Black And White

Obamamania continues to crash the gates. First it was will he or won't he? Then it was 'Hillary will trash him and if she doesn't, the Repuclicans will'. Next it was 'Obama isn't black enough' - With Biden adding fuel to the fire. Now we're on to Stage II - Media's going hyper on Obama and Abe Lincoln.

Such is the power of symbolism. Obama makes a speech from Springfield, and writers are tripping over themselves writing about what 'Obama has to do to live upto Lincoln' and how 'Obama can't hold a candle to Abe'. What these writers don't realize is that every additional mention of Obama and Lincoln in the same breath takes the Obama camp even closer to their desired result, and solidifies the image association in the minds of their numerous readership.

Let's go back one stage. All the articles about Obama not being black enough? What effect did they have? Reminded the audience that Obama, is indeeed, not white. And if he ain't black, what the heck is he? Black and white. White as in what people look for in a white caucasian male President. Black as in the color of his skin. But this isn't about something skin-deep, or a question of percieved impressions.

Thing is, Lincoln fought for, and gambled everything on, a fight for liberty - On behalf of freedom. He's in the history books today because he won. So can we call Abe the 1st Black President, Bubba the 2nd one and Obama the 3rd? Because end of the day, Obama's blackness, and his Lincolnness, will be measured not against his oratory. It won't be measured against a big pile of bills which he pushes through Congress. It will be measured against what he does to fight for and win, whether it be against an external enemy or the rot inside America. Black and white is fine by me, but what I'd like, more than Obama becoming a President, is for Obama to enter the history books.

Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen. He is destiny's child. But he's got a vital flaw. He does not gamble. And I don't mean in Vegas. If you ever watched a Mika Hakkinen vs. Schumaker F1 race, you'll know what I mean. Hakkinen would gamble all his chips on a stroke of genius or daring, believing in himself, while Schumaker just concentrated, race after race, on the efficiency of his car and his crew. That edge that Hakkinen had over Schumaker, sad to say - But Obama does not have it. I don't know if you can acquire such an edge, but here's hoping that Obama goes from being Black and White to being a gambler....

Oh yes. One more question. Has anyone asked Obama what he plans to do if he ends up losing?

Freelance Workers - Exploited and Stupid

Question time. Do minimum wage laws apply to freelance gigs? Nope. Why not? Stupid question. It's free market enterprise at it's worst - And best. Worst because it screws everyone, white or black, male or female, out of anything resembling a decent wage. Best because the online freelance market makes no differentiation based on the color of your skin or sex or any of the other factors normally applicable in a job market.

So here's a suggestion for the powers-that-be on Craigslist and other online job markets. Implement a minimum wage structure before it's forced on you. Make it mandatory for employers to pay a minimum level of pay. And if you want to argue about free enterprise or fiddling with market forces, I refer you to the minimum wage bill, which, after having cruised through the House, is now scheduled for debate in the U.S. Senate.

Craigslist has always been a trailblazing center for online entrepreneurs. I would like to see them kick off something like a minimum wage model for online workers, which could then spread across the internet.

You can poke your head into a hole in the sand and pretend that nothing's happening, but nothing can stop an idea whose time has come. And the time to implement an online minimum wage model is now.

Words That Work, by Frank Luntz

Following up on yesterday's 'Old rules for new writers', today we have 'Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear', from Republican pollster Frank Luntz.

Interestingly, I bumped into this book right after I read Robert Novak's column about how the Republican leadership has ostracized Luntz for ringing warning bells before the 2006 elections. Uh...Make that warning bells for the past decade.
"When Luntz in October 2005 publicly warned of rejection by voters in 2006, he was forced to deliver an abject apology before he could speak at a retreat of House Republicans held at the Library of Congress. After seven straight years on the program, Luntz was kept off last week's 2007 session at Cambridge, Md., by Boehner."

