Bad White Trash Memories

Posting today from the lovely Greenville, South Carolina!

I'm no stranger to working from the road. In fact, I've already logged into my work account and responded to some emails, etc, but since I'm trying to establish habits and whatnot, I'm here updating the blog as well.

I checked all the freelance writer listings this morning- most boards don't update on the weekends, but I did learn something. I found a job I wanted to apply for on craigslist, but couldn't because, of course, I need to submit writing samples and my resume, neither of which I have on this laptop. Bummer. I guess that's an argument for setting up a website/online portfolio sooner rather than later.

I'm a little bit nervous about doing that though. This business seems rife with plagiarism and fraud and since so much online writing is non-credited, what's to stop someone as claiming any old website as something that they wrote?

It's also interesting how often I see in freelance writing communities people that can't really speak English applying for jobs.

I'm also noticing the controversy surrounding price setting. Many people offer payments like $5 for 500 words for simple articles. At first, I was snatching these up, thinking that it was better than nothing, but now I'm beginning to understand why you shouldn't do that. Basically, you're undervaluing yourself and the writing community, in general. I mean, how many $5 articles would I have to write to support myself? I don't know. Can't do math. I'm a writer. But a lot. Doing this kind of work did give me some experience and some writing samples, but I think I'm done with this type work. If all writers stop accepting these type payments, especially good writers, then the increased demand will drive the cost up, right? You've got to manipulate the market a little bit. Plus, my time is worth more.