For My Next Act I'm Gonna Be A Female Version of J. Jonah Jameson. (Except Less Pissed Off At Toby McGuire, I Mean, Peter Parker)

Just As Colorful, But Less Inspired.

Once upon a time a little girl lived on a dead-end street down by a river, but she didn't live in a van down by the river.  She had a great imagination and was so full of confidence that she believed that everyone on the street would enjoy reading a newspaper that she created.  So throughout one summer she made up stories about neighbor's houses catching fire and lost dogs that never existed.

Having no access to a mimeograph machines (kids, that what we called copiers back in the day) she painstakingly re-wrote each article in perfect D'Nealian handwriting and illustrated each copy.  Critics would later likened those surviving first editions to St. John's Illuminated Bible. 

Days passed.  The little gazettes were ignored by most neighbors.  The papers, lovingly bound with rubber bands were mistaken for mass mailing flyers and were tossed in garbage cans without a second look.

The little girl saw all this.  Her labor of love and creativity trashed.  She pondered for a moment and thought, "Well, there goes two days of work for nothing.  I'm gonna swim now."  Because really?  What kid wouldn't want to swim in the neighbor's pool?
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Twenty plus years later, on this particular day, this now older girl (because she maintains she will NEVER GROW UP) met up with two editors.  Between these two editors their resumes spanned the globe: NY Times, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, Tampa Tribune; they had worked in Germany, South American, Thailand, India.  To say the least, it was an impressive meeting.

What began as an interview for a recurring column on health, fitness, and dog care (how those go together, she wasn't sure), turned into an offer to be a manager of a regional newspaper. The editors were impressed with her background, her skills, and her adventurous spirit.  Her first business meeting will take place on Saturday and by Monday, she'll hit the ground running.

And she lived happily ever after.  Until she couldn't fall asleep because she was so excited!
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(So these are the details of the story.  I had answered an ad on Craigslist that advertized a position of a writer for the Dade City community for a on-line newspaper.  After speaking briefly on the phone to one of the owner and playing telephone tag over the holidays, I wasn't too convinced that I wouldn't be meeting up with two retirees who decided to take up on-line news reporting as a hobby.  However, I kept the appointment and the rest is as above.

Long before we had giant news corporations, towns and communities put out their own papers.   So my job is to launch the Dade City version of this newspaper.  It'll feature local events and people.  And seeing as we all have a natural propensity towards narcissism it shouldn't be too hard to have the highschool kids phone their sports scores to me, soccer moms to email pictures, and the garden club to wax poetic about their spring blooms.  People love reading about themselves.  Small businesses will get exposure on a level that they couldn't afford before.


I have to sell ad space in addition to managing articles that need to be published, editing documents for quality, and making contacts within the community.  And I think I really can do it.


The wonderful thing about these editors is that they understand the meaning of community.  15% of each client's ad fee will go into a community slush fund.  Once a month, 10 members from the community will decide where that money will go, whether to a needy family, replacing flower beds around city hall, or improving existing buildings.  

I'm going to be helping small businesses develop.  I'm going to know that children will smile when they can point to an article and recognize their face from the action shots captured during a game.  It'll be amazing to know that whatever ad revenue I can pull in will go to help those who might not be in a good spot, places that I've been in before. 


It's going to be a lot of hard work, especially in the beginning.  But I can still work from home, (yea for yoga pants!), set my own hours, and keep working with The Band.  This is an amazing chance for growth for me.


I know I will still have my days where my demons want to drag me down into depressive, anxiety ridden pits of self-doubt.  I know that I will freak out and get writers block.  But I know that I can keep fighting through it.  I know I can do it.)


And I know that I have you, dear readers, to thank.  Your comments, your warm wishes keep me up.  Thanks for believing in me thus far.

Somewhere, Someone Is Laughing

January is named after the Roman god Janus, know for having two heads so he could look forwards and backwards at the same time.  If Janus was so good at seeing forward and backward, then it would have been nice if I'd gotten a heads up that I would want to drink away memories of today. 

