A Happy Surprise
Posted: January 30, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Blog, Blogger, Blogging, Learning, Liebster Blog Award, Writing 6 Comments »
Liebster: dearest, beloved, favorite
An email last week notified me that a comment had been left on my About page on this blog. “Mother,” aka Talk to Me…I’m your Mother, at A Letter to My Children, presented me with the Liebster Blog Award, a happy surprise. Many thanks to her, from a blogosphere novice with many less than 200 followers!
“Mother,” like her Liebster awarder, passed on a list of things that give her joy, so I will also:
My family: ’nuff said. ♥
Books: All. Can’t imagine life without them.
Learning: I wish I could have stayed in college forever.
Mint, chocolate, caramel: mmmm…
On that yummy note, my responsibility now is to pass the award on by choosing up to five bloggers who also have fewer than 200 followers. I am stumped on how to figure out how many followers another blog has, so it could be that a couple of the following blogs do have more than 200. Nevertheless, they are blogs I enjoy reading, and I am happy to link to them here, in alphabetical order:
From the Domestic Bubble – The good humor and musings of a fellow at-home mom from across the pond.
Mrs. D. Ranged In AZ - I am a new follower to Mrs. D. Ranged but feel I have found a kindred liberal spirit in the ultra-conservative state of Arizona.
Postcard Fiction – Janet, who has a beautiful way with pictures and words.
Robotic Rhetoric – A young man, not much younger than my son, with great style and a big future ahead of him, imho.
Write or Revise Daily (WORD!) – Such a great resource and so helpful. Judy, forgive me for “many less.” 
So, to all of you who do read this blog, please go check out the others I have listed here. I hope you will find them as enjoyable as I do.
My Content Confession — Don’t Judge Me
Posted: January 26, 2012 Filed under: Content Confessions, Progress: It's a Process, Uncategorized | Tags: Bright Hub, Content farm, Demand Studios, Freelance Writing, Freelancer, Writer, Writer Resources, Writer's Digest, Writing 5 Comments »OK. Here we go. I’m going to admit it, in writing, for all the world to see. Here we go. Okay. (*breathes deep and wipes palms on lap.*)
I-was-a-content-writer-for-two-years. Whew. There. I said it. Seriously, don’t judge me. Just listen to my story. Be warned, though. This is a little longer than usual. Also, I’m going to add random pictures that have nothing to do with content writing, but will serve to break up the monotony of text.
At a bed-and-breakfast we stayed at in Prescott last summer. 100 years old. Haunted. ooooh.
One day a couple years ago, I was feeling sad and frustrated. After 16 years of medical transcription, I was tired of it and my fingers hurt, but I couldn’t see a way out — not without having to get a not-at-home job. My older son was leaving for college, but my younger son was still in middle school. I wanted to be home. Besides who would hire a (working) mom who had been out of the “real” work force for such a long time? I had gone back to school for a year, had joined an online writing workshop, was reading writing books like crazy, but I just could not figure out how to get a freelance writing career off the ground (still working on it, too).
Plus, it was August in Phoenix, and I felt like I hadn’t been outside for three months. Can you say hot and stir-crazy?
As I walked by the living room desk, I saw my Writer’s Digest (ah yes, the one decision from whence all follow). Actually, it was the back cover of the magazine. Who pays attention to those? I don’t. Usually. But, right there, staring me in the face, was a Demand Studios advertisement: “HIRING FREELANCE WRITERS — Take control of your career with Demand Studios” (I will call them DMS from here on — the name was changed to Demand Media Studios at some point).
Now, I did not have a clue what DMS was. The advertisement spoke nary a word about content (those sly dogs), but even if it had, it wouldn’t have mattered. I had no clue what content writing was either. All I saw were the words “hiring freelance writers” and “work as much as you want from wherever you want and get paid weekly.” Oh my gosh, I thought. I could do this. I was excited.
I went online and checked them out. Ohhh. Internet articles. I had always wondered who the people were who wrote those. I could write that stuff easy. So, I applied. I got my resume together, my writing samples, my cover letter and uploaded everything to DMS. It didn’t take long before I got my answer: I was in! Yay!
Oh. My. God. Fifteen dollars for a 400- to 500-word article? Really? But, I wanted to write. I chose a title from a huge bank of thousands of titles. Just as some teachers teach to the test, so DMS writers write to the title. So, I wrote an article on ADHD — I know that subject well. I sent it to an anonymous copyeditor (CE), whose responsibility was to send it back for rewrite or approve it. Writers for DMS get one chance only (one ping only, please). If the article is not satisfactory after the rewrite — rejection. I am happy to say that in two years I never had a single article rejected.
