A Busy Weekend and a Break From Writing

Weekend 6/29-6/30... I was able to make up for the time I missed on Thursday by going to the wake, by working a bit extra here and there on Friday and Saturday. I have found myself addicted to this new vocation of mine. And have to pull myself away from the computer. I find if I am not writing, I want to be. At least I love what I am doing. All the more incentive to work harder at it. Well, actually, I think I need to work smarter, not exactly harder. I have been working at it pretty hard this week as it is. Yesterday was Saturday and my husband really anted to go on a picnic. I wanted to write and I had heard there may be thunderstorms in the afternoon. Since it was hot, muggy and with thunderstorm predictions, I asked him if we could go Sunday instead. I know he was disappointed. I wrote for 4 hours which helped me catch up on the missed time. Then I started feeling a bit caged in so I showered and took the dog for a walk and that helped. I think my husband is getting a bit frustrated with my writing taking up so much time.It has probably seemed like I have been on the computer all week. So, I had a glass of wine with him on the back porch before dinner and told him my writing was done for the week, except for an hour tomorrow when he goes to work out anyway. Today, which is Sunday, we did have a very nice picnic and took the dog for a hike and completed our hike just as it started to rain so it was perfect timing and a much cooler day. That all worked out wonderfully. Here are a few pictures from our hike at Gillette's Castle State Park:

I must say taking a break from writing and doing something so refreshing as a picnic and hike is good for a writer's inspiration! We took a nap together this afternoon, and he left to go work out without waking me up, thinking he was doing me a favor. I woke up after two hours groggy and disappointed that I missed my writing time. But he was gracious enough to leave me alone for about an hour so I could get my writing fix for the day. LOL…I need to get more disciplined on this schedule to keep us both happy! Tomorrow I will update this blog with the results of my first week!

Article Writing Involves Setting Priorities

Thursday, June 27th Today I got right down to writing right after breakfast and wrote for 45 minutes before I had to go to the wake. I got a good start on my article for Textbroker, which was about prostate cancer, and wrote half of it. As soon as I returned home I ate lunch and finished the article off, with about 20 minutes to spare…whew! Textbroker gives you a time limit and if you don’t complete the article within a certain amount of time, you lose your chance and the article is up for grabs again, but not available to the person who missed the deadline. I am not great with deadlines and would rather write just whatever I feel like writing, but right now, that’s not going to bring in much money. I answered a few more questions on WebAnswers. I am up to 15 now and I enjoy doing it. I just took a break and took the dog for a walk and am waiting for my husband to come home so we can go meet friends for dinner. I think my schedule will work as long as I stay flexible when other things come up at the times I have scheduled myself to write. I am anxious to see what the end of this week brings in terms of money I have actually made. I am still doing the 30 Hubs in 30 Days Challenge but haven’t even been on the site today. I will head back over to it when we come back…after I write my newest Textbroker article about a neighborhood in Alaska. I have to write a description about it for a real estate website. Off to dinner now. We didn’t get back from dinner till 8:45p.m. and I got settled in writing at nine. Logged in 2.5 hours tonight but only 5.25 for the day. I am lagging behind. I am also kicking myself because I worked most of that time finishing up a hub on HubPages about watching our children grow into mature young adults ( featuring my daughter Michaela) and I did publish it tonight so I am on number 14 and should be on number 27!!! But it feels good to have another one under my belt. And I also am pleased that I picked up 4 more followers on HubPages…that’s 12 in 2 days…wowza! I have had that happen before. I am really excited about that. Unfortunately because I worked on that, I didn’t have time to work on my Textbroker article about a certain neighborhood in Alaska. I did some research on it, but it’s due in by 2:00 p.m. tomorrow, and I am taking my daughter to an appointment first thing tomorrow and have no idea if I will even be back by 2. If not, I will miss another opportunity to make money. I have to get on the ball here and get my priorities straight. I think that means a certain amount of Textbroker articles each day before I can even head over to HubPages. Textbroer pays me by article, where HubPages is by view/ad clicks , so I can make more definite money per word for an article right now, than on views and ads on my Hubpages account. Such a bummer because I love HubPages too. Well, maybe reaching my daily quota of Textbroker articles before I can go to HubPages will give me incentive to get the higher paying work done first? I’m glad it’s only my first week at this! I was only able to work 5.25 hours today.

A Writing Schedule is Not Always Easy to Stick To!

Wednesday, June 26th Today started off well. I was excited to be writing early in the day and first thing I wrote an article about estate sales. If accepted, I will earn $3.25 for my hard work. When I was done, I chose another article to write about. This one is about prostate cancer, but I will work on it later. I answered another 2 questions today. If I can just take time each day, and answer 10 questions per day, I can be up to my 50 answers by the weekend. BUT the tough part of WebAnswers is in order to get paid for your answers, your answer needs to be chosen as the best answer. In order to be chosen, my answers will need to be at least 100 words, and a few paragraphs long. So it takes time. It is a challenge I am up to and I look forward to hitting the 50 questions mark. Some people on this site have answered over 1,000 questions so I am thinking they have probably been chosen as the best answer more than a few times. After my morning work was done, I got ready to go with my husband to meet my parents. We had planned a trip to a local historical museum called, Mystic Seaport in Mystic, CT . After that, we took them out to dinner. I was hoping to get home before my 8:00 start time to write again, but my Dad asked it they could come back to the house afterward because he needed help with his computer. Of course we said yes. We had a wonderful time but they didn’t leave till 9:30…this was 90 minutes into my writing time. I love my parents but I was chomping at the bit to get to my writing when they were here. And when we were together, they told me about a woman I know in my hometown who had passed away and the service is tomorrow morning.I know many of her children and I feel I really should go, but again this will cut into my writing time. Uh oh, sticking with this writing plan may be harder than I thought. My husband and parents at Mystic Seaport

After my parents left, I worked on a hub about watching our children grow into young adults, but haven’t finished it yet. One very exciting thing that has happened today is that I was wrong about thinking I may lose followers today after I published that hub about my success on HubPages. Instead, I have gained 8 new followers in one day. Wow, I am one very happy writer! Tomorrow is a new day. I am going to bed now at 11:30 p.m. after working for 6 hours instead of 7. I am short one hour and a bit worried about tomorrow, but maybe I can make up for it on the weekend.