Tuesday 3, 2012--You suck.

• The Kiddo can't return to school today because he is still, still, still sick.  His illness has not resolved itself in a month and since a momma knows her kid best, I knew something more than just a 'viral infection' was up at this point.

• Made a fortuitous call at 7:45 this morning to discover that there was an opening at 11:30 at the pediatrician's.  Perfect. 

• Did a work assignment only to discover that the email address I was attempted to reach was coming back as undeliverable.  WTF?  I've done work for this person for the past 5 days.  I'm expecting my first paycheck on Sunday, small tho it is, it'd be enough for half a tank of gas.

• I try calling this client.  Contact him at both numbers.  Realize that both numbers are forwarded to the same mail box.  No big deal, right?  I have to get the Kiddo ready for the appointment, return a few emails, and put out a few new feelers.

• Arrive at the doctor's 15 minutes early.  After 45 mins told that the doctor is on call at the hospital.  That's okay because I can just enjoy the honky-tonk Ebola reunion that's going on in the waiting room.  Every boot wearing member in the county walks through the door smelling of stale cigarettes and Super Gulps.  There is much hugging, number swapping, mucousy smokers coughs, and promises to get together.  The tiny infant two chairs away is covered in such large spots that I can only hope the family dog has a bad case of the fleas. 

• At quarter to 1, doctor arrives, chats with us for a few minutes, calls out a prescription, and we're back out the door.

• Grab a $2 Happy Meal for the Kiddo, pick up a few groceries and off to Wal-Mart to pick up the meds.  

• Stand in return line for 10 minutes.  Discover toy did not originate from Wal-Mart but SUPER Wal-Mart.  They won't accept it.  ~~~Sigh~~~~

• Wait at pharmacy window. 12 minutes til their lunch break is over.

• Window opens 5 minutes late.  They haven't filled the prescription.  Told it will be ready in 30 minutes.  Know this is a lie because the same damn line is being spoken to 5 other customers.  And there is only one pharmacist.  I can do the math. 

• Decided to go home and eat lunch.  Having passed up high fat, high calorie Micky D's I am now so ravenous that I eat a monster roast beef sandwich, a bag of salt and vinegar chips, AND a dill pickle.  

• Drop a tomato, squat to pick it up.  RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP.  I am now the proud owner of fully ventilated jeans.  

• Try to call the client who owes me $$ a call.  Once again, I get creepy, crappy voicemail.

• Do a bit of work, bundle the kid back out to the car.  It's been 3 hours, the medicine must be ready by now.
• First and only person in line at the pharmacy and it's still ANOTHER 20 MINUTES!  They have to mix the medicine.  For the love of cheese and crackers!

Time to close the curtain on this day.

About Benjamin

Since I'm working for myself, I am really nobody's bitch any more.  Except for when I am working with The Band.  Then Benjamin becomes the task master.  I haven't been beaten with the whip yet, but I just waiting for him to tell me that my editing could use some fine tuning.  According to him, I'm not allowed to double space my sentences anymore.   Whatever!  I do what I want. . . .at least here. . .and I'll use my ellipses whenever I damn well feel like it, Aunt Becky and BreakfastMeat.

So Benjamin has decided to join the blogsphere which he realizes is kinda late in the game.  After all it's not 2003 anymore.  Go check him out.  Tell him The Diatribest sent you and that you think he's hot.  Or not.  I don't know. All I can tell from his photos is that he is a skinny tow-head and I would probably crush him.

Peace and Chicken Grease,
Caro

  
The Soliloquy of the Antihero

A very long time ago, in the cold tundra of Minnesota, I was born. Kicking and screaming, I was brought into a world I didn’t understand, to be the antihero in my own life story.
Thirty years and a few crazy decisions later, not much has really changed. I’m a new transplant to the Chicago area, and took up writing and editing mostly as a side-effect of joining The Band. It turned out I wasn’t as bad as your average chimpanzee, and so I decided that writing was something I was going to start doing on a regular basis.
I love food, children, games and puzzles and have spent my whole life trying to figure out new ways to play with all of them (not at the same time) and that’s kept me amused most of the time.
If it’s crazy, I probably tried it. If you can make a buck at it, I probably did it for a living, and if it was fun, I probably tried it again. I can’t stand ellipses, bad use of semicolons or the phrase “The fact that” in a sentence.
Benjamin Searle, an important part of a nutritious breakfast.