The 3 a.m. art project from hell. Check it out here: http://jeannettemonahan.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/oh-to-be-needed/
But then, I didn’t write that many. My first article took me eight hours. Eight hours! I wanted it to be perfect. But, geez. That was working my butt off for $1.87 an hour. Ugh. I chalked it up to the learning curve (the one with no shortcuts). After about a month of writing a couple articles a week — when I wasn’t transcribing — I talked to my husband about quitting transcription. I would never get anywhere, I said, if I couldn’t write full-time. I was so sure I would be able to whip out 3 or 4 articles an hour — everyone else did. I knew that from the forums. That would be $45 to $60 an hour. I could work less and earn more than I did transcribing. And the truth was I liked writing the articles and had come to hate transcribing.
I was so, so wrong. How did I ever think I could write a quality, researched article in 15 minutes or half-an-hour, or even two hours? I felt lucky if I could get three articles done in eight hours or 10 hours. But, I kept trying. After about six months, I got an email stating that DMS had approved me to write for another of its websites — this one paid $25 an article, and I would get to use my medical knowledge, such as it was. Great! Maybe my experience transcribing would make it easier to write the articles — more articles, higher pay. Okay. This might work out.
Wrong. Again. I just wasn’t fast enough. And I couldn’t bring myself to skimp on the research and the references. I think, though, that a lot of DMS writers did. Some regularly wrote 12 or 15 articles a day. Some made their whole living from writing DMS articles. I’m not saying they all skimped, but I’m sure some must have.
Ah. The elephant in the room. Well, the bathroom. How cute is that?
After about a year of trying as hard as I could to increase my output, I came to the realization that it just wouldn’t happen. I could not write like that and I would not. I kept writing my two or three well-researched articles a day, taking at least three hours per article. I was approved to write for several other websites. I had high scores on my grammar and content, and never had a rejection. In the meantime, I wracked my brain for a solution to my dilemma. I needed to earn money. I needed to write. I did not want to transcribe medical dictation again. Worse, I was spending all my time writing these articles for piddly-*&#$ pay — I did not have time to try and develop other avenues of freelancing. Wow. Trapped again.
To make a long story short, this past fall, two years after I started with DMS, the company took a dive. They say they didn’t, but they did. All the content companies (farms) did. I had also written content for Bright Hub, which paid even worse than DMS and required longer articles. Bright Hub also took a dive, but I had already stopped writing for them. Google, by changing their algorithms (or whatever) had taken a stand against content farms and won. The number of titles available at DMS continued to decline, until by September 2010, there were none at all. Well, there were some, but the writers who were still hanging around pounced on them like vultures. Who can blame them? For writers who could whip out those articles, it was a good gig. I wasn’t one though, and it did not pay for me to sit in front of the computer hitting the refresh button all day to see if more titles had dropped.
So, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. Don’t judge me. I’m innocent.
And (sigh), I am now an unemployed freelance writer. But, hey, unemployment has given me opportunities I wouldn’t have had if I were still writing for DMS. Suffice it to say, that I believe being forced to stop writing for DMS has been a blessing in disguise. I will write more about that later. But next time, I will write about what I learned while I waswriting for DMS. Yes, believe it or not, those two years writing for a content farm were not a complete waste of my time.
Wastin' time at White Sands. Yep - those are treetops.
A Blender in Parrothead-Land (2008)
Posted: January 20, 2012 Filed under: Writing Samples | Tags: Freelancer, Interview, Jimmy Buffett, Margaritaville, Parrothead, Writer's Digest Writing Competition, Writing Leave a comment »If you’ve been around for the last thirty years or so, you may have heard of Jimmy Buffett, laid-back island troubadour of the 1970s, the man who inspired a lifestyle and parlayed his hit songs Margaritaville and Cheeseburger in Paradise into successful restaurant chains. But have you heard of his fabled fans? At a 1985 concert at Ohio’s Kings Island Amusement Park, according to an article by Rick Bird of the Cincinnati Post, “…Jimmy looked out at something he had never seen before at one of his concerts – a sea of thousands with everyone decked out in crazy, colorful attire – shark hats, Hawaiian shirts, parrot inflatables. He said to bass player, Timothy B. Schmit, ‘They look like tropical Deadheads.’ Schmit replied, ‘Yeah, Parrot-heads.’” Thus christened, these carefree concert-goers have become legend in their own right.