What's all the intra-party politics got to do with writing, or writers? Uh...Nothing much, so let's get to the point. Point is, look at the friggin title of the book 'Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear'. Right. So what's inside the book? Putting it simply, it's a must read - For every active political conservative....Meaning that what Luntz says, and what his audience is hearing, are two different things. He says that his book is meant for both sides of the aisle, and will help people put their words more succintly. What people are hearing is some more gospel for the right wing.

One would think that, by now, Frank Luntz would have conducted a poll to find out that people are not hearing what he intended to say. Or maybe the book says exactly what he wanted, and people are hearing exactly what he intended to say. In which case he's a liar or a hypocrite. Either way, he's toast.

Old Rules For New Writers

Stephen Wilbers, writing for the Star Tribune, Minnesota, laments the loss of a proper education for would-be writers. And he's right. Being magnificiently illiterate, I have to marvel at the great article he's put together.
"There are four rhetorical sentence types: periodic, loose, balanced (or parallel) and antithetical. If you know those sentence types and when to use them, you are more likely to write with clarity, emphasis and style. If you don't know them, you might get lucky now and then, but you are less likely to create the desired effect dependably."

If you want to know more, go read the whole piece. Or you can click here. Or here. Or here. On the other hand, to learn why a happy scribbler should be blissfully unaware of sentence structures, click here.

According to the ContraCosta Times, "Freelance videographer and blogger Josh Wolf became a full-fledged media martyr Tuesday, surpassing the U.S. record for most time spent in jail by a journalist who refused to comply with a subpoena...".
I'm sure Judith Miller, formerly Miss Run-Amok at the NYT, now a freelance journalist, must be tearing her hair apart...

And Manufacturing Talk says that "More and more people are opting to live the life of a freelance worker as businesses choose to 'flex' their skills needs...self-employment at a 10-year high, at 13.1% of the working population - a total of 3.8 million people"
Maybe more and more people are simply not able to land a regular job, and so they end up as freelancers. It's better than starving, but not by much. Just a teeny-weeny difference...So maybe just before you fall asleep tonight, think about why you wanted to be a freelancer.

Freelance Jobs 5th Feb

Here's today's freelance jobs:

Resume writers wanted. ( $80 to $100 per project )

Mortgage writers who can do a bit of research wanted. $40 per.

Wanted one creative ghostwriter. Christian writer preferred. Preferably undernourished. ( Alright. Alright. I made that one up. )

Ever been to Paris? Want to write about it? And get paid? $50 per.

Uh...Are you a business writer? There's two banks duking it out, and someone wants to do a hit piece on both of them. $600 only.

Renaissance magazine wants freelance writers to write something like this - "Hollywood or Bust! A mini-guide to relocating to Hollywood on a budget,where to live, work, eat and hang."
Muahhhaa! Ack! Cough-Cough! Sorry. Let's move on to the next job....

Got any previous experience with writing online coursework? Someone needs a freelancer to give their course material a bit of polish.

Transcriptionist needed to transcripe audio to ms-Word using express scribe. This is the kind of gig I'm looking for, tell you the truth. Unfortunately, every poster seems to want someone who's 'been there, done that'....

Tech / Gadget blogger wanted. $200 per month. This is a great gig. If you can get it.

Women's mag looking for a columnist to bloviate on stuff like marriage, troubles with in-laws, cheating boyfriends, throwing the perfect party....

Web content writers wanted.

Pundit blogger wanted. They want someone to take down Washington politicians and blowhards. Where do I sign up?

A million writers wanted for a million penguins

This 'wiki' thing is going a bit too far. Granted, it's a brilliant piece of software, which maximises the output of a collaborative effort. But can it be applied to writing? I mean, people buy a Harry Potter book because it's written by J.K. Rowling. Would you buy the eighth Harry Potter book if it was written on a Potter fan site modelled after wikipedia? And how would it compare to the previous seven by Rowling? I have no friggin clue, but the Penguin publishing house is about to find out.

A million writers wanted for "A Million Penguins"
"'Wiki' software, the force behind online encyclopedia wikipedia.com, will allow budding writers to write pieces of fiction together from all around the world.
The publisher says the goal of the software is to see if strangers can create a piece of legitimate piece of fiction together."

