I've set some standards

This week has brought a lot of things into perspective for me. The work that I have been doing to so far away from what I thought I would be doing with my life by now. Don't get me wrong -- I still love writing. But after the things I have written about this week, there will be a few standards to meet my criteria for a legitimate, profitable writing project.

First, I now know that transcription takes longer than I thought it would, and it isn't an easy job. I spent 10 hours transcribing a 1 1/2 hours of talking. The rate that I got paid for it made the work almost completely worthless. This is my fault, because I bid a certain amount on the job thinking I could get it out of the way in only 3 hours. But I've lived and learned.

The other thing that I learned this week is that my spirit, soul, conscious -- whatever you want to call it -- cannot accept persuasive writing for a KNOWN SCAM SERVICE OR PRODUCT!! I got a few article rejected on Monday and Tuesday. These articles were about finance. I correctly used all of the necessary keywords and wrote to the proper length. Thing is, the client said I didn't sell their credit repair service enough. I actually took the "buy this service" parts out of the articles I wrote and put them up on Triond instead after I realized I just couldn't do it (see Ways to Fix Your Credit and Effectively Using Bad Credit Loans for more information). I've been writing about these types of credit repair scams for more than 2 years now, and I know that this company was a complete scam. They were not even based in the U.S., but wanted to work with U.S. clients.

The other complaint I got from these articles is that along with what they wanted, I offered free tips to fix bad credit -- big no no when your trying to sell desperate people on a scam. And just for everyone's reference: there are free ways to fix credit. These take time and cannot be done overnight. Also, if you want someone to help you, there are plenty of non-profit debt consolidation or debt counseling companies that are legitimate.

Along with this, I will not continue to write copy for things such as diet pills, miracle cures, and affiliate marketing scams. I will now officially be poor, but if I don't have some type of integrity, I don't think I can do this anymore. If you are selling a legitimate, useful product or service, I'm the writer for you. If not, you're on your own.

Hectic week

This week has been really busy, even though I technically didn't decide to work this week. I spent all day today (Tuesday) packing up everything in my apartment that I don't need and watching the memorial for Michael Jackson. Tomorrow I have to finish a transcription job... and for some reason, I didn't realize how tough transcription can actually be. They speak clearly, not fast, and it's still taking me hours more than I thought it would. But it's a job. I even have to schedule this post because I know I won't have time to write my usually Wednesday post here.

But after Wednesday, things should calm down again. I should be back to my normal writing/research routine. And to think, I never really wanted a routine because it felt the same as being in a rut.