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Today I was procrastinating about writing my next article. I went into my secondary email account to clean some things up and see if anything really important had come in.

Because I wasn’t focused on what I should have been doing (or because the universe wanted me to see it, so I could pass this warning along to you), I noticed an advertising email telling me I could make money selling my articles.

I’m always on the lookout for new online (and off line) article sites, so I opened the email.  It had a link to a webpage that gave unrealistic figures for the income you can earn for writing blogs and articles. I quoted REALLY high rates for writing fiction and non-fiction short stories. This pinged the scam alert warning in my brain, but I decided to investigate further.

There was more hype about how you could work as much or as little as you wanted to make the income you chose. AND lucky me, they were having a sale!

Most of their figures were how much you could make per hour. Since no two writers work at the same pace, most projects are measured by words, pages, or complete jobs.

Also, without knowing how well someone writes, making an assumption about income possibilities is impossible.

The normal two week fee was $69. However, right now, and right now only, I could get in for only $2.95. After the two weeks, the cost was ONLY $47 per month.

Later, as I was reading email from my local RWA chapter, I saw that the same company had purchased a Google Adwords ad that showed at the top of the page of my Gmail.

I did some checking online. It seems this company had lots of writers questioning it about a year ago. It also has an affiliate program. That means if you send someone there and they sign up, you get part of the sale.

The Google search results showed an even balance of ads for the sites from the company and the affiliates, and warnings or questions from writers about the company.

Beware of companies that › Continue reading…

Voltaire said, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” Actually Voltaire said, “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.” As writers, we need to take these words to heart.

I know when I’m worrying over which font I used, and I’m spending time making sure that all the pages have exactly 25 lines, I know there’s something I’m avoiding.

Sometimes I run spell-check after spell-check and grammar check after grammar check (even though I argue with Microsoft’s grammar checker).

I have a friend who was obsessing over how the bold didn’t show in her blog when viewed with the Firefox browser. No one ever left a blog never to return because there wasn’t any bold.

I can spend a whole day checking out blog themes, down loading blog themes, uploading blog themes to my hosting account, and then editing them when they don’t look right. Does this get any posts written? Does this move my career forward? Can I tell myself I’m being productive?

When we send our words out in the world, we are putting ourselves on view for anyone who reads them. That takes a lot of courage.

We all know how the gremlins put in the typos the minute we hit send or drop our packet in the mailbox. This is the way writing is.

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While I was attending RWA’s National Conference in San Francisco, the Outreach Chapter planned a wonderful nighttime tour of Alcatraz. The prison closed in 1963, but parts of it have been restored.

There is a walking tour and other interpretive programs. I regret that didn’t have more time to explore and learn. I’ll definitely go back and schedule a longer visit. I’m sure I wasn’t the only writer who look at the cells and thought, “What a wonderful place to write!” Those small cells certainly would provide an interruption-free place to write. prescription levitra border=”0″ /> Of course, without the interaction and distraction of our busy lives, we might run out of things to write.

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