Go figure!

Obamamania is in full swing. The Weekly Standard, has a magnificient book review or reviews ( since it's a tale of the rise and fall of Obama as a writer between his two books ), by Andrew Ferguson. I would, under normal circumstances, avoid linking to something which belongs to Bill Kristol. But this one is different. It's poignant. It's a naked plea. A plaintive call for Obama ( The writer ) not to be buried under the weight of Obama ( The politician ).

"Has there ever been a better display of the destructive effects--the miniaturizing effects--of professional politics? For the only thing that separates the writer of the one book from the writer of the other is ten years of life as a politician..."

Generally, when I read the first few lines of an article, I know exactly where it's heading. But somewhere mid-way through the 2nd page is where this book review grabs you by the scruff of your neck and gives you a powerful jolt of the electricity which is more commonly known as 'Obamamania'. To Washington, Obama is a politician. To Andrew Ferguson, he's a writer. Now you know what that this means. "People had a way of hearing what they wanted in Mr. Obama’s words..."

In other news, Darren Zenko, writing for The Star, CA, relates a tale of reality TV, where he meets his wife. "When the clock coughed up those final minutes, the manuscripts had been handed in, the champagne had been poured and our stretched-tight psyches snapped back and launched us back into the world, we dropped back to earth on the 200-count sheets of a double in the nearby Delta, falling impossibly in love."

Ack! Tell you the truth, half-way through the piece, I kind of lost the plot. I'm still trying to figure out what's reality, what's TV and what's the story. But never mind, so long as he's a writer who went to a reality show for writers, met his future wife there, ended up in bed with her and he's now happily married to her. And all's well that ends well.

A delightful take on writers writing by Andrea Doty, writing for the Kingston Reporter. "Their creative inner writers were bursting forth, while mine was shrinking further into oblivion, contemplating a plot dominated by me curling up in bed beneath layers of down duvets, sipping a hot toddy to the sounds of my rhythmically purring kitties..."

Read the full piece. Instant cure for writers block. Guaranteed.

Freelance Jobs 2nd Feb

This you need to read, if you came here looking for freelance jobs. "Use a little common sense when looking for writing work, and don't think you have to accept whatever posters are offering. Set your rate and stick to it. Emphasize that you offer quality work at a fair price. Clients who bargain don't necessarily have bad intentions; they just don't want to pay more than they have to, and you can't really blame them for that. If one writer throws out one quote and another specifies an amount that's three times higher, of course the client is going to focus on the numbers."

Without further ado, here's the jobs:

Let's start small. $2 for one article. If you want it...

This gig doesn't pay squat, but I'm still listing it, beacuse the words 'Al Gore' and 'Presidential Campaign' are written all over it. If you want to end up as a foot-soldier for Al Gore, this one's for you.

Political blogger? Got blog? Got visitors? Want $200 / week?

Ghostwriter for blog wanted. I did fire away an email, but nothing yet...

Designer handbag bloggers wanted. Whatever...So long as they don't ask you to go around hunting crocs in Florida...

TV addict? Here's the perfect gig for you.

Gossip reporters (paid). This gig is right up my alley. In fact, I just fired off an email. You know, what I really want to do is opposition research for political campaigns.....Sigh! Well, never hurts to dream, huh?

Freelance press release writer wanted.

Are you a ghostwriter? Seriously? Not just a wannabe? Then you need an agent...

I wanted to make a seperate post for discussing foot-in-mouth serial plagiarist Joe Biden's articulate comments. Unfortunately, this is not a political blog, and I don't have the time to maintain two blogs, so this brief comment will have to do. It started off with a ruckus over 'clean', but it's gradually shifting over to 'articulate'. I predict that this is not the end of the fall-out. Neither for Biden, nor for Obama. It's going to drag on and on until the MSM squeeze every last drop of life out of Biden's campaign.....

Telecommuting Meet Career Advancement

Brian Reid, a.k.a RebelDad, writing for the WashingtonPost about this survey, asks a couple of good questions. "So if this is an arrangement that could work for so many, why the conviction that telecommuting is a career-imperiling choice? Is this just a matter of changing attitudes, or is there some hidden truth to the anti-telecommuter argument?"

