Now I'm Just Confused

 When it comes to Medium, I'm always getting thrown a curveball. For the entire time I've had work on the platform, every time I think I have something figured out, the opposite happens. Like today when I checked my monthly earnings. After making a few strides last fall, I ended up with only $0.03 earnings in November and a big fat $0 in December. I thought this meant that impactful and lasting royalties came from non-fiction content rather than the creative content I had been posting. So I started the A Taste of Money series and nothing. Few reads, no bites from paying members. Then I post another poem from last year's prompts, and I immediately earn $0.03 in a day. After about eight days, I end up earning $0.10. Go figure. 

I know that this doesn't account for all of the other variables that dictate who gets paid and for what, but this is showing me that it would be much easier to stick with poetry that I know I can put in publications (that aren't of my own creation) and get things moving. 

In other jumbles of confusion, one of the platforms I create content for (day job stuff) has completely changed its ways, leaving me without a clear picture of my future with them. What was once a great place to come and go as I pleased for work has now turned into a highly competitive cutthroat environment. While it helps for writers' work to to sell faster, it's leaving me without a way to grab the work that I want and get it done without the fear of someone coming up and writing an article out from under me before I get my thoughts together. I worked for this platform specifically because you had a choice between being highly competitive and taking the slower route, giving customers the content they wanted without twenty other people trying to steal it from you. 

So how do I make these changes work for me? I don't know, because it looks like to get the work I want, it's going to be a game of waiting until midnight on the first of each month to grab something before someone else gets it. Not only claim it, but actually sit and write it as soon as I get it. That just doesn't work for me. And because of the rules on these new changes, it is up to the individual clients to change the way they buy work for it to resemble the platform I used to know and love. I know it's only been a couple of days so far, but if it continues to look like I can't even attempt a consistent work pattern on the platform, I would probably be better off concentrating on creative work that is less likely to pay the way this work did, but would remove a huge level of stress. Did I ever tell you about my love/hate relationship with change? 

The First Seven Days

 My plan for 2021 was to move my weekly blog posts to Tuesday--it would work out better for many reasons, including the ability to get those posts out more consistently. But without a planner to write my little to-do lists, I was in a bit of a mess on the first week of the year. That's changed, because my bullet journal/planner/whatever you want to call it arrived on Tuesday. That doesn't mean my world is suddenly organized, and I know that I have to rush through January without great thought to design, but so far it's getting the job done. And I can't begin to tell you how much I love having an excuse to use Micron pens again. 

So I thought I could easily push out a blog post for the beginning of year yesterday, but then yesterday happened. On my best day it's hard to pull myself away from breaking news, so I usually just settle in and try to absorb what's going on. Needless to say, yesterday's productivity was near zero. 

Now I'd love to tell you what grand plans I have for 2021, but getting a bullet journal planner started was my main focus in the last week of 2020. Beyond that, I'm not sure where to go next. I have released the first article in my series A Taste of Money with a follow-up coming tomorrow. I plan to publish 1-2 articles a week for that one, but what I really need to get out is the publication guidelines so that others can have their chance at publishing work in Frugal and Freelancing. 

I'm still looking into other Medium publications to get my work out there, as well as those good ol' literary journals. I need to make a list and pay more attention to submission dates because I tend to miss some good opportunities when submission windows close before I get the submission sent. And all of my longer projects? Those are all still waiting in the wings for when I get inspired again. And since its January, you know I'm already planning for a project to do for National Poetry Month in April. All this leaves me now with plenty to do, and I better get to it.