Alleriges make me cranky!

This morning was interesting. I realized last night that it was the flowering trees outside my patio door that were causing my throat problems. I didn't develop allergies until I was about 18 or 19 years old and surrounded by all the pretty trees at college. So I sleep in a little just to feel better. When I get up to brush my teeth, my mom calls. I had asked her yesterday if anyone else was sick, so she was probably worrying about me for the last 24 hours... unnecessarily.

And I know that some work for the month would not be available today. That's all right – I work for 6+ companies and I knew someone would have work. But you know what? I'm back to cringing at the thought of writing low paying articles. The low pay is fine on a good day. But I'm must have looked at all the wrong articles this morning, because I got really angry. It wasn't the low pay or the high word count, it was simply the fact that all of the instructions for the writer were unclear and grossly misspelled simple words. How am I supposed to do my best job as a writer when I have to turn into a detective just to decipher want it is you want?

I know that with any freelance writing job there are standards for the writer. But I think that if you want someone to work for you, you should hold yourself to the same standards. These jobs I looked at are through a company, yet the company can't even ensure that the instructions are clear? And what is frustrating is that I have to have my article rejected before I have the opportunity to make any contact with the person or group that ordered the article.

I also love the advice from the company... I'm paraphrasing, but they say that if you are having trouble meeting the requirements of the article, you can just not edit it and it will be removed from your queue in 24 hours. After the client has already had the chance to copy what I wrote and use it, I'm going to let it go without getting paid? I think I work for bad companies. Not all of them of course, but just some of them. If I do a number of these article each day, it's decent money. Just not worth the time. I read all the time about getting fair pay for freelancers, but obviously I'm not looking in the right places. At the moment, I don't even know what fair pay is for my skills. Probably not much.

See how cranky allergies make me? Yesterday I was all for writing 10 article from this company. Today, I haven't even changed out of my pajamas yet. And I don't think I'm going to. But I did write another installment in my travel series: Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Thought I should get this one out soon since it is May.

So my picks of the Indy 500 didn't win. Or finish. And the Cubs didn't win today either. Maybe I shouldn't be a sports fan anymore... I guess I bring bad luck!

So... my prediction for the race is either Danica Patrick or Graham Rahal. Why? Just because. I can't watch it. I tried streaming on Indy500.com, but too many streamers joined once I tried to refresh the picture. Oh well. It's on the radio in the living room at the moment. I'll watch it tonight because I can't really pay any attention to radios anymore... I'm a visual girl.

I either have to go back to work (easy articles, I'm just avoiding them) or find an apartment. I think that craigslist is going to be my new best friend for the next two months. I need to find an apartment before I get to New York, otherwise I think I'll be screwed.

Today I finally got a job through Guru.com. I have been a member of this freelancing network since 2003 (can you believe it?) and I finally got one of my project bids accepted. Not only that, it was such an easy editing job that I earned $25 for about 30 minutes of work... you really can't beat that. So, I feel accomplished. Yay. I still have 7 articles sitting on my desktop though (beats the 27 left there last night!). really don't want to do them tonight, but I also wanted to have tomorrow off. Guess I won't really have a day off this weekend... maybe Sunday. I'll get to hear everyone bitching about the race not being televised where we live.. what? A half hour away? Mmm... if you want to see it, GO SEE IT! I could care less about it unless I'm there. Then I would care a little.