I guess it depends on your definition of what a career is. If you're a writer, or columnist, and you get to work from home, are you going to be able to go up the food chain and become an editor if you still stay at home? Publishers expect their editors to report to the office and make sure that everything's hunky-dory. Let's say that you and one of your co-writers, who continues to commute everyday, both apply for an editorial position. All other things being equal, who's the one with a better chance of being promoted?

Your job definition may be to perform a set of particular tasks, but there are some things which you necessarily have to prove you can do, before you get promoted. One of them being the ability to take care of stuff which falls above your pay grade. That is something which you can't do or generally won't do, if you're sitting in your mom's basement. I mean, a telecommuter's notion of a job is to complete assignments. You have no idea what's going on, or what problems who is facing in the office. How are you supposed to help out if you have no idea that something needs to be done, which is not being done, and which you can do.

End of the day, a telecommuter's future prospects are limited because you do not take the time to listen to your boss. Listening might involve being at the receiving end of a tantrum, offering support over personal problems or just offering to help out with something. This is something which a telecommuter is unlikely to do. So, if you're a writer, a writer you will remain. Unless you develop a close working relationship with your immediate boss and your co-workers, which enables you to tackle all the above mentioned points, in your pyjamas.

So now you what you need to be, in addition to being a telecommuter, if you expect to get that raise....An agony aunt.

Browser's Wrist

What happens when you spend too much time typing in front of your computer? Your wrist gives up on you. I'm typing with my left hand, and it' a pain in the ...wrist. So if you wandered in here looking for some freelance jobs that aren't stale and a week old, you can curse my wrist. I've been doing the same since yesterday. And I have a deadline for 4 articles by Sunday....

Anna Quindlen - Uber WAHM

Anna Quindlen's biography in brief:

• 1981-1994 - New York Times Columnist and Op-Ed writer.
  
• 1992 - Pulitzer Prize for commentary.
  
• Author of 4 best selling novels Object Lessons, One True Thing, Black and Blue and Blessings.
  
• Another book A Short Guide to A Happy Life has sold more than a million copies.

And she ain't done yet. She's still a prolific scribbler. But that's not why I zeroed in on her. Any one of the above listed achievements would be enough to make her a success story. I mean, how many work at home moms you know are columnists for the NYT or Newsweek? And how many of you have sold over a million copies of your book? And any talk about a Pulitzer would be a pipedream.

But is this enough for Anna Quindlen? Nope. She wants to deliver some more, and she's does it. In spades. Everyday, for the past two weeks, I've read at least 5 columns about the 2008 Presidential elections. What's McCain doing, what's Hillary not doing, what Obama should be doing, and what the heck is Biden doing?

Today I bumped into the first truly sensible column focusing on the wannabe Presidents. And the writer is one Anna Quindlen, writing for Newsweek.
"As winter turns to summer, Iowa to New Hampshire, candidates to nominees, many myths could be dispelled, or harden into the stuff of conventional wisdom....

Print and broadcast are full of pundits, most rooted deep in the Metroliner nexus of Washington and New York, who are asked to say what it all means."

What's impressive is that inspite of being trapped in the ivory tower amongst the NYT and Washington bloviators, in spite of being a best-selling author, she's prefectly attuned to reality. I'd like to see her debate Hillary....

Man Of Letters

Are you a script writer? Maybe a non-fiction writer? Novelist? Essay writer? Copywriter? Uh...Blogger? Why do you have to be any one of these? Can't you just be a writer?

This is British writer Jonathan Raban's main gripe against the new century, as told by Anna Mundow, writing for The Boston Globe.

He seems to take particular joy in being a 'man of letters'. Well, I looked it up a bit, and it seems that it's meant to refer to anyone who doesn't want to ( at the risk of sounding like John Kerry ) end up as a grunt in Iraq.

