Saturday Stumblings - Randomness from the Writerly World

Happy Saturday folks! It's a gorgeous day here in my part of the world. As I rub the sleep from my eyes and chug down a pot, ok two pots of coffee, I send up a silent plea to let me stay upright and not actually trip over my own feet.

I'm in the process of gathering and jotting down ideas for future posts for this blog. I let it languish long enough and want this blog to be fun as well as more interactive for the readers. Over the weekend I'll be busy typing away. I hope to have a weekly feature or two that y'all can look forward to.

In case you haven't heard, big changes are going on in the writerly world this week. Bright Hub has just announced the end of their writer program, summarily dumping writers and editors alike except for a very few. The worst part is along with this announcement, they informed writers they'll no longer receive page view payments as of December 15th. I know quite a few writers who wrote for them and think BH hit everyone with a low blow. The fact they *might* return some articles while hanging onto others and not pay for them is lower than low! In the words of a fellow writer....they pulled a Mahalo on their writers. Way to go BH, NOT!

Yahoo! formerly Associated Content (AC), formerly Yahoo! Contributor's Network (YCN) has now officially become Yahoo! Voices. *phew* Enough with the name changes people. With the change in name, they retired AC forever. I for one will miss that. I think it's safe to say I won't be the only one who will always think of it as AC. There are new submission guidelines in place too, but, at least to me, the changes aren't really anything "new." What I do disagree with is retroactively applying new guidelines to content written under totally different rules. Some writers have literally thousands of articles published. There's no freaking way they're going to go through all of them with an eye on whether or not it meets new guidelines. I think it's crap.

Last bit of news, which really isn't news at all, is about DS, or DMS, Demand Studios, Demand Media, whatever they want to call themselves. They pulled the rug out from under many writers and those who worked in the titling department were blindsided with an email informing them they no longer had a job doing titling work. Fellow writer Amy Brantley over at Freelancin' for $1000 a Week made her thoughts on this move by DS. Read all about it here.

Some writers have no titles or they see titles but don't feel qualified to write them. I'm with that group myself. The "home" titles I won't even attempt to touch. I won't be responsible for the death and dismemberment sure to ensue telling someone how to build a barn or tractor. :-p

Oh....just one more site I got word about was Wisegeek. They're also not going to produce anymore, or very little, content and are letting the majority of writers go as well.

Take a deep breath everyone and let's evaluate where we're at and where there is left to go. We are writers, hear us roar! We'll survive.

Saturday Stumblings - "N" Randomness from the Writerly World

It's still Saturday morning, quickly closing in on the noon hour. I'm armed with my trusty cup of coffee and prying my eyes open. Walking over to put my coffee on, I tripped! I look down to see if I tripped on air again, cause I really am a klutz and do trip on air often, and what do I see? I see the letter "N" laying there snickering at me. If you really look at it, you can see how it's made for tripping the unwary walker.

Well, my day is off to a great start now. Tricky "N" was determined to make sure I didn't forget today I'm writing about him. Or at least words that begin with him. We'll begin with the word no.

No, I do not like the latest update to the guidelines at DS in the home and garden section. There's nothing wrong with the industry standard of single quotes, which is also followed by AP. You want everything else in AP, but insist on making up rules left and right to make us look foolish. You want expert voice and writing, but then do stuff like that. Hopefully the weekend gives you insight and come Monday you'll have come to your senses.

Winter Fog, pdekker3, sxc.hu

We'll move from a bit of venting to something we writerly types might do a lot of certain days, noshing. We nosh on whatever is handy absentmindedly throughout the day as we churn out our works of art. Brownies, chips, pizza, and snack cakes are consumed to give us energy. Some are capable of noshing on the healthier things in life such as fruits and vegetables. One of my favorite things to nosh on is cottage cheese and crushed pineapple. Yum! Give me some broccoli smothered in cheese sauce and I'm in heaven. Good grief I'm making myself hungry.

Moving along before I start eating my keyboard. Our last "N" of the day goes to nebulaphobia. I'm sure you see the word "phobia" at the end and have guessed it's some sort of phobia, but which one? It is the fear of fog or clouds. I can see why someone would have nebulaphobia. Fog has led to horrific pileups on roads and has been used to scare the bahjeebus out of people in movies. When you see a foggy night and a lone person wandering in it, you know this won't end well.

So ends our "N" randomness for this Saturday. Take your new word and use it well.

Saturday Stumblings - "H" Randomness from the Writerly World

My purple H

It's not Saturday anymore, but I did stumble around two days ago. My dern legs just wouldn't work right! Now, I'm stumbling a bit mentally working to get caught up, but I'm almost there and I'm getting things done, so I really am doing good.

Instead of my usual total randomness from the writerly world, today's random stumblings have a purpose, sort of. Today is the randomness of "H." I could be extremely creative and post random "h" words, naughty and nice, but figured I'd be nice.

How the heck do some CE's at DS justify rejecting well-written articles based on their opinion?! Another example of this came up today, as a good writer had an article rejected because the CE had never heard of something before, even though it was only mentioned once in 400 words or so and not to mention the references provided by the writer had the item the CE said essentially didn't exist, right there. How they think that what they did was right we'll never know.