A generation later, in Glendale, Arizona, the scene is just as vibrant, if a little more intimate. At the invitation-only grand opening of Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville Cafe, a pandemonium of Parrotheads is out in force, their plumage consisting of wild hats, tropical shirts, leis, beads, flip-flops, and even coconut bras and grass skirts. While the apparel of choice is still beachwear, now more than ever, it is the hats that distinguish the Parrotheads. This evening there are twisted-balloon hats, straw hats, pirate hats, parrot-head hats, and a hat made of colorful flip-flops standing up on its wearer’s head like a crown pork roast. Most unusual of all, though, is the Parrothead in a straw hat topped with a working blender of margaritas. She dances around, laughing and playing the crowd, while on stage Buffett croons his signature tune, “…wasted away again in Margaritaville…”
The girl beneath the blender is Shannon Madden, who grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona, the daughter of the police chief and a high school teacher. She is a self-described “goofball” around her friends but, surprisingly, says she is shy around others.
Of the time before she started listening to Buffett’s music Madden says, “I was sheltered, a music idiot.” In 1992, she was one of a growing number of college students who became a new generation of Parrotheads. Four years later, she was well and truly hooked, a Parrothead for life. Her crowning achievement, so to speak, is her blender hat, setting her apart from the other birds in Parrothead-Land, and even earning her recognition by Buffett himself at one of his annual Las Vegas concerts.
“We were in the front row, and Mac MacAnally (a member of Buffett’s backup band, the Coral Reefers) pointed us out. Jimmy choked on his drink and started cracking up! On ‘Margaritaville,’ he even changed the lyrics to ‘…some people say the girl with the blender’s to blame.’” Madden treasures the yellow wristband Buffett gave to her off his own wrist that night and the autographed set list he made sure she received later.
What looks like a simple straw hat with a blender attached to it is actually a work of art Madden remakes every year. Beneath the flimsy straw exterior is an industrial hard hat that ratchets down in the back. Construction-grade epoxy affixes the battery-operated blender to the top. Then with hot glue, Madden attaches all manner of tropical-themed paraphernalia. Currently arranged around the blender are an “annoying” singing hula girl she has named Kay Aloha, a tropical Barbie doll, a tiny plastic compass from the drink of a friend who visited Margaritaville in New Orleans, and, of course, the lost shaker of salt. Battery-powered hula-girl lights and Christmas lights illuminate the works, and the grass skirts on the dolls hide the battery packs. The whole creation weighs about 35 pounds and costs around $300 to make. Too big for airplane carry-on luggage, Madden also pays around $300 each time to ship the hat to various Buffett concerts, most notably the Las Vegas concert at the MGM Grand, where she has won the Parrothead hat contest, she says, for eight years in a row now.
This imaginative headgear has won Madden fame of a sort. After a “belligerent drunk guy” knocked the hat off her head and destroyed it one year in Las Vegas (an act of disrespect “unheard of” in Parrothead-dom), Madden ended up with her own security guard, hired by concert managers, for subsequent concerts in that city. Also as a result of that incident, Madden recruited her sister Marnie and another friend as “wranglers” to carry all her hat accoutrements and the “booty” that Parrotheads invariably acquire at concerts. Marnie even wears a tee-shirt that says “Blender Girl’s Sister.” Madden has also received a standing ovation as she donned her headdress after dining in a Margaritaville Cafe before a concert, and on her birthday in August, she discovered herself on the video loop of concert footage that plays at Margaritaville restaurants all around the world.
Though being a Parrothead is an important part of her life, it is not all of it. In real-life, Madden is a crisis counselor, paged overnight to Phoenix’s east valley emergency rooms to counsel suicidal or even homicidal patients, among others. It is a calling she speaks of as animatedly as she does being a Parrothead – work she was drawn to in the wake of her own bout with depression after the deaths of seven family members in a six-month period. She is as dedicated to her counseling work as she is to her Parrothead persona, and like the serious, social-worker side of Madden, being a Parrothead has a more contemplative aspect to it.
“It’s a way to connect with my dad and his generation,” she says, adding that “Parrothead is my alter ego, and my blender hat is like a secret superhero costume.” When she has her hat on, she is not shy or serious; she laughs and sings as she dances through Parrothead-Land, camaraderie and high spirits all around.
“My life as a crisis counselor doesn’t mix with Parrothead life,” she states, yet she admits it is catharsis for what she deals with on the job.