But I do get the point. Writing is not like building a furnace or assembling a microchip. There's no defined methodology. If anything, writers are rewarded for breaking the mold. So today you have the urge to respond to the latest thesis on middle east politics and neocon principles, put out by the Council on Foreign Relations. Tomorrow you may have the urge to write about spaceage ninja turtles. End of the day, you're still a writer.

Self Publishing - In Vain or Vanity?

Ambrose Musiyiwa, writing for BlogCritics, writes about the future and the realities of self-publishing. The grey line between POD and vanity publishers, readers' response to self-published books and comments from self-published writers. Makes for some great reading.

"Irving Karchmar says, "It can be done! It just takes work, like anything else in life."

Writers who are contemplating self-publishing need to investigate the industry thoroughly and make sure their work has been sufficiently edited and critiqued before they take it to the printers. They should also be prepared to market and promote their books aggressively."

See ' Print On demand - Free ' if you want some more information about POD publishers.

Suggested course of action:
1. Write book.
2. Post an ad on Craigslist that you need a pro editor to go through your book with a toothcomb.
3. POD
4. Promote

The dificult parts are 1 & 4. And I can't help you with either. Well, maybe a little bit with 4. Promoting a book is nowadays more of a science than an art. Just check if you're doing it all. Flooding book reviewers online with emails touting your book. Even a ratio of 1:10 will get you a huge number of reviews. Youtube video promos. Do it the old-fashioned way. Word-of-mouth.

End of the day, if your book is good, you have a good chance of hitting the mark. But it is true that with a crush of self-published books hitting the market, it will take time to weed out the trash from well,...your trash.

Freelance Jobs 27th Jan

The focus of the previous post was how people are making money off wikipedia. Well, here you go: Grant Writer needed for Wikipedia documentary.

Freelance copywriter wanted.

Web content writers wanted.

Looking for a ghostwriter.

Work at home, surf the web, google to your hearts content, do a teeny-weeny amount of research and get paid for it.

SEO article writers wanted.

Some more web content writers wanted.

Writers wanted.

Pay per post gig for bloggers. More like pay per article, but what the heck...

In other news, NYPost Page Six blacksheep Jared Paul Stern was told he would not be facing charges for supposedly demanding payment in return for favorable coverage. And journalists in China are supposedly on a blackmailing spree. The business, it seems, is so lucrative, that people are posing as journalists, just to be able to squeeze some money out of some hapless evil personality.

One, we can conclude that this is not a good time to be a high-profile white collar criminal. Second, a lot more people are going to want to become journalists. Before, the only reward was the joy of bringing the truth out into the open. Now, it seems, journalism is a really rewarding profession...

Have Cash - Will Pay For Wikipedia Writeup

If there's anything John Kerry and Microsoft have in common, other than bundles of cash lying around, it is a tendency to shove their own feet solidly into their own mouths. The latest online smackdown? Microsoft offers cash to a blogger, Rick Jelliffe, to edit wikipedia entries. End result? No edits, but a new entry in wikipedia, which says that Microsoft offered cash to Rick Jelliffe.

AP writer Brian Bergstein asks a stupid question "Should Wikipedia writers be paid?" Of course, they shouldn't be paid. Can you make money as a wikipedia writer? Another stupid question. Of course you can. Isn't there something wrong here? Stop being dense, huh? This is the real world.

If it's good, people start looking for ways to make money off it. It's called the support or service industry. Same as adwords consultants and ebay consultants, there's bound to be 'wikipedia' consultants. Debating if it's right or wrong is all fine, but just like with the US congress, reality is far ahead. Wikipedia is no longer an innocent virgin, but digital real-estate soiled by massive egos and a hint of over-reaching. Their arrogance is breath-taking. 'We can do no wrong because we are the voice of the people.'

Far as I'm concerned, wikipedia is a great help for getting all your information on one page, instead of googling it and looking up a hundred pages. But it's by no means indispensable. Dmoz is lying in ruins today. Tomorrow, someone else will come up with a brighter model, and wikipedia will be toast, not toast of the year.

