completely thrilled to go back to work, so off I go!

Work lately has been slower than ever. I had one steady client, but every time I sent him work I felt almost criticized… nothing ever seemed right, which as some of you know who write, kind of sucks. I used to just make the revisions and move on, but then it became a matter of anxiety on my part, because every time I would write something I would worry that I was doing a good enough job. Then it got to the point that I would literally sit there and not have anything to write because it seemed all wrong. It would take me weeks to write just a few articles and I just knew that I couldn’t do it anymore. I have yet to tell him, lol, but the lack of my communication probably gave him some sort of clue :-) Shoot, I totally digressed there…

But other than that, I’m struggling to get even the most basic of jobs… even though many publications have stated that freelance work is up dramatically. Really? I’m not buying it honestly. I think the work may be up, but the pay is most certainly down. I logged onto a regular site that I used to always get jobs for and I saw MANY posts for as low as $1.00 per article. Are you kidding me? Even if I were living on the streets, I think I would have some pride! Over the past years I have raised my rates considerably and I’ve gotten what I wanted… Usually ranging between $.02 and $.05 a word. I have worked for less and I have worked for more depending on who it is for and if they are a “regular” but now I can’t seem to get work for even a penny a word. Now before you all jump in and say how you only work for between $25.00 and $75.00 an article, I write mainly for other websites rather than “publications” per se. That means, I’m just not writing for the quality publications that some of you write for. Which is okay. But now when I can’t get the basic informational article writing gig, I start to worry.

The job market is pretty much down in the dumps – believe me I have tried. I have gone on 3 interviews though but none of them called me back. Whatever! I can’t force anyone to hire me, but I can complain about it :-) So, now I’m not only questioning my ability, but I’m questioning my passion. My book as been set aside while I look for work, all the creativeness in my brain has literally been sucked out, and I wonder if I’m really any good.

I realize that I’m just having a pity party, but its hard when you get turned down over and over again. I know it’ll pick up again, but I just need to know when??? See, even rereading this I realize that my thoughts are literally all over the place. Perhaps I should go in a new direction… not sure what that direction is, but I have to figure out something and soon!

Alright, so the celebrity site gig didn’t work out – that’s okay, because I landed me a NEW celebrity gig :-)

Here is my latest piece – Celebrity Babies: Up For Bid

Currently it is under www.hollywoodoffender.com but the new URL will be http://hollywoodoverload.com in a couple of days. I get to write 3 articles a week on my one true love – celebrities and gossip!

So make sure you bookmark http://www.hollywoodoverload.com and come back and see what I have to say next on Monday, Wednesday and Friday! And if you happen to want to leave great comments I would love that too :-)

Now granted, this doesn’t have the high profile nature that the other gig did, nor the pay, but it is still a step in the right direction… and it has my name attached finally which as you writers know, many ghost writing gigs just don’t have. So, I can add it to my resume :-)

What are you waiting for – GO LOOK!! Hehehehehe.

Well let’s see, over the past two days I have been increasingly productive! The more time I am without work, the more I seem to get done – I just love that!

Here is what I have done in 48 hours –

1. Worked out THREE times!
2. Washed all the clothes, bedding, and curtains
3. Did my spring cleaning in every room but my bedroom
4. Made some great alcoholic drinks in the blender with new recipes (well I had to right? lol)
5. Finished my to-do pile including emailing like 12 people that I swore I would email a month ago
6. Sent out coupons and free stuff from my other blog Our Wicked Weighs
7. Added new plugins to this blog to make it work better (new template still coming soon!)
8. Put pictures together for my mother-in-law and mailed out
9. Ordered my credit report and made a list from highest to lowest of what I have to pay

Um, I know there was other stuff, but if I keep listing stuff you will really get bored!

Now, here is a rant that I want to go on for a few minutes…

Ok, so I’m sure some of you know by now, or are familiar with the blog dooce.com. Well Dooce herself (and I’m sorry, I can’t remember her name) was on Nightline last night talking about being a “mommy blogger” and how popular she has become. With over 1 million readers per month there is no question she is popular. As I don’t think I have ever read her blog I headed over there to see what the big deal was. First things first – she is obviously very popular with 450 comments on her latest post. Second, she is obviously an exceptional writer which of course makes me extremely jealous. She is very conversational and although some of her posts are extremely long she does not lose her readers and in fact draws them in wanting more. Third, her website is well layed out and pleasing to the eye.

But does this mean that she should be making according to her own words last night on Nightline, $40,000 a month in ad revenue? I mean she deserves it according to the people that are coming to her website – but how? HOW?

How does one start such a thing? I mean when she started blogging did she comment on everyone’s blog in order to get people to come to hers? Did she market herself? How did she get such a HUGE readership?

Not that I’m jealous or anything (oh no… no bitterness here that she is making around $500,000 from working from home on her computer blogging) but I just need to know how. Anyone got any ideas on how we can all become as famous as her? Because half a mil a year sounds pretty nice to me right now!

I never seem to amaze myself :-) Yesterday I got my check from my big poker win, promptly deposited it and paid all my regular bills. In between writing the other day and yesterday I came up with things I “need” to spend the money on – you know, like new summer clothes :-) But alas, I did the right thing and paid about $400 in regular monthly bills (some of which aren’t even due till April by the way!!), and I’m going to do a HUGE grocery shopping today and buy all sorts of healthy stuff.

Oh and let’s not forget my treat to us – haircuts! My son is going to the fancy “Snip its” which is that place for kids where you can watch a movie and sit in a really cool chair and get a toy at the end. It costs like $16.00 for the pleasure of getting his hair cut in a fun way, but since I mostly just shave his hair with buzzers, he has be dying to go to the “cool” place to get his hair cut.