And maybe, after more than 35 years, that release is what continues to draw crowds to Buffett concerts, Parrotheads or not. His music conjures up sunny days and ocean waves, soft sandy beaches and tropical drink tranquility – an escape from the day-to-day. In the words from Buffett’s 1977 hit Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, “…if we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.”
Progress: It’s a Process, Part 2
Posted: January 20, 2012 Filed under: Progress: It's a Process | Tags: Freelancer, Internet Writing Workshop, Learning, Writer, Writer Resources, Writer's Digest, Writing 1 Comment »
One decision, significance unknown, sets you on your way.
Isn’t it funny how one action leads to another, leads to another, leads to another, and you end up somewhere you know you wouldn’t be without that one thing you did? Maybe it was a deliberate action you took, in which case — good job! Or maybe it was a whim, in which case — whew, what luck! Of course, I am assuming the somewhere you end up is a place you want to be.
After I finished school, I didn’t jump right into writing. First of all, I didn’t quite know how to go about it. My writing classes had covered a lot of things, but getting started on a freelance career was not one of them. Also, I needed time to absorb the information in the books I was reading. Then I made one small decision: I subscribed to Writer’s Digest magazine. I didn’t think about it much, but it seemed like a smart thing to add a writing magazine to my reading regimen. Reading the magazine allowed me to “lurk” in the writing world, without being a part of it quite yet. It also led me to the Internet Writing Workshop (check out my previous post) and to my first writing success (a confidence-builder if not a money-maker).
Writer’s Digest sponsors an annual writing competition, and somewhere in the fall of 2008, I wondered if I should submit something, just for the experience. One of the categories was “Features,” and I recalled that in one of my creative nonfiction classes (yes, those), one of the assignments had been to write a feature. My first attempt had been a miserable failure, but my second was not bad. I had nothing to lose, so I took a deep breath, psyched myself up, and submitted my article to the Internet Writing Workshop nonfiction critique group. I had been critiquing others’ work, but this was my first request for a critique of my own work.
I was afraid my submission would be ignored, but to my surprise, people actually critiqued me. Of course, the article needed heavy, heavy editing. It had a lot of gooey “creative non-fictionness” that I needed to slash and burn. I got so many good suggestions, so many tips. I worked furiously on the article and finally submitted it to Writer’s Digest in April 2009. Then I waited. Then I forgot about it.
In the meantime, emboldened by the support I received in the nonfiction group, I submitted other pieces I had written. More often than not, I received gentle, supportive critiques, but sometimes they were harsh and left me feeling like an incompetent pretender. Evidently, a thick skin is a good shield to have when participating in a critique group. Mine was not thick, and I had a hard time believing I could write anything worthwhile after I read a few of my critiques.
But, in the fall, I received a letter and an honorable mention certificate from Writer’s Digest. My feature article had finished in the top 100 of thousands of submissions! I remember standing in the kitchen with the certificate in hand, my mouth open, my heart pounding. I didn’t jump up and down, but I was quietly ecstatic.
Best. Feeling. Ever. I think it will be surpassed only on the day I finally get something published.
(TV show voice) Next week on A Mid-Life Writer’s Journey: Another step in the chain of events that stemmed from a single magazine subscription…don’t forget to tune in. And see the new category at the side of this page to read my submission to Writer’s Digest, “A Blender in Parrothead Land.”
Progress: It’s a Process
Posted: January 19, 2012 Filed under: Progress: It's a Process | Tags: Freelancer, Internet Writing Workshop, Professional certification, Writer, Writer Resources, Writer's Digest, Writing 2 Comments »
Who knows where the side path will take us?
It’s hard to tell if you’ve made progress until you’re a little way down the road and happen to look over your shoulder. Life as a whole is like that, and the side paths we take also. Sometimes, you want the side path to bend back toward the main road so you can travel both. But it can take a while, and sometimes you just don’t know when the merge will come, if at all. Maybe I will get into this idea more when I write for my other blog, but for now I will apply it to my writing journey.
I finished my two semesters plus a summer session in 2008, about 10 months after I started back to school. But, now that I was the proud holder of a “Writing Certificate,” I was at a loss for what to do next. Of course, I had to continue my medical transcribing, which I had been doing all through school anyway. Burned out on it after 16 years, I plodded along, and every day wished I could find a way to write and make money at it. I wanted to do something I love and contribute to our household, to paying for the kids’ college, to those unexpected expenses we all face at one time or another, because it’s always something, isn’t it?