Don't Get Mad, Get Creatively Even

Do you remember watching Sesame Street as a kid hearing the song "Three of these things belong together; three of these things are kind of the same; But one of these things just doesn't belong here?" It was pretty obvious if you were over the age of three what item didn't make sense, like the glass of milk didn't match the three daisies.  

Oh, yes.  You heard me. Wear this with wedding rings.

Yesterday, I came to realize that writing SEO articles for certain clients, the Sesame Street principle applies. I had a client ask me to write an article about 'glow-in-the-dark nail polish' and 'wedding rings.'  In the same 400 word article.  Mind you, this client lives in Slovenia so maybe she doesn't realize that outside of Halloween and the rave club scene, no one besides tennie-boppers wears that shit.  Seriously, I have no fashion sense, nor do I give a shit about fashion opinion, but I will never wear glow-on-the-dark nail polish to my wedding.

Here's the thing.  Writing SEO is not my first choice of work.  I would love to write humor columns for on-line sites or articles on single-parenting magazines.  Hell, I'd be happier writing ad copy for Scotts Brand Toilet Paper.  I would love to have to ability to turn down work based on the fact that I have a full client list and have work scheduled out three months in advance.  But that hasn't happened yet.  And until I can make some better connections, I'm stuck writing on shitty subjects.

This particular client I dropped like a sack of rotten potatoes today.  Seems that she was doing some false advertizing.  When your job posting says you'll be paying $750-$1500 a month for articles because you are looking for high quality writers as you've been unhappy with previous writers, please honor that.  Don't be surprised when I fly off the fucking handle when I write 3 trial articles and you send me 3 fucking dollars over Paypal.  So when you write back that most of your writers are paid 80 cents for an article and that you are doing me a favor, don't be surprised when I give you a poor rating on your feedback.

And believe me, when it comes to your rating score, don't be surprised when your profile is banned from the website for false advertizing.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna munch on a handful of antacids.

Laissez les bullsh*t rouler or Why I Am Writing Porn for Spiders*

Inspiration strikes at random for me, so at 11 pm my ability to roll out bullshit finally kicked in.  Right now Amanda and I have landed a well paying gig writing SEO articles.  We are emailed a list of topics and the necessary word count and in return we get $4/500, which is considered really high by industry standard.  (Going rate is usually 1.50.  Yea, for liberal arts degrees.  We can bullshit with the best!)

I've been struggling for the past 5 days with believing in myself.  On some levels its understandable and I have given myself a little leeway, but enough is enough!  It's been over 8 years since I wrote something even remotely connected with learning and so I've been agonizing over every word and how my audience might perceive what I've written.  But here's the thing.  I'm not writing on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Social Contract as a fan to the flames of the French Revolt.  I'm writing about spiders.

Yes spiders, which I've mentioned before I HATE!  The most challenging thing I've had to write about was a description of how the male Black Widow spider can only reproduce after he first spins a web of his semen, cover his spider parts with said stuff, and go off to bone the female Black Widow and untimely get eaten.  I laughed for so long and tried to come up with a delicate way of explain this natural, nature intending continuance of the life cycle, but somehow I felt like I was writing arachnid porn. 

So before you leave this site a little more knowledgeable about the Black Widow spider and feeling a bit dirty, go check out stereomood.com.  Its a free on-line musical playlist of songs you've never heard before which are sorted by types of moods you might be in.  So far I'm finding that I like the bohemian and the studying mood lists.  

