Doing some freelance writing, and the last few weeks have really been a learning experience.
On the upside, I actually advanced to level 2 on the freelancing site I currently use. I worked two jobs through elance.com last week. As a result, I now have two 5-star ratings as you can see in the image. I am still working with one of the clients, but we are not involving elance.com for the other jobs. I wrote a total of six articles for her last week. The other elance.com job was for an academic paper, which I now suspect was probably turned in for a grade, but I hope not.
I found out that this business can be really dirty. Someone hired a freelance writer - the first client I talked about - to fix their Master's Thesis for them. This was not just proof reading either, I mean some actual writing and re-writing involved. Academic plagiarism, punishable by expulsion from any college there is. Well, my client offered that task to me, but I turned it down. It was way too much work to do in the 16 hours before the deadline, plus it was dishonest. I said nothing about the dishonest part, but should have because the very next day I had to turn down a butt-load of similar things. This is mid-terms season, so a lot of papers are due very soon. It was very tempting because the first of those jobs would have covered most my existing bills for this month, plus there was more work where that came from! It was very hard, but I said no. I realize I was very naive to think "academic writing" could be anything but plagiarizing college papers when it is listed as a skill for a freelance writer. Yea, I can do it, but I won't. I probably did do one of those, but now I am not so naive. I wised up and took that skill off of my elance.com profile and told my client that I don't feel comfortable doing those jobs. The client is still happy to work with me, thankfully.
I am brushing up my grammar skills, working on learning to touch-type, and taking an MOOC journalism class. I ordered some books from the library on journalism too, in order to pass an elance.com skill test for article writing. I am already writing articles, but having the test result on my profile will help, and they test knowledge of journalism terms and writing techniques. I have never been exposed to journalism save as a consumer,so I flunked that test and it is not showing on my profile. You have to at least test average for a skill to be posted on your profile. I passed the skill tests for English grammar and the English language and for creative writing with above average scores. I still want to improve the scores you see here, and have plans for how to do so. I also passed some others with an average score, but average is not good enough to post on the profile either, in my book. I will be studying up on spelling too, to be able to test and show I can do it with excellence.
Graphic art classes would add another $50 monthly bill, and that is actually not OK right now. However, I can focus on writing until it is time to return to the factory - or better yet, expand into graphic art and other things I enjoy doing because I get successful enough at writing to be able to afford that. I already made enough to knock unemployment out last week, though I made nothing so far this week.
On the down side, Elance.com put a hold on my account. I've been working on that mess for almost two weeks now. I can still work, and the pay is still deposited into my elance account, but I cannot withdraw any of it. They wanted me to update my w-9, but would not let me do so because they had the old address on file. A computer bug wasn't letting me change the address on file, and that issue was sent clear up to the guys who write code. The address is changed now, my W-9 is updated, but the hold is still there. They said I had to respond to something after updating the w-9 for the hold to be removed, but there was nothing to respond to, so the customer service guys sent that back up to the finance department again today.
Aside from all of that, Exact Staff, the temp company I was working for, found me another assignment. They are sending me to Springfield, an hour S-W of here, for a 1-day job 6 hours long. I had an orientation in their office, which is an hour N-W of here, last week. It was supposed to be paid, but was not. They gave me paper time sheets, which I just recently realized I will have to take to their office in person to turn in - 1 hour to the job, then 2 hours to Exact Staff 6 hours later, and 1 hour back home. That's for a total of $66. I spent $20 getting to the orientation they did not pay me for. It will be another $40, approximately, on the day. The orientation was rescheduled once at the last minute and I spent $20 driving all the way out there for nothing once too. Thus it will be around $80 in total expenses for $66 gross pay. The only good thing about it is, after that, I can re-apply for unemployment if my writing stuff doesn't pick back up soon enough. This probably demonstrates more reasons why I would rather work for myself than for about anyone else. Working for temp companies is a nightmare. [NOTE: I do apply for other jobs close by, but this time of year in this area, there are almost no positions open and likely will not be until Spring. That's pretty much normal here.]
It is very difficult for me sometimes to psychologically handle the unpleasant things and the disappointments I must face. There are things in the works that will help more soon though, and clients are already interested - albeit usually for small amounts of money right now. Last year at this time, my "small amounts of money" for articles was $1.50 - $3.00, now it is $10 - $20+for each. Last year I did two or three in as many months on mechanical turk,where I had no direct contact with the client and no no rating or anything to show for it, or to build a reputation. Now I actually have one business relationship sprouting. I have reason to think I can be free of unemployment and essential slavery to Exact Staff, e.g. these miserably expensive short jobs, within the next few weeks. Right now, I am working on a project that could get published in MY name for a change, if it gets accepted, and on building skills to do better in freelance writing and to attract more/better clients. What I do for Exact Staff tomorrow will make it possible to get my unemployment reinstated, and then I will have some means to get passed this little learning curve.
Whew! God has gotten me through so much the past year, and I know he can also solve all of this. More promise now than ever, with all these great new freelancing developments. It's just these blasted bumps along the road, they can be pretty jarring. I can ride them out, and I will.
Godspeed