High five for getting caught up! *grins* It's Monday, so if I can manage to get "I" done before midnight, I'm finally up caught up with the A to Z Challenge. It's a nice feeling. I won't slack off though because I want to get ahead, so I'll do at least two blog posts for the next few days before cutting back to just one. I've been writing this entry between DS articles.

Saturday Stumblings - Randomness From the Writerly World

Help, topfer, sxc.hu

I'm stumbling all over myself this Saturday morning, but I haven't fallen yet. I found it hard to pry my eyes open this morning, and I really hope the coffee can kick my rear into gear. I'm very busy today with some upheavals going on at home while trying to write and keep the money coming in. I've weathered worse though. I can't disappoint anyone, because I know y'all eagerly await my wit and wisdom. ;-)

Time for a bit of randomness from the writerly world. Let's start with YCN and the new Featured Contributor program. I'll admit I'm rather ticked off at their latest shenanigans. They pulled their usual, which is make it up as we go and see how many writers we can send into a panic this time! Combine a surprise slap upside the head with a deadline of three days, I think, and not everyone is happy.

The latest move is sending out test assignments for the subcategories we applied to get into. There was absolutely no mention of this at the beginning of the month. We were told to fill out the application for the main category and subs, then on April 1st we'll notify you if you made it in. A couple of days ago, up pops FC test assignments. You have to write according to the directions, of course, to even be considered for that subcategory. If they don't like it, you don't get to be an FC. You can reapply for categories 3 times a year, so if you don't "pass" you're down to two. I think you have to wait 3-4 months before you're allowed to reapply. *gets down on all fours to become the cute pooch that jumps through rings of fire* Nice image is it not?

I feel like it's unfair to keep springing these surprises on us. If you want to change it, post advance notice notice of at least two weeks YCN!! We are writers and many of us make schedules and write certain things at certain times. Throwing test assignments at us and then laughing as some of us juggle to fit it in somewhere in between other pressing deadlines isn't funny. Also the short time to write it in does not amuse anyone either.

On to DS and their freakin' references and resources format. I love them, I really do. I don't get paid as often and certainly not as well as I do there. Gardening titles are plentiful, keep 'em coming, and most CE's are awesome. Changing it from Website: Name of Page to formatting it as if we're sourcing a book sucks!! The other way was simple and easy. I've never seen such a group of confused people in my life as when it was changed, including me. Even CE's don't get it because they're mixing colons and semicolons in the refs and resources or even erasing the other info and putting it back to the old way of Website: Name of Page. Do us all a favor DS...put it back the way it was. Yet another bad move on your part, like the way you want business info inserted into articles. That particular piece of business is just ridiculous looking and stupid.

Ok, enough rants against the people I write for. I really had to get that off my chest. I'm making headway in my writing. When I need to research for DS titles, I tend to grab too much info, which causes me to have to go back before writing and take out stuff that I really don't need. It wastes time and time is money. I now repeat the title in my head as I'm looking at the info and take only the barest bones I need to fill it all in. If I can stick to it, maybe I'll get more written every day.

Speaking of wasting time, what are your bad habits as a writer? What things do you catch yourself doing that wastes writing time? We all do little things, come clean and fess up.

Saturday Stumblings - Randomness From the Writerly World

I'm stumbling around this Saturday afternoon not because of a hangover from drinking too much, but because I haven't had my coffee! That's right, you might want to back away slowly before running as if the hounds are on your heels. Oh wait, come back here. I promise not to bite. I'd like you to read these words I'm pouring onto the virtual page before you run.

Saturday is good for stumbles and for lots of randomness from the writerly world in general. It's not the whole writerly world of course, just my little section of it. It's ok, I'll try not to unleash too much craziness just because I haven't had my coffee yet. Let's get to the randomness.

YCN/AC is torturing us all by making us wait until April 1st before notifying the...who knows how many writers, if they managed to get accepted into one or more of the subcategories they applied to. I had just been accepted into the Featured Contributor program, received my very first assignments and WHAM! Two weeks later they yank it away laughing their silly heads off as I sobbed at the unfairness of it all. Alright, maybe that's a bit dramatic, but still. *whines a little* I can only hope the new program is better and will equal more money. One of my writerly goals this year is to become less dependent on DS, not more so.

Speaking of DS, certain categories it appears got a raise. I write articles for the eHow Home and Garden section only and the value of my titles went up. I feared it was a mistake and would be yanked away, but here it is a week, a little more?, and nope, still there. That kind of, sort of, makes up for what YCN did to me. Even though it's a little more money, I still want to make enough money outside DS to shore up the bottom line.

Did someone say bottom? Oh stop it, I'm not going to talk about butts on my blog. Well, I might talk about butts only as they pertain to freelance writers. For instance, we all have one. Being a freelance writer means said butts really get a good work out, or rather lack of a workout. I better stop now. Save that for another post on freelance writers, exercise or lack thereof. What was my original point? *thinks* Bottom....bottom of the barrel, no. Bottom of the tub of butter, no. Ah well, I focused on butts and forgot what I was going to write. So goes my total spastic muse this morning.

I hope this flow of words flows right through the rest of the day. I'd like to get out of this week of hell and non-productiveness. I'm tired of trying to pull words out of my head that aren't there. My muse needs to quit goofing off and get back to work. I know several writerly people whose muse's have also taken off or are on drugs that need to straighten up so we can get back to what we do best....write!