Non-Fiction

Soap operas have an audience and sometimes I wonder if I was to write down the daily events in my life, would I have a non-fiction bestseller? Maybe...real life (at least mine) is so chaotic, crazy and unreal sometimes that people would think I am either over-dramatizing or making it up. The fact is that this is it. MY LIFE. All true. All "as-is" and sometimes all I can do is sit back and just watch it unfold. I probably should be writing it all down. The last 2+ years of web content writing have not replaced a steady paycheck but who knows, maybe, just maybe turning my life into a book (or series of books) is my ticket. Stay tuned...

Starving Writers

Writing web content is not what it used to be. There was a time where you could earn a decent amount of money but due to many changes, those days are over. I always pictured a real writer as someone locked away in a room, chain-smoking and surviving on coffee. Tucked away from the world, the writer would live on his own schedule writing late into the night while others slept. I threw myself into web content writing for a while and when I was deeply into it, I wrote faithfully every day (weekends included). I became very secluded from the outside world. My "world" was online. Aside from seeing family members, I had no real contact with anyone. I didn't mind it so much. For a while it was nice to escape the real world and believe that if I wrote faithfully I would eventually earn close to what I made working out in the "real" world. That dream is over. It just isn't going to happen and now is the time to focus on another way. I feel that I have a book or two inside me so as I continue to work to pay the bills, that dream will become a part of my new focus. If there are writers out there who still are making a decent amount of money writing web content, well, good for them. Sometimes I think you have to sell a part of yourself in order to make money this way. I have written things that I am not proud of but never compromised and sold out for a buck. Writing will always be something that I need to do and will enjoy but I am not going to starve to feed that passion.

Dread

7 a.m. A load of laundry going through the wash cycle vibrates throughout the house. While I wait patiently (impatiently really) for my teenager to get out of bed I decide to see if I can write a new post to my blog. Distracting myself from the feeling of dread that is creeping up fighting to overcome me, I keep telling myself "just one more day". Funny thing is that before I started working this temporary CSR assignment I didn't have feelings of dread in the morning. I looked excitedly towards writing every day. Sometimes writing could be so addicting that it was hard to stop and take a break. Not so with my new position. I started off my morning with the normal routine of checking my email while I have my coffee. Of course there was an email from one of the "supervisors" from my job. It seems that a package was returned because the address contained symbols which made it undeliverable. A part of me wanted to respond angrily but I stopped myself. Best to just ignore it. It is not my job to ship packages, I take orders. Did no one in the shipping department notice the address had these symbols on it? Somehow it falls back to me. Honestly, on my end, I did not notice anything unusual. There probably was a glitch in the system but it is easier to place blame on the "new" person. If one package was returned, I am sure there will be more. So here I am venting through my blog about the bullsh#@ that a work-from-home call center rep deals with. This is NOT what I want to be doing. Does it make me feel better? Not really. Just one more 6 hour shift to get through before I have 2 days off from this nonsense. I will have 2 mornings where I will wake up, excited to throw myself into writing passionately about whatever strikes me at the moment. My head is swimming with ideas that I hope I can do justice. As I listen to customers complain today and field the calls of stupid questions, in my mind I will be thinking about what really fuels my passion. What it is that I really enjoy. Not many writers are able to survive financially off of their writing. Many of us have to do things for money that we rather would not do. I guess it is paying my dues but I have to learn how to not let it destroy me. One day at a time.

My Escape

Since starting a work-from-home position 11 days ago, I have had a lot of trouble trying to balance it with writing. I was forced to take a temp position as a call center rep because I just wasn't earning enough money with my writing and other self-employment projects. That depressed me greatly almost as much as how hard it has been to find employment. When I got offered this CSR position, I had to jump on it without considering what I was getting myself into. But again, I didn't have many options. For months now I have seen how other "writers" bragged about how well they are doing on this site and that. I wonder how true their claims are. It made me examine just how hard I have tried to "make it" as a web content writer. My friend Dena and I used to challenge each other to keep each other focused on treating our writing as a job and always pushing to be better and therefore, hopefully earn more views which would mean more money. Well, Dena is gone now as most of my online writing friends (and others) know. Dena dying shook me up more than I thought possible. My motivation disappeared for a while with my grief and depression. I felt lost. As many web content writers know, although you earn money from residual pay, keeping an online presence is essential to earning money. After Dena died, I slowly disappeared from the web. I wasn't writing as much or promoting or participating. Getting back into the swing of it all has been tough. It hurt my monthly income and soon I had no choice but to focus on getting a "real" job. The party was over. What I had worked so hard at for 2 years disappeared because I didn't publish daily. Maybe I am just reaching a turning point in my life...I don' t know. I know that mentally, emotionally and spiritually, I need to write. Writing is still my escape. At one time I thought maybe it would replace the paycheck that I lost nearly 3 years ago. Life got in the way and now, I have to re-examine my efforts and make a choice. I will never stop writing but maybe I will have to give up the dream of earning a living from it. Or at least being able to pay some of the bills from it. Life is always changing and in order to survive you have to learn how to roll with the changes. Maybe it is just a crossroads that I am at now. Time will tell.