Picking and Choosing

First of all, no new articles today - as though any of you rabidly scroll to the bottom of posts to find my new material. I can dream.

So, quick update: I think my student loan is out of loan limbo, however, for some reason, they say unless I pay them thirty bucks to "overnight" it, it'll take a week to get here. No, thanks. Can't they just take the thirty bucks out of the loan? No, nothing doing. I'll figure that out. There's also the issue of the check being made out to both me (yay!) and my cosigner (three hours a-way!). I'll figure that out, too. I'm a problem solver; just give me time.

I just wanted to say a quick word about turning away distasteful material. This past week, in my neverending search for gigs (it's become like an addiction, really), I was offered a job doing advertising for a very clear pyramid scheme. I mean, these people sent me to their "promotional video" aka "powerpoint slideshow to Eye of the Tiger on youtube" and at one point, they actually draw a pyramid for the viewer out of little blindfolded men. How dense can you get?

Well, apparently the pyramid scam has ruined many a life, and I didn't want to sully my karmic waters by writing a weeks' worth of really good promotions for the "Club" that offered me the position, even for $60, which I need.

Was this wise? I'm going to go ahead and say, for me, it's okay. I've got a big ole hunka loan on the way, and I'm not a fulltime freelancer yet, so I might as well only take jobs I enjoy right now.

And where I might enjoy the job I saw on Miami Craigslist (I'm not making this up) where a man was seeking to stock up his library of emails to send to beautiful women in internet dating sites - I might actually have to link this job, the guy is asking for it - anyway, where I might enjoy it, I find it morally gray.

I've read over and over again that you've really established yourself as a freelance writer once you can say no to the jobs you don't want, but I don't think that applies in my case. I'm kind of doing this backward, and once my livlihood depends on it, you might have to watch out which personals ads you respond to.

I'd like to believe, however, that I can continue to find work that follows my line of thinking. The effort should be worth it.

In other news, I'm in talks with a company about taking over their weight loss blog. That could be fun to research and maintain. I could donate magazines to waiting rooms! More news on that in the near future -

in Limbo

I made a committment recently to eat breakfast every morning until January (at which time I hope to have formed the habit). So, I come to you from a plate of baby carrots and peanut butter, which is better than it sounds, except for the fact that I have zero appetite in the AM. My natural peanut butter is melting :(.

Anyway, I thought I'd say a few words on waiting. It's a pet peeve of mine. If there's a problem or obligation I have, I tend to want to solve it immediately, check that it's solved, and move on. Lately, things have not been going this way for me.

On the writing end, eHow.com suddenly set up a screening process for their articles. Honestly, I approve of this, and was surprised they didn't do so before, but considering they hired me, you'd think they would've given me some sort of code to avoid being screened. Anyhow, my last two eHow entries won't be up until ... until they're approved by some unknown middleman.

In the money department, we have lots of Limbo going on. My student loan, which pretty much all of my livelyhood depends upon has been one of the most frustrating experiences in the history of call-center customer service. Luckily, my uncle and cosigner has been more than attentive, and has complied to the "Oh, and we also need this!" demands that seem to happen every time we think we've given the loan company everything they need.

This probably wouldn't irk me so much if I didn't need the money like yesterday, and if the faulty instructions and last minute desires of the loan didn't push back the recipt of this loan another week.

I need to pay my rent! For two months, actually. I'm way behind. I also need silly extravagances like gas and food and toilet paper. And on the actual extravagance side, I need to get my passport and my plane ticket pronto. I am going to London if it kills me.

Also, one of my clients suddenly wants a W9 and an invoice mailed to him before he pays me a measley fee for the massive pile of work I took on for him before I realized that I was short selling myself. If I had a printer (that's what I'll use the fee for, perhaps), I could just do it, but I have to drive all the way to campus to print things out, and it's a huge inconveniance. And I'm lazy. But, I suppose, in the name of money, I'll do it.

I suppose I could fax it to him, but I faxed the loan info to my Uncle from an Office Depot, and they charged me twenty effin dollars. For a fax! I understand it was a 16 page fax, but faxing uses nothing but time and a phone line. It's not like they were giving me sheets of paper. Maybe I should buy a fax machine too.

Also in Limbo are the locations for my film. My wonderful new production coordinator seems to be working on that by the hour, but she just can't force people to give her a straight answer: commit or not. I'll talk about that this week in my production blog.

Speaking of which, here are the blogs from last week -

Production Blog 3
Production Blog 4

Thanks for letting me whine.