Cats instead of Cads

Living in hell is tiresome...
Who would 'ave guessed?
So here are my cats...
Because cats are better than cads.
(But for when they get in to the cereal box.)

You can find the exact same picture of them here... So, why go?

Coincidences in Suspicion

A business of the "we have a product and we're selling to you at a discount, so hurry and sign up before you think about it" variety came in to my regular place of work. Well, of course, this business must work with a writing aggregation. Or so I discovered.

I don't generally trust any business that contracts workers for less than minimum wage,  I type from from my beloved Mac. Maybe I'm biased by the stellar treatment aformentioned businesses generally give. Probably.

So that this business just came in to my place of work proffering such exponential things as legal protection and security against identity theft is astounding--ly alarming. I soon discovered that they're also up on this website asking me (or those like me) a half-assed and bitter freelance writer to write about their "expense plans" and "legal services."

Hmm... I just drank a most terrible blend of reality and suspicion.

Swallow or Spit?

When it comes to "client instructions" there are many that make me question the DNA on the other end.

Possibly?

"We want an article about [insert esoteric job in a ghost town]." As though I know all about Sally Allison's Salon on 45th Street, featuring Whale Masks! Did I mention that job was labeled under 'literary?'

So, I don't know what's worse. The not-instructing instructions or these:

"VE VILLe CHECK EVERYZING!
TO MAKEe SURE IT IS ORIGINAL!
AND NO GRAMMAR MEZTAKES!!
VE DO NOT TOLERATEe ZAT!
FOUR BUCKS IS SO MUCH MONEY!
YOU CAN HAVE HALF A SALAD,
OR MAYBEee ONE WHOLE BIG MAC!!!" 

I needed to take a breath
to wipe the spit off me.

  

(dramatization)*

Those instructions were for a description of a teen soap opera.
I spent too much time on it.
But, at the end of the day, they took my reconstituted swill. So, they weren't that particular.

*read: I have a lot of those. Is anything real? 

Textbroker implemented a new team order feature. Honestly, I didn't think Textbroker could get worse. But then they decided to start improving their site...

Team orders supposedly match authors who have certain skills with clients who are willing to pay more for that certain skill. More often than not, you get Craigslist type scams. I.E. for the application process, a team will ask you to do all the work for free.

"Just send us a 200-600 word article of what this article would look like, and then we'll consider you."

 (I'm ashamed to admit that it took me awhile to catch on to this.

The realization was a rough one.)

Amazingly, you never hear back from them! One thing good about Textbroker was that the clients always paid you. No matter the paltry some, you got paid. It was of course necessary to rectify the situation.

Always Use Spirt Fingers!

I found it rather funny that for their instructions, my last client linked me to a third-party website that gave me tips on how to write.

I did my best...

They're Dead for a Reason

I wrote something about music today. I basically rewrote Wikipedia. The assignment didn't bother me so much, though. Assignments like those are like low tier, high school report writing. Looking something up on wiki, changing words, and adding a few thoughts. I learn something in the process and I don't feel like each word is etching a subpoena for my damnation.

It isn't like ghost writing. Ghost writing is skeevy. From all the way to the top of politicians and celebrity biographies, to the bottom, me. I'm the girl ghost writing blog posts for the person that wants to pretend they give a shit to say about Peter Jackson. Ghost writing is the talented, boil-ridden singer thrust behind the curtain so the talentless, bombshell can be center stage. And everyone is okay with it!

It's spooky.

Hopefully, keywords will go AC themselves.

I think keywords are the decline of language. Though, I suppose everybody says that about something. Last week "hopefully" instead of "I hope" was the decline of language. This is serious, though. Many clients who want "keyword rich" content don't want any language at all. The conversations go something like this (slight dramatization):

Them: "If you could just cram eight more keywords in there instead of... What the hell is that? A sentence? Yeah just cram eight more keywords in that space instead of a sentence that would be great... thanks..." 
Me: "But, but think of the syntax!

In most realities, the majority of orders are something like this:
Write 500 words describing my air conditioning business. Make sure you mention AC 400 times.
That is completely doable! That is, if the person wants their article to sound like this:
AC is AC but AC by the AC for AC AC!
It reminds me of something...