Mini Freelance Jobs Post

Wanted to do some political steam venting, but just to stay on topic, before I start unloading, here's a few jobs:

A Non-American charity is looking for a writer who can pull at heart-strings ( and purse-strings ). In short, a grant writer for a con job.

Wanted blogger, who spends all his time behind a wheel, parenting. If you do that, and you still have time to search for, find, apply and work on a blogging gig, go for it.

Freelance writers wanted for entertainment industry mag. Most likely you'll have to be a paparazzi disguised as a freelance writer.

Data entry gig.

Non-US citizen living in the U.S.A.? This writing gig is for you.

Virtual assistant wanted to answer calls and schedule appointments.

Wnat to have people slam the phone down in your ear? Telecommuting, work from home, juicy, pay per call, uh....marketing position available.

Just one more. Hypnotherapist wants a telecommuting home based personal assistant to make and take calls. Should be fine, so long as he doesn't start practising on you....

That's it. I wanted to unload about the Iraq war, Army Lt. Gen. David H . Petraeus, Scooter Libby and scapegoats, but I guess you get the point, so I'll leave it at that.

Health Plans For Freelance Contractors

Time's Joe Klein says that he bought health insurance on his own. "Sorry, but I did, during two extended and pretty painful periods--as a free-lancer in the early 1980s and as a New Yorker staff writer--yes, the venerable old mag doesn't bestow health insurance on its writers--in the 1990s. It was ridiculously expensive, with limited coverage--group plans like Time-Warner's have a lot more benefits--and a mind-numbing, ultra-skeptical bureaucracy."

So is there a special health plan for 'freelancers'? I mean, there should be. There's a health plan tailor made to con just about everything and everyone. Here you go:

1. Flexible health freelance - What is it?
2. Health insurance coverage options for contractors
3. The necessity of health insurance for freelancers and the self-employed
4. Health insurance for freelancers

And here's what Medicaid has to say about freelancers in the media:

"Representative of the news media means a person actively gathering information for an entity organized and operated to publish or broadcast news to the public. News media entities include television and radio broadcasters. publishers of periodicals who distribute their products to the general public or who make their products available for purchase or subscription by the general public, and entities that may disseminate news through other media (e.g.. electronic dissemination of text). We will treat freelance journalists as representatives of a new media entity if they can show a likelihood of publication through such an entity. A publication contract is such a basis, and the requester's past publication record may show such a basis..."

So....Let's say you want to be treated as a journalist rather than a freelancer. You know what to do, right? Cough up a couple of past contract agreements, get letters from a few prospective publishers and you're no longer an outcast freelancer. You're a new-media journalist.

Leszek Kolakowski

It takes great courage to write what you truly believe. It takes an extraordinary writer to inspire others to believe. Leszek Kolakowski, polish writer, carrying the torch of freedom, has been gifted with both courage and inspiring prose.

"Kolakowski's copious works include The Priest and the Jester (1959), a collection of essays that criticize all orthodoxy and dogmatism, and Towards a Marxist Humanism (1970), in which he stresses human freedom of thought and choice as essential to life." - The Jerusalem Post

Leszek Kolakowski ( born 23 October 1927 in Radom, Poland ) is a Polish philosopher and historian of ideas. Kolakowski on religion and the meaning of life, "A hypothetical world from which the sacred had been swept away would admit of only two possibilities: vain fantasy that recognizes itself as such, or immediate satisfaction which exhausts itself. It would leave only the choice proposed by Baudelaire, between lovers of prostitutes and lovers of clouds: those who know only the satisfactions of the moment and are therefore contemptible, and those who lose themselves in otiose imaginings, and are therefore contemptible. Everything is then contemptible, and there is no more to be said" - Wikipedia

Tells you that he's more of a philosopher than a writer or social activist. That is what lies at the core of his strength and character. He's got his sticky fingers on one hand dipping deep into the abstract, from which flow his conviction, his faith and his love of the individual and freedom. And all this while the fingers on his other hand are busy noting down the flow of history and the surrounding reality.

