Milestone Post -- #500!

What a rush! I've posted 500 times on this blog! Quite the milestone.

I started this blog in late February last year (Feb 28th, I think), so 500 posts isn't far off from a posting per day, seven days a week. What a blabberfingers I am!

A recruiter from Santa Cruz called me last week about a one month job in Bellevue (37 miles away, east of Seattle) that pays $35-40 an hour. Needless to say, I agreed that he could submit my name and resume for the position! And World Vision is considering me again as a copywriter, last I heard from another recruiter. All good news!

I broke $1K writing for Elance this past week. (I mean $1K total, since I started, not $1K in a week.) So that's another milestone. I bought some business cards, a car sign and some post cards to advertise myself in this area, letting people know I'm local and available via Elance for projects. (All my clients so far have been far flung -- from across the country, or England.)

I completed my fourth project for Talentainer.com (check out the site http://www.talentainer.com/ -- I'm the wordsmith there) last week. I've had repeat business from three of the 10 people I've written for -- and promises from the others that when they need someone again, they'll ask for me. 100% positive reviews. It's been just fantastic -- and lots of fun!

At Elance, I get to pick which projects to bid on and write for, so my enthusiasm for each and every one is unparallelled. It's a sad fact of copywriter life that copywriters often have to manufacture enthusiasm for products or services they have no passion for or experience with so they can pass that "passion to purchase" to a reader (or hearer) of the message. Needless to say, having me write passionately about nuts, screws and bolts does not come naturally to me, where it well might to a contractor dude or dudette. (About the only time I can imagine being passionately creative about the above topic would be as a headline about a psychiatric patient who raped someone and fled: "Nut Screws and Bolts." (Sorry, couldn't resist.) But then, spas and massages aren't a passion of mine (never having been to one) but I can put myself into the mindset of a stressed out, hard-working executive who needs a break with every ounce of his or her soul, and write to that need. I can write to lots of wants and needs, even when I don't have them, since I'm very empathetic and a bit of a chameleon by nature. I can understand why a contractor or building specialties company would be passionate about nails and screws: each one does the job a little bit differently, in a different kind of medium (maple, pine, mahogany, cement, you name it) so knowing the product and what problem it solves is vital. ("The right tool for the right job!") Same with paint brushes.

Speaking of paint brushes... I must've spent thirty hours painting the past few days. I got up two mornings ago and my hands felt arthritic -- my fists seemed "permanently clamped" around an imaginary paint brush or the painting pole that I used to reach higher places (after I ascended and descended a ladder so many times that my knees told me "No more, kiddo."). I'm fine now, but eegads, it was quite an experience to find myself so sore and cramped for several long minutes after I awoke that morning!

Jamie Lee (my grandniece), age four, is out in our back yard starting her soccer lessons right now. Gotta go see! Gotta take some photos. They grow soooo fast!

Ciao for now!