*Aly, thanks for trying to teach me French.  I'll never understand how you can speak a language that sounds like a drunk gargling a handful of marbles, but it still provides me with an endless source of amusement. Bet you never thought I'd link you French lessons with spiders did you? 

Learning to Mind Your Own Business

Check it out~This is my business partner Amanda Abella of Digital Zen Ink

Things are evolving so fast, I'm still scrambling to get my head on straight.  I have a million different things to do, to learn, and to experience in the next few days.

I want to say a really big THANK YOU to all the people who have been tuning into my blog.  You're support keeps me going.  Now that I've got a wonderful business plan set up with a wonderful business partner, I'm not feeling like I'm floundering so much.

Big things are happening so fast!

Like A Little Girl With Her First Diary

I am so freaking giddy right now!!!

Less than 24 hours after Amanda and I have launch Digital Zen Ink, we are seeing huge results!  I've gotten traffic from Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, China, Iran, and other countries in just one day!  Her web site views have gone up 75%

I just emailed out our first proposal, so fingers crossed and prayers said, I'm hoping to get a response by the end of the week. If I'm given the green light, I'd be writing 2 articles a week for this website, which would equal $50 a week.  Yea, $200 a month! 

Now obviously, $50/wk aint gonna cut it for paying Momma's bills, so that's why I've gotta get my hustle on.  But if I can get a start on smaller projects, bigger fish are bound to come buy.

So in the meantime, say some prayers (or even donate to my Support My Dreams Fund) that Amanda and I keep up this momentum and bring in the Benjamins!

Humbled

I can't really express my words of gratitude tonight.  I received my first donation today towards keeping my dreams alive and it totally caught me off guard.

See, for the past week I have writing and re-writing (mostly in my head) a post on self-promotion but I keep kept shying away from the topic because I am not good at promoting myself, that is unless I am trying to BS my way through an interview for a job.  (I'll have to relay the story of landing a job as a liaison to Australia/New Zealand when I didn't even own a passport.)  (I still don't have a passport.)

But taking my cue from my head-shrinker, a college professor, and a wandering musician I have to put myself on the line and be constantly selling myself.  I have a gift and a talent that yearns to be put to good use, so I have to tell the world.  I really and truly believe that this is what I am supposed to be doing with my life.  Now here's the hardest part for me.  Self-promotion in the form of begging.  But if I look at it as start up money for a new company, I can understand it better.

For ages now, my dearest friend KG, has been telling me, "Damn it!  Write a book and people will buy it."  At this point I am writing and putting together posts/stories for a cohesive book to publish to Kindle, but I have no guaranteed profit.  And since I want to pay my bills while I try to write I have to look for some seed money for my dreams.

Falcon 1_5 was the first to put her money on the line.  And now she's top on my honor roll list.

So I'm asking you to join her on the honor roll and make a donation towards funding my dreams.  Did you give up Starbucks for Lent?  Decide to cut out the bi-weekly run to McDonald's because your waistline is getting larger?  Do you have a jar of loose change that needs to be cashed in?  Like Martin Luther, did you make a rash promise to God during a moment of duress and feel like you need to 'pay up'?  Maybe you could use that extra money on a donation.  

I'm not picky.  If you want to send $2 or $200, I'll be thrilled either way.  Every little bit counts, not only towards my expenses, but to the most important thing I have lacked for so long. . .confidence.  It touches me to know that I have the support of a growing community and I feel so blessed to see the effects of my hard work beginning to pay off.  (You'd think a day of social networking and writing is easy, but it's not!  I can't believe how difficult it is to "get noticed" if you're not already famous.)  (Note to future self: If you are ever rich and famous, it is your job to help others 'get noticed' and to use your money to aid many others, like you have been aided.)

I'm not asking for much.  I'm going for that whole beatitudes approach, "Ask and ye shall receive." 

Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised to see a handful of donations from some close friends.  Maybe one of my international readers in India, Australia, Russia, or France will chip in.  Or maybe nothing will come of it.  But I don't know until I ask, until I put myself out there.

Thank you so much Falcon 1_5 for believing in me.