I too am getting my hair cut for the first time since the short hair debacle of December. I have to say, my hair grows super fast, and it really is a little past my shoulders again. This time I’m going with a picture though!!! Then I’ll just keep the remainder of the money in my bank until I get some more work done.

Yesterday I managed to work for FOUR hours!! I know you are like – what? 4 hours? and you’re excited about that? It’s been about a week at least since I sat down to write anything. I have due dates that have long since passed, and buyers that are getting pretty pissed :-) So, I just sat down and got 3 people taken care of in one night. It felt good!

Anyhow – must get back to work – I’m feeling productive today!!

So, at 2:45am my phone alarm went off (don’t ask me why, but I don’t have a regular alarm clock)and I promptly jumped out of bed, after sleeping for oh, I’d say about 30minutes. Why I didn’t stay up I’ll never know, it actually made me more tired!

Got up, jumped in the car, and drove over to a development where I saw my papers lying there just waiting for me to plop them in my car. After about 30 minutes of trying to lift these things in, I got them in my car. As I drove away with my cars ass hanging on the ground I realized that this wasn’t so bad.

About 30 minutes later I changed my mind, lol. I swear, reading those map things and address sheets are SO not easy at 3am, 4am, and 5am. I kept dropping the newspapers off at the wrong houses. But I would just back up and get one and drop it off at another. I’m sure there were like a thousand calls about missing papers but I think I finally got it all together by the time the sun rose. It took me about 2 hours longer then what he said it would, but it wasn’t altogether bad. I came home and promptly went to sleep.

I figure another couple of weeks I’ll have this thing down pat!

So, there you have it, my first day on the job, LOL. Yeah, I feel like I’m 15!!

On another note – my niece turned 18 today. I know I don’t talk about her a lot, but I should. She is the wanna be Buddhist that I think I mentioned. 18 years old – 18!! You know, I know its her birthday but for some reason it aged me! I remember sitting in the hospital with my twin sister at 16 years old wondering what the heck this thing was. I remember when she came home, and I remember how small she was. If I remember correctly she was like 2 pounds 5 ounces or something very tiny like that. She was born at 28 weeks or somewhere around there.

She was beautiful though, and still is. I know that is something an “Auntie” would say but still, she is a wonderful person as well. A bit “different” from other 18 year olds for sure. In fact today when I called her for her birthday she told me that birthdays weren’t for celebrating. LOL -yeah, not such a typical teenager I suppose. She was reading Steppenwolf the book just for “fun” and she was trying to explain the philosophy in it. I don’t know, she is a little too intelligent for her own good I suppose, and way smarter than me! She just got accepted to Arizona State University so if any of you are in Arizona (Jose!) I’ll be taking a trip there later this year hopefully once she gets settled in. My mom gets free airline tickets to Las Vegas per Harrahs Casino so we’re going to take a day trip to Tempe… anyone near Tempe?? We can do lunch ;) So even though I hope you are not reading this, if you are Happy Birthday Caitlin!!

Well, I decided to take the advice of two people who I trust and admire greatly. One told me to get off my ass and fight, and the other one told me to get a job…LOL. Well, I am taking the advice of both – more or less. Instead of crawling into a hole and sleeping for the next few weeks while things got worse, I walked into my bank at 9am this morning. Since I wasn’t getting anywhere over the phone with the customer service reps, I asked to speak to an accounts manager. I explained in great detail the story about how the charge came out of nowhere and how I hadn’t authorized it.

Although she explained very nicely that I can dispute the charge, the chances of me winning are slim. HOWEVER, she would credit my account for 10 of the 11 charges because of my wonderful (HA!) relationship with the bank. WOOOHOOOO!! So, that is $350.00 back into my bank! AND, although she couldn’t do anything about the rest of the negative balance, she would not send the things back that bounced (which is something they do if they come through as automatic withdrawals) so I don’t have to worry about my bills not being paid. Everything is paid, and instead of over $600 to pay back, I only have about $280 to pay back – much more doable. So, here’s a big shoutout to Kerri at Bank of America – You Rock!

Then last night… late last night since I couldn’t sleep at all… I went onto a popular freelance writing board and found some more projects to apply for. Granted I do that every night, but last night I took the chance of doubling my rates. Instead of just sending one sample, I sent out an entire resume. For 2 jobs I kept my rates the same and sent samples, and for 2 other jobs, I doubled my rates and sent the resume. Do you know which jobs I got? The two higher paying jobs! HUH! Who knew? Yes, they may be small – only 10 articles each, but I’m getting double the pay so that can be added to my paypal by Monday when I finish writing those. I also got an email from a guy I regularly work with that says he wants me to write an article for a friend of his and if he is interested there will be a lot more work with the other guy. So things are definitely looking up.

This morning I also put a call into the local newspaper inquiring about a paper route. Ok, don’t judge – any extra cash is extra cash. I have an interview this afternoon for delivery of the Sunday paper a few miles away. First of all – who knew that they actually interviewed for a paper route?? And second – do you know that for 3 hours of a work on a Sunday I get paid $65.00? Sweet! So, I just have bring proof of insurance and I should be good to go on Sunday morning at 3:30am. Yeah, that should fun, lol.

Anyhow – I’m making changes and I think I’ll be okay for now. Granted I have a lot of work to do to get myself out of this hole permanently but as of this week we’ll have food, the bills paid, the negative balance restored and maybe even a little extra to put in my emergency savings account!