The result is a writer whose work is a fine blend of real-world problems, with a bedrock of unshakable faith and respect for the individual. Which is why Leszek Kolakowski was awarded The Jerusalem Prize. He is also the winner of the first John W. Kluge Prize from The Library of Congress for 'Lifetime Achievement in the Human Sciences'.

Recommended Reading

Perks and drawbacks of becoming a freelance copywriter, By Mario Churchill
"Freelancers are their own time-keepers, the best advantage they have over the ones tied inside a cubicle..."

Serial freelance contracts don't benefit anybody, By Jeremy Sice
"Unfortunately, permanent middle and senior designers are becoming a rare breed as swarms of freelances fly around."

Art Buchwald - A Jew, a writer, a celebrity and a mensch, By Dov Burt Levy
"At the end of the talk I knew for sure that this man, beside doing his work well, loved and enjoyed it."

Who would want a writer for a brother? By A N Wilson
"Not all writers are pleasant. Many would have echoed A L Rowse, who was rightly beaten for shouting, aged five, 'You're all fools, and I'm not' to his working-class brothers."

Notes from north of the border, By Times Online, UK
"Writers and musicians have always been drawn to each other’s disciplines. The latter have repeatedly found inspiration in literature, just as authors have drawn on music to influence their own work."

Freelance Jobs 21st Jan

A recent ad asking for a writer in Craigslist said "Even if you're not published, you need to have passion". How do you inject passion into a 'howto' for reducing credit debt? Because that's the kind of article requests I get.

Well, you could take inspiration from the mystery visitor who leaves "a half-empty bottle of cognac and three red roses at the grave on Poe's birthday".

Anyway, here's today's freelance jobs:

If you're unpublished, but the passion's bubbling out of your nose, this gig is for you.

Got delusions of grandeur? Well, here's your one and only chance to get paid for it, unless you happen to be a member of the US senate.

SEO guys who blog wanted. Or Bloggers who can do SEO. I think.

Someone wants you to litter the internet with traces of their product. Forum and message board poster wanted.

Some more buzz marketers wanted. Well, I prefer that to ' swarm of locusts', which is what I heard one bunch of forum posters referred to as, by the regulars of the forum.

Wanted a humor writer for sketches.

Get paid to blog. $5 per post.

Web content writer wanted. Small pay, bulk work.

65+ writers wanted. Yeah, that's what I thought too. Unfortunately ( depends on which side of the hill you are ), he's looking for writers over 65....

Writers who know a thing or two about international students can get hold of a writing gig here.

Want to earn $100 per week for sending emails from home? No, this ain't a scam. It's a real CSR job. You have to respond to customers' emails. Catch is that you need to know a lot about New York.

Essay writer wanted. Make sure he flunks if you do get the gig.

Another copy writer wanted to con international students.

Audio transcriptionist wanted. $200 gig.

Writers needed. ASAP. And that's all the ad says. Nothing else.

More delusions of grandeur. They want hacks who can see the big picture.

Freelance writers wanted for women's lifestyle mag.

Hillary Clinton jumps into the ring. Going to be a really, really great year for political columnists. I don't really care who's going to be the next President, but the media is going to make a lot of hay while Hill and WhosYourMama duke it out.

Literary Fingerprint

No one is safe. Shakespeare has been caught red-handed, ink-stained fingers and all. "A team of researchers that includes scholars from the University of Massachusetts Amherst is using computerized analysis of the writing of William Shakespeare to dispel lingering doubts about his authorship of many works and to trace the outlines of his total body of compositions... The Shakespeare 'fingerprint' also provides strong evidence that he, and not other authors, wrote the works generally believed to be his..." - Physorg.com

So now we know that Shakespeare is the perp responsible for 'Arden of Faversham'. I think there should a national 'literary fingerprint' database. So any writer who refuses to acknowledge his crappy novel can be held to account.

Margaret Boyes writes about wannabe author Skip Hollingsworth's quest to get published. 42 rejection notices and counting...

And in other news, medical transcription work outsourced to consultants in India has landed King's College Hospital into a steaming tub of hot water.