copious drivel

I saw an ad posted today - man, i love craigslist - for someone to write copious drivel. They sure nailed it. So much of what I write these days is just filler, intended to support the keywords that will attract the search engines that will in turn attract the people. I think of it as jello holding up the fruit. The fruit is the good part; the jello is just a suspension. It may be enjoyable (cherry), or it may be innocuous (lemon), but it really isn't the point.

Of course, my thoughts now go to the jello salad recipe and jello mold ads that will invariably appear in my blogads...

A vacation from writing

I am currently on a trip - I hesitate to call it a vacation - and taking a break from most of my writing. Why isn't it a vacation? Well, I can't help thinking that vacations involve foreign places, exploration... or sultry beaches and cabana boys serving frosty drinks.

I am in Iowa.

My dad lives here, and having lived here myself a couple times I have old friends to visit and catch up with. They want to see my daughter, eye my hubby and generally get updated on the gossip and news. It is pleasant, low-key, enjoyable. But, not exactly a vacation.

One reason it *is* a vacation, is I have not written anything, save a couple of email in 5 days. I actually had some delusions about doing some fiction writing, but we've been keeping pretty busy. And, I made a vow to take a break from the content thing.

Usually, since I am also a SAHM, I do a lot of my work on evenings and weekends -- the times when other working folks are taking a break from their workday. Except of course for other moms I know who are doing laundry, dishes, baking cupcakes for preschool and otherwise tearing their hair out.

I think this is the longest I've gone without writing for pay in about a year and a half. Feels a bit funny. I'll be back to it on Thursday, though.

Keyword erotica

It had never occured to me until someone asked me to bid on it. I do A lot of different kinds of writing, including a little technical writing. Mostly these days I write a lot of web and keyword content, and I also dabble in erotica writing.

I was asked to bid on a project to create keyword optimized erotica. It makes sense. There are certainly myriad "pleasure" products for sale on the web, so it only makes sense that erotica would be used to sell them, or at least to attract people to a site that has links to sites that sell them. But, somehow it had never crossed my mind before.

I haven't heard back on the bid. Maybe I came in too high, but it will be interesting to see what kind of trend this becomes in the keyword realm. And, maybe I should start my own keyword optimized erotica site.

Diagnosis: Google Adsense OCD

Does anyone else suffer from this? Some days I think I might have google adsense obsessive compulsive disorder.

You know who you are. You sit down at your computer and you are compelled to see if you've earned any revenue from your web pages.

You log into adsense and you check the reports. You re-sort the results by channels. You look at your monthly and all-time totals. You ponder how to get more people to click.

You take a deep breath. You move on with your day. But you know you'll be back soon.

Sleep v. Writing

It is an eternal battle in my life. Most days I have to decide whether to get enough sleep or to write. I put my toddler down for her nap and it starts. I sit at my computer, catching up on my email and gearing up to blog, write an article or work on another writing project. I try to ignore my heavy lids and the yawns that well in the back of my throat.

Some days, I give in. I crawl into my bed -- the bed that coaxes and beckons seductively from the room down the hall from my home office -- and take a nap. Other days, I continue to fight, hoping the things I write when I'd rather be sleeping will be worthwhile.

Of course, on the days I do nap, I invariably stay up late working. That, in turn makes me tired by the next afternoon and I crave a nap. The irony of that pattern does not escape me, but I seem helpless to do anything about it. When I have the time and the muse strikes, I need to write.

New sites

I have recently finished design and web content creation for 2 new websites:

A local chapter of habitat for humanity: www.habitatsfscv.org

and

a content site devoted to information and resources regarding the dangerous trans fats in our foods: www.transfatfree.com. I am still writing articles, adding products and recipes to the site, but the basics are all there.

It has been fun writing articles and creating content where I have a lot of latitude. I have one more site planned for showcasing my own content... just need to find the time.

Writing vs. the rest of my life

I love to write.

I have always loved writing and even when I was working in other careers, it was an important facet of my responsibilities. I have always been a prolific correspondent, one of the few I know who really sends letters to people or long, newsy emails.

Motherhood gave me a chance to spend more time on my writing. Inspired to find ways to earn money while remaining a stay-at-home-mom, I used my writing to look for ways to supplement our income. First, I put the word out with people with whom I'd previously worked and landed some technical writing. Regular searches of craigslist, as well as some other contacts provided some web content writing opportunities. The more I wrote, I became more confident and wrote more. I submitted magazine queries and replied to calls for submissions.

Today, I am reasonably well-published and have about as much work as my schedule can handle, albeit work that doesn't pay quite as much as I'd like. Regardless, I enjoy writing and love the flexibility of schedule and context it offers. I like being home and working in a comfortable environment. I like the ability to earn some money, in a customized way.

I also love being a mother. I enjoy being with my daughter and spending time with her. However, sometimes the unrelenting nature of motherhood overwhelms me. On the occasions when I try to write when my daughter is awake... whether she is playing or planted in front of a princess movie, often I feel guilty I am not focused on her. When I am with her, sometimes my mind wanders to my writing. I always seem to be elsewhere, no matter where I am.

Most of the writing I actually do is non-fiction. I write articles and content for websites, articles for magazines... But, when I write in my head, it is always fiction. I have stories to tell. Unfortunately, the immediate returns of writing articles, or the reasonably quick returns of posting content to my own site and placing ads usually trumps my ability to sit and write fiction that I may eventually sell. Or not. That or not scares me. I hate queries even more than I hate rejection. I don't enjoy that feeling of putting myself out there, naked and splayed, pleading with a publisher to pay me for my soul.

I don't mind article queries. They are business propositions, simple correspondence to see if they want to buy what I have to offer. A rejection simply means my key didn't fit. But fiction is so much more personal.

So, I keep using my "free" time, cranking out the things that pay, the things that coincidentally don't scare me to submit. But, in my fantasy life I think about the things I want to write. I imagine myself with hours or days of uninterrupted writing time, with no concern for finance, or feeding a toddler, or grocery shopping or laundry, or articles due or the so many other parts of my life that fill my days.

Someday, I will find the freedom - hopefully, I will have the courage to do something with it.

Cyberworder

I spend more and more of my time as a writer in the cyberworld... creating cyberwords. Consequently, I think of myself more and more as a cyberwordsmith, a cyberwordgirl and a few other things.

So, I asked myself, what encompasses all of those things *and* doesn't elicit a million Google hits since I think my little niche is somewhat unique. I hereby present to you:

Cyberworder

An ongoing personal essay on the life of a mildly crazed freelance writer, full-time mom, hair-ball-cleaner-upper, wife, web designer, driver, content creator, key word spewer, search engine optimizer, google addict, daughter and field trip chaperone.