Along with other publications, an important tool of the trade.
I began to try to understand the business of writing (still working on it). I read a zillion books, which I’ve mentioned before, and I did learn so much that writing classes didn’t cover. Now, this is important: I took out a subscription to Writers Digest magazine. Every year, the magazine publishes 101 Top Websites for Writers. Here I found The Internet Writing Workshop, an online critique website, which hosts different groups such as Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Novels, etc. I joined the Nonfiction group and the Practice group, which provides a prompt every week for practice and critique.
I had never been in a real critique group before, and I was not prepared. These were real writers, it seemed, not just aspiring writers like me. The Practice group was okay, because it was…practice. I critiqued pieces and had pieces critiqued in return. Oy! Let me tell you, if you don’t already know — there is an art to critiquing. There are rules, both written and unwritten. If you do join an online critique group at some point, my advice is to lurk a while, until you get a sense of things. I wish I would have taken a longer time for assessment before diving in.
All in all, the Practice group was good for me. I admit I unknowingly broke some of those unwritten critiquing rules, but (…sigh) hard as it is, there are no shortcuts on the learning curve. After a while though, I had the hang of it. I got good feedback on my work and enjoyed reading and critiquing the work of others — so many creative writers. Amazing, really. And I learned to be short and sweet. Pieces had to be 400 words or less, if I remember correctly. It was a job to write and then edit down to 400 words. When I’m not writing facts, it’s too easy for me to go on and on and get wrapped up. So, short and sweet was good for me.
As for the Nonfiction group, I knew immediately that I was way out of my league. Here were not just “writers” but authors, established magazine freelancers, experienced bloggers. Blogs were not even on my radar then, never mind writing a book. I wanted to freelance for magazines, but it seemed an unattainable goal. Oh my gosh. What I had gotten myself into?
Here, I will pause on this path and save the rest for next time. Maybe tomorrow, since it is already half-written. I hope you will come back to find out what happened next. It was wonderful and unexpected…
Wish Me Luck! And, The Next Step
Posted: January 12, 2012 Filed under: Sidetracked Writer | Tags: Creative nonfiction, Education, Freelancer, Learning, Writer, Writing Leave a comment »
Maybe a photo of a four-leaf clover will be as lucky as the real thing.
Back after another…umm…hiatus, but resolved to Post Regularly. Check this out on my other blog for more on that. It also mentions my good news — I submitted an article to a children’s magazine, and the editor is actually interested in buying it! I don’t know if it will all work out yet, but I am happy, happy, happy to be validated in my writing endeavor. Wish me luck!
Now, where was I before the holidays frazzled me into …hiatus?
Let’s review, as I channel my sister, the teacher. You already know I was a work-at-home mom who began piddling around with writing again six or seven years ago. I got more serious with it about four years ago. I went back to school for a year, learned persuasive writing, humor writing (oy! — I am sooo not funny), grammar, and all kinds of creative nonfiction. Et voilà! I had a writing certificate to show for my efforts. I’m not sure what that means in the real world, and I know it’s not like having another college degree, but I do know having a writing certificate from Arizona State University sounds a whole lot better than, “hmm…I piddled around online for a few years to beef up my writing chops.”
I highly recommend going back to school if you are entering or re-entering the writing world. I’m no expert, I know. I haven’t even had anything published… yet (keeping my fingers crossed). But this blog is about my slog through the process (oh, hey — this could be The Blog about the Slog or The Slog Blog…what do you think? 
)
Also, maybe someone will benefit who may be in the same position I was and am in — work-at-home or stay-at-home parent, with a writing background, but no clue how to get on with it. You can read my previous posts to see how I have tried to educate myself. Don’t worry, though, there aren’t too many yet. Blogging is another part of my education process, and it’s pretty obvious that I am still negotiating that learning curve — a subject for a future post.
So, what was my next step? I took a few baby steps after school, but it was quite a while between those and the next big one. I’m not sure I want to admit to it, and I hesitate to reveal it. But, I will. Next time or the time after. Because aside from going back to school, it was the biggest step I took to further my future writing career.
On a side note, I may have made creative nonfiction sound unappealing last time. It’s really not. In fact, from a personal point of view, I’m thankful I took the classes. They came along just after my father died (four years ago this week). I was able to use the genre to give words to my feelings, analyze them and work through them. It was catharsis…but probably not that great to read as far as creative nonfiction goes.
And I’m not sure I ever want to get so involved in myself again — it’s kind of murky in there.
