Writer's Block

One of the worst hangups I deal with when it comes to writing for myself is that I have too much to cover. There are so many ideas that I want to bring to my audience, I don't know which one to start with. Without looking at any of the many lists that I've made, I could rattle off over two dozen topics. Perhaps it's not just an overwhelming number of topics that I have. Perhaps it's also being a bit disorganized, not motivated enough because I don't get immediate feedback, both with a rating nor with a client's payment.

It isn't just about making sales - there are a lot of topics that I am interested in that aren't niches that will make any money. Others are, but I don't look at just that. Living in Bolivia, things are a lot cheaper here than they are in the USA - I mean, seriously, my rent is under $75 a month, tomatoes are less than a dollar (most of the time) for TWO pounds, a pack of spaghetti noodles is about 60 cents, my internet runs between 24 and 30 dollars a month. It's cheap here. I don't live like the typical American does, though. I live in Bolivia and I live like the typical Bolivian does, and it's much cheaper. It's also cleaner, healthier, and a lot less stressful.

Because of that, I can't just write up stuff about the latest product I've been using in different product reviews because there aren't many items that most people would be interested in using. At least not ones that you'd have there in the States. But about my original point - too many topics. I'm wondering if I made shorter posts, maybe that would work better for me. I tend to write extensively. But I think that might be best, then I can write more about it on Triond or another site, where there's a more 'captive' audience. Plus, there's that little thing called residual income there, and it's not much by any means, lol, but it's there.

For the most part for money, I write at Hirewriters. I've found Textbroker to work against both writers and clients, giving neither what they deserve. Hirewriters, on the other hand, seem to pay writers more while still charging clients less. Nothing wrong with a win-win situation. The only problem I have encountered there, and rarely, very rarely, is clients might not want the article that's been written, and simply refuse it without a revision request being made. Unlike Textbrokers, Hirewriters tells you up front what the client's score is. With Textbroker, you have to click on the job, and then their ID link. The major drawback with Hirewriters is they don't go by quality or client rating. The only thing they are interested in is grammar, particularly comma usage. The problem I saw is that they aren't consistent with it. Grammar is something that can have a lot of leeway. Spelling my alma mater's name wrong on a training video isn't something that can be seen as an arbitrary thing. It's Purdue, not Perdue, but the real kicker was that in the same video, Textbroker used a picture from Purdue that spelled the name out correctly.

I haven't corrected them because I still write a piece or two for their clients every few months, but honestly, it's a crappy site. If I were a client, there is no way for me to tell the quality of the author writing my article, but I would be able to tell how well he or she adhered to the comma regulations, lol. Creativity, I'd have no idea, and that's more important to search engines than punctuation. I know. I used to work for LeapForce, who provides Google with the data needed for their algorithms. We didn't pay attention to punctuation unless it really truly is difficult to understand the way the content is written. To Google, punctuation doesn't matter much, but the reader's experience does. You're making websites for your audience, not an editor, and not your English teacher.

At LeapForce,we looked for creativity, authority, even white space usage, but punctuation wasn't that important. To Textbroker, punctuation usage is vital, and that's where they rip their clients off, and penalize their more creative writers. The clients can leave the best of feedback for a writer, but it doesn't affect the writer's score one iota. So as a client, who do you want to decide who can write your piece? Other clients, or editors who don't care what your website's ranking is? If you're a writer, who do you want to decide what your level is, and therefore your ability to make money? Clients who pay you and give you feedback, or editors who don't care about your level of creativity, research ability, or education background? The decision is pretty clear to me.

But, for now, I am going to go back to watching my silly horror movie, 'Rise of the Animals' It's absolutely hilarious! I love horror movies, so I will probably start giving my opinion on those. Not reviews, just opinions.