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stream-of-thought not patient but tolerance must be observed. how heavy something is depends on how long you hold it. curiosity can get tiring from a child, what more from an adult? it's not a contest, don't try so hard to win. sometimes a hint isn't enough. lying or ignorance works but then you feel like an ass for letting the meanness take over, it slips in and out. practice what you preach. you can't make someone want to change by yelling. reasonably explaining what was wrong is more effective than your barking. barking = in one ear, out the other = it's loud nonsense. you don't even feel better after, bully. decisions are stupid, not people; everyone has a breaking point. i forget who said that by judging a fish by how well it climbs a tree, the fish will forever think it's stupid. but you are acting stupid for judging. everyone can only take abuse for so long. labeling people is demeaning and ignorant. many tv shows on a downward spiral on ethics and

... and dinuguan were served tonight. They're leftovers from last night's dinner party somewhere (out there). Yummy Pinoy fare. These taste better reheated the day after and the day after that. Notice the plastic serving spoons? They give off a carinderia vibe, I think. The days are hot and the nights are cool. It's what I've noticed for a couple of days now which is encouraging. Leaves a little less to complain about, weather-wise. Makes it easier to work without fussing too much about sweating hands and wiping sweat off the face... at least during the night. Work-wise, it's been OK. Work on sites is ongoing and I'm faring well on that front. Earned a small amount for a short transcription assignment last week. A few published articles are earning royalties by the penny and at this rate, I'd reach payout from it in, hmmm... a year or so? HAHA! Honestly, I've written there for the sake of writing and not for the money -- shouldn't even have conside

Nip in the bud Must've nipped too much So for two to three weeks Just left, if you please Since right is plainly marred! -- my skin

... the dust. One of my writing affiliates announced that their payment program will be suspended until things on their side pick up (obviously, they meant the economy). I don't know, hopefully they'll recover and this will truly be temporary. But right now, I'm feeling that it's the end (theirs, that is). Edit, 16th June: Just learned that they won't be paying writers who didn't reach the minimum payout this period. I'm sad 'cause that includes me. At the moment, I think that I'll let them have my work (that's pending payment) for free - glass half full and all that. I'll check back on them from time to time. They should carry over outstanding balances for when they start their payment program again -- or should I say, IF it's reimplemented.

This should've been "write when ready" but that's too... lesson-y. And this isn't a tutorial - not at all. I know that my web-writing wahj fell by the wayside cos I can only write when I'm ready. Blogged before about being useless at it when uninspired so I guess a better way of putting it in words is with - I will write when I'm ready. Otherwise, writing is a tedious and forced bore. Take today for instance, wrote two stellar pieces on music and computers. They're two totally different topics but words came out effortlessly and well. Pretty proud of them too. I'd share them but I just sold them so... they're not mine anymore. But they are published under one of my pseudonyms (yes, I've more than one) so they are not totally lost to me. That's a tricky thing about writing web content. The line between knowing what's mine and what's not has been blurred on the Internet. Still, I credit a writing wahj for providing me with the mon

Transcription In the spirit of being a reliable WAH worker [grins], I've finished and submitted my last transcript ("last" meaning, before going on vacation) a few hours ago - again, before the deadline. [grins more] I am so relieved... That's one down and two to go -- Oh, not quite pala! I guess I'm still waiting for a re-affirmation of what we've talked about a while ago (like four weeks ago) about still having a spot on the transcription team when I get back. Well, she's on holiday right now so I guess that's why there's no feedback on the recent email that I sent. It was a simple schedule notice... sort of a "just in case you've forgotten" thing. I hope she didn't forget - I hope, I hope. Bookkeeping I've said that I wanted to finish my friend's first quarter books before I go. But from the look of things, it's not likely to happen. I'm just getting as many things done in that department as possible. I needn

I've not been a very productive content writer for my first affiliate lately. I've said that the "idea barrel's" saturated. So here's my solution -- reading. During those "off" times, it's best to read stuff about your topic. It's because I found out that when I do get my writing mode "on", the words just start to come out. Take, for example, the article that I just submitted a little while ago. I have read about this topic before but during that time, I just couldn't get a unique idea about it. And now, I started to think about it and words just kept flowing. And I like how that makes me feel. The weather's nice too. It's fairly cool, looks like it's going to rain. I could've had a hotdog sandwich earlier but I didn't want to spoil my appetite. We have one of those pre-packed salads with fruit, chicken, seeds, greans and I hope it stays fresh for later. This one has sesami vinagrette on the side and it's

I just got up a few hours ago... Actually, we left at 4:00 this morning and got back at around 9:30 am. I had breakfast of fried egg and spicy sausage (sans the skin) and slept. It so hot and humid today!!! Anyway, I got out of bed around 3:30 pm to get some work done. There's nothing much to say except that I will be going away for a little while in June. Yup. So excited. Turns out, I'll get to see my darling niece then. Also, I hope to see my other niece (who's still a bun in the oven! lol!) too. My sister's due in July so I hope we'd still be with them for the birth. I haven't really written any articles for my first content-writing affiliate. Since you can submit articles anytime (but, of course, you won't get paid unless you reach the minimum quantity at the end of a pay period) I've been less than motivated to get some articles in there. I guess the "idea barrel" is still saturated at the moment. I am, however, working at writing short ar