A Variety of Freelance Writing Choices

Tuesday, June 25th Today I got up and went to Textbroker first thing. I was very happy to see there were over 200 topics for me to choose from…whew, what a relief. I was worried I would really be able to make any money this summer if Textbroker was a wash. While I won’t make a killing there, so far it has been my most lucrative way to earn money writing on the internet so far. But I am not a quick writer so it takes me awhile to research my topic and then write about it. But at least today there were some interesting topics. I wrote a blog entry about organic toys. If my article is accepted, I will earn $2.57 cents! Whoo hoo! But money is money and what I like about Textbroker is that I get paid for what I actually write, not for how many clicks I get next to my writing as on other sites. Before I went to bed, I accepted an article about estate sales. Now that’s more up my alley. I like choosing articles and then clicking to somewhere else to give myself a break before I have to write them. That’s why I often choose an article at night before going to bed, then I can start fresh the next day. I worked on a hub for HubPages about some milestones I have reached. I now have 600 followers…wow, that’s so exciting. I also got a notice last week that I have had over 100,000 views on my articles. That’s amazing to me. I am in the middle of a Hub Challenge I set for myself and some other hubbers. There are 3 of us doing this. And so far, I am the farthest behind. But I set it up for a month when I would still be working for the first 2 weeks, then my mom had surgery and I went to see her every night after work. The following week I had surgery…what was I thinking??? I guess I always think I am capable of more than I really am. Oh well, I guess I’ve always been an overachiever. The hub I wrote tonight was one I was really happy with by the time I was done. It quoted how many followers I have, and that my hubber score was 100. I almost shut down my computer tonight but then realized I needed to publish it tonight before I went to bed because those statistics can change at any moment. My score could drop, or some of the followers might decide not to follow me anymore. So I needed to publish it in real time before things changed. I am hoping people don’t think I am bragging about my success. I don’t mean to, but I am just happy about my success on the HubPages website. I have been having a lot of fun answering questions on WebAnswers. This site lets you answer questions and once you answer 50 questions, you can start earning money. If your answer is chosen as the best answer by the person who asked the question, you will earn money when people view the questions and click on the ads next to the answer. So far I have answered ten questions and I asked my own question about whether or not there is a limit to how many questions I can answer in one day. I will get answers soon I hope. I don’t want to be penalized for answering too many questions on one day. But if there isn’t a limit, I can reach the 50 answers pretty quickly, and then maybe start earning money which will add to the money I am making with HubPages and Textbroker to reach my goal. I worked for 7.25 hours today and I loved it.

My First Day of Full Time Writing

Monday, June 24th, 2013 Well, today is my first day of writing full time. I have a schedule all set up…4 hours in the morning, a break to spend time with my husband who works from home, and to rest, and work out,eat dinner and then 3 hours each night. Plus I am planning on working 3 hours on Saturdays. My first attempt to find good paying work was at the website Textbroker.com I have written for them for about 1 year now, but only a total of 65 articles. I have done it when I had a chance. Unfortunately, I get tripped up with commas and I am at a level 3 over there. So when I logged on this morning I was very disappointed. At my writing level there were only 37 articles available, and nothing I could find that I would really be able to write about. Some of the article subjects are very boring or would take too much time to research and aren’t worth the $3.00 they offer. So, I am resigned to not writing anything there today and hoping to have better options tomorrow. I went back to HubPages, my favorite writing venue at the moment. I worked on a hub and will have it published by the end of the day. I also started researching other websites to write for. I think I should have started this research and already applied before I started this experiment because now I am going crazy trying to find at least one other site to write for this summer. I am looking into Elance, WebAnswers, Writer’s Access, and ContentBLVD. Some of them, like Writer’s Access seems a bit scary because the application process from what I have read is very long and involved and then I may not be accepted. But WebAnswers looks good, and fun so that will be what I start with first. I researched it and started answering questions there. And I know I am getting a bit carried away with all this writing, but I also have ideas for 3 new blogs!!! Crazy I know but I can earn money from them and at this juncture of my writing experiment I need to diversify my writing as much as possible. I wrote/researched for 7 hours today and followed the schedule I had set up. Yay!!!

My Adventure in Writing

I am a writer for the HubPages website and recently published an article ( or hub as they call them) about my summer of writing. I wrote this article as a challenge to myself. Having wanted to be a writer since I was 10 years old, I never got up the nerve to actually write anything for the world to see until I was 51 years old. 51 years old…let me repeat that. That was a very long time to wait. But once I found the HubPages website, I have been writing nonstop for 17 months! This will be the Summer I attempt to write full time to see if I can really make a living at my chosen profession. I am a social worker by training, but writing has been my passion since I was young. People told me I couldn’t make a living as a writer, and I foolishly believed them. This blog will be an account, sometimes daily, and sometimes weekly, of my struggle to follow my dream. I did not call this blog “My Summer of Writing” because for one thing, that’s the name of my article on Hubpages, and for a second thing, I am hoping that this experiment will be so successful, that my season will end up stretching over many years. And so, here I go…I am off to explore my chances of writing for a living, starting in this last week of June, 2013. Feel free to come along for the ride.