Game on.
I am a sleepy kid today; my long weekend of living according to my body’s internal clock was fun and all, but the 3am bedtimes do not do much for 8:30am worktimes. Plus my therapy session this afternoon was like running a marathon, trying to squeeze the last two weeks into 50 minutes. Not an easy task, but I managed it, and got some much-needed reminders, affirmation, and insight.
So, on to the important stuff so I can hit the shower and find my bed. The pillows are calling my name, and are not being particularly quiet about it :)
Today’s lead: It was actually a pretty busy day for things to sign up for, read, and mark for closer perusal later. My friend Lynn introduced me to Fiverr after reading my post last night about correspondence writing, and I already have a couple of pitches in draft status. I think I’m going to wait until next week to actually post them just in case I actually get “hired” – Melissa arrives tomorrow evening and is staying through the weekend, and I’d rather not spend more time working than my day job requires when my girl is in town. I can create my profile though, and poke around the site a bit to see what others are offering. While I think it’s a great concept, I don’t want to undersell the professional work I’d like to do: editing and proofreading 3,000 words for five bucks is NOT anything even approaching a reasonable fee, even if the writing is fair to begin with, and I’d rather charge what I am worth for that sort of work and let others do it practically for free. I also headed over to AWAI today and downloaded the 13 reports they offer when you sign up for The Barefoot Writers Club. I’ve copied them all over to my Nook so I can read anywhere, on a bigger screen than my phone’s. I know they’re going to have a lot of superfluous content because, well, they’re sales writers, so that’s what they do, but hopefully there will be plenty of concrete resources I can follow up on in the coming weeks.
Today’s home office prep step: I’ve started a shopping list of things I still need but will buy over time: a decent filing cabinet, hanging folders, a better system for storing publications. There isn’t a whole lot I can or need to do on this front right now, so it’s almost a placeholder topic so I don’t lose sight of the larger picture of what I’ll need when things really start ramping up.
Today’s brainstorm: Since I don’t want to work for peanuts by offering professional skills on Fiverr, I’m going to come up with quirky alternatives, in keeping with the fun and silly nature of the site. One idea is a masterpiece tell-off letter – for five bucks, I’ll write a three paragraph email addressed to your boss, your ex, the neighbor who keeps stealing your newspaper, that will leave ’em in tears. Of course, there will be a disclaimer that if the buyer actually sends my email to his or her boss and is soon unemployed, it ain’t my fault. ;)