I went on holiday for four days and I'm already on the back burner? That is, of the transcription team, already! Let me just go back and feel dispensable again here... Oh well, I guess that's more writing time for me then. Truth be told, I get paid more for less time that's put in when I write articles. It's true. I noticed that I haven't been so toxic in content writing than I was in transcribing. That's a thought. Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to give up on my client just yet -- they have paid me for the work that I've done and I'm not about to discount that fact. And I do enjoy transcribing for them. This is just new - being on the back burner and all. What's good about this is that I've managed to go over my target number of submitted articles today. When it seemed that I couldn't write anything more about this one topic, I get inspired and I've been writing with gusto. Now, wouldn't it be great if this actually happe

For someone who's been writing online content (and being paid for it, lol!) for almost a year now, I've began to notice little things which make it very easy for me to produce these articles. And since I'm doing my freelance WAH jobs at different times (there's three of them, you know?) these little things help me go over them all and earn my pay. Of course, you have to do research on it since you can only write what you know -- that goes without saying. Well, let's say you've got the research covered. Here's how I easily write Web content: Let's say, I have to make a 500-word article on an assigned topic. I'd start off with a good title. That title should, obviously, be interesting or informative enough to show people what the article's about. Speaking of creating a title - depending on how the content goes as I'm writing it - there are times when I've gone back and rewritten my title so it'll serve its purpose. Take a look at the ti

I was up and about at noon after sleeping for 11 hours -- straight. Had lunch, had small talk at the dining table, then, back to my desktop. Too bad that I felt a pounding pressure at the back of my head... I couldn't comfortably do anything. Cutting paper wasn't relaxing, even drawing lines wasn't relaxing me at all. I decided to take a nap so it'd go away. But they were making their 'amazing pasta' again this afternoon so my nap was put on hold. After two servings of pasta, two slices of whole wheat buttered toast and coke, I lied down and was out for at least two hours. Woke up at 8:00pm, took a shower and I'm back here. Well... there's still some pressure going on back there (my head, that is) but it's better than before. So, work mode's on again... Earlier I was trying to figure out how to submit a sitemap on Google. I, of course, generated a sitemap from a random website and it said that I 'upload' that .xml to my server. What?!? I

I've set aside writing content (my other freelance job) for the past three days. As a result, I'm behind in reaching the minimum submissions that would make me eligible for pay on the 16th. That got me thinking. Should I intentionally hold off submitting any articles today? I could catch up and, in turn, submit more content than the minimum if I do. That means, the pay that I'll get on the 31st would be higher. I could... but should I? I do feel a headache coming on since I rushed to submit my podcast transcript this morning -- that's 2:00 am this morning, by the way. I even chatted with my friend who's in Canada (it was early afternoon there, at the time) while I was waiting for the confirmation of my submission. It was almost 3:00 am when I said goodbye. I still haven't received the confirmation at that time too so I figured that they were already asleep. I did submit the transcript twice just to be sure. This morning, at 8:00 am, I got a text message that the

I got all three jobs on a deadline this week... ack! Accounting : Yesterday, I received documents and files for tax reports that I have to send by Saturday (or Sunday, at the latest). Content Writing : I have to write at least four articles and submit them by Friday to get my pay this month. Transcription : I was assigned an hour-long (plus a few minutes) podcast that I'm downloading at this very moment. I have to submit it before Saturday. Phew! I sure hope my computer can handle it since it's been very hot and humid here lately (I don't use air conditioning kasi -- oh, I do have an AC but I don't use it). It's so hot!!! My fingers are sweaty... they're sticking on the keys... maybe I should turn the AC on??? Okay, I'm thinking about it. I don't want to add on to our electric bill because since it's so expensive here especially with air conditioning. Okay, downloading successful... I'm going to load that podcast to express scribe now. Ciao!

As of date, I can compose a 400+ word article in as little as 30 minutes to as long as a few hours. The former's great -- writing in so little a time; the latter's horrible -- in so many ways than one. The key to writing web content is to know your assigned topic well. And it's a lot better if you have set keywords that the client sends to work with. That's how I got hooked on playing backgammon in the first place. Now, I can easily (and breezily! lol!) whip up an article about the simple aspects of the game. The great thing about my current affiliation is that we can write as many articles as we want on a broad topic. I love that about their setup. However, after I finish an article in under 30 minutes, the magic sort of floats away. That's how those 'hours-long to finish an article' come about. I'd have a topic in mind but you can only say so much about it without sounding like you're writing in circles (like talking in circles? gets?). Case in poi