"Wait!" you say.  "Just how exactly is THAT a challenge. That's what I WANT!"

Just try it for a while, and you'll see what I mean. Turning your hobby into your vocation can be a tricky transition. After all, this -- writing, acting, dancing, photographing, singing, making jewelry -- USED to be your refuge. It USED to be the thing you turned to when the stress of every day life was getting to you, when you needed to escape, when you needed to indulge yourself.

Now, it may be part of the stress of everyday life. It may become something you need to escape from -- when it doesn't go well, when a deadline is looming and your brain won't start, when a promising project yields a heap of rejections and no hope of a paycheck. After you've rehearsed all day, are you really going to want to sit down for an hour and work on your scales and technique? After you answer an editor's questions about seemingly every picayune (to you) detail under the sun, are you going to want to start on a short story or an essay? Or are you going to melt into a puddle of exhausted protoplasm in front of the TV?

There's also the issue of money: We used to steal away time and spend money on our hobby; now it's our livelihood. There are two traps we can fall into.

The first is undervaluing ourselves: We are so thrilled to be writing, painting, performing, creating, that we barely care that anyone pays us for it, or that, when they do, they pay us so little that we are making 50 cents an hour. Woo hoo! We think. I'm a WORKING writer. Someone's giving me MONEY for this. How cool is THAT?!

But the other pitfall is to think exclusively in terms of money: Yes, "How much will this pay?" has to be one of the first questions we ask when we take on something new. We have to consider whether a project will contribute to our mortgage, our health insurance, our bottom line. We HAVE to think that way -- but we CAN'T let it kill our art. We have to also consider what a project might contribute to our souls. 

Here's the thing: When you are an avocational artist, you don't deal with the business side of your art. You don't have to be a perfectionist, or worry about your reputation in your artistic community.  (You may, but you don't have to.)  You don't have to deal with deadlines and their effect on how you write. You don't have  money issues to contend with, the profit and loss calculations that need to be made before you spend money on materials for a new art project. You probably won't have your performances reviewed -- and even you you did, those reviews will most probably not launch or stall a career. 

As a professional creative you need to deal with all of these issues -- but you don't have to let them ruin your art. Compartmentalize them a bit. This is the "job" part of what you do, It has to get done, but it serves your art -- not the other way around. Let SOME of your projects fall outside of your business thinking. Allow yourself plenty of creative time to experiment, without thinking of a near-term return on your investment of time and materials. After all, if this was ONLY about making money, it's not the field you would have chosen to work in.  (We hope!)

Remember: Part of the artist's reward is an "emotional paycheck" that you get from doing what you love. So be sure you structure your work-days to have time to nurture that love. It's what will keep you going through the challenges, rejections, indifferent reviews, poor sales figures, and empty auditoriums that ALL of us confront at some point in our careers.

I spent the day, quite contentedly, in the guise of a college student. Our apartment building is receiving new siding, and the workmen had finally made their way to our section. Far too much random hammering and power-stapling to concentrate on editing. So I went back over to the university to work for the day.

I never knew, but my current mom-wear (jeans, t-shirt, Tevas) along with a backpack makes me appear just like a student. If I wanted to appear more like faculty or staff, or a spouse thereof, I would have to dress up a bit, and possibly get a briefcase.

The big hitch of the morning was finding parking. If you arrive here after 9 am, you are going to be circling and searching for a while. The parking gods smiled upon me, however, and I ended up with a perfect spot right in a central location.

My chosen work spot was in the hypostyle of the student union, looking out over the green and leafy quad. (And now that I've looked up the definition of that word, I'm not so sure it's being used accurately by the university, as I recall no supporting columns inside the room. But no matter, it's a nice room.) The one problem with this room is the severe shortage of power outlets. Evidently this building was constructed long before laptops became de rigueur student paraphernalia! I bided my time, and then as I returned from grabbing a snack in the café, one of the few spots near an outlet opened up. I was set for the morning.

At one point I heard children’s voices outside. Teachers were pulling wagons full of toddlers from the Early Learning Center through the quad. A few minutes later, older preschoolers were hurtling across the lawn, chasing and rolling over the grass. I got up and tried to see if Napoleona were out there, but I didn’t see her. Must be her class's turn tomorrow.

Just before lunch, a family of six sat down next to me, and the mother eyed my bright orange Chicago Manual of Style (which I had to bring as I haven’t gone through the rigmarole to get an on-campus internet account and therefore access the manual online, as I usually do). She said that she was glad she knew what the book looks like, as her professor had recommended it. Then she asked me what my major was!

After a lovely lunch with Anthropapa, and a quick tour of the Craft Studio (low cost craft supplies! low cost classes! a room full of power woodworking tools! pottery wheels! woo hoo!), I returned to my spot in the hypostyle.

As I worked, an amazingly cliché scene played out two tables over: a rather large, football-playerish-looking young man struggled with algebra while a cute, long-haired young woman tutored him. He flirted earnestly, she giggled, and he cried out, “It makes sense! I don’t know whether to hug you or what!"

Later in the afternoon I walked over to the library to explore and set up an account. Oh, I was so excited to be in a university library again! Oh, the stacks of books. Oh, the fluorescent lighting! At least when I went to the circulation desk I could identify myself properly as a staff spouse, not a student, despite my attire and backpack. I found a fascinating little translation of excerpts from a late 14th-century manual a man wrote for his wife, on all things wifely, and a book about weaving. So far, I've learned that medieval wives should keep all their husband's secrets, and when out walking in public you should "keep your head straight, your eyelids decently lowered and motionless, and your gaze eight feet directly in front of you and on the ground without looking around at any man or woman to the right or left, or looking up, or shifting your gaze unsteadily from place to place, or laughing, or stopping to talk to anyone in the street." I'll spare you the admonitions about how to act in church!

So, I had a good day, feeding off the studenty vibe and getting my work done in relative peace. Thank you Anthropapa, for bringing us into academia and letting me pretend to be a student for a day.

I spent so many happy hours in the library at UCI, just looking at random stuff. (OK, not so random, mostly stuff to help with SCA projects.)

As some of you may know, staring at the screen does nothing (and really hurts your eyes!). Thus I decided to become more involved with what you can do with a computer. For a long time now I've enjoyed graphic design but have been really rubbish at it (overuse of Drop Shadow ftw), I used to do it for fun then gave up as I didn't feel I was going anywhere with it. But being a member of a Graphic Forum since 2006 and not being involved with graphics seemed a bit moronic and I still had an undying love for it so decided to try again. I've always had a dream of being a freelance designer; that typical overworked, 4 hours of sleep a day kind of freelancer. They do what they love and make money by doing it!

Charlotte needs money + Charlotte loves all things design = Charlotte becomes a freelancer.

So that's what I'm going to do, become a freelancer. I've been on my way to being a freelancer for about two weeks now and it feels nice to open Adobe Photoshop CS3 again and do some designs. About a week into practise I was asked to do a design and be paid but the Client ran into some errors (the "error" being the money wasn't given to me) so I'm not a freelancer at the moment and I would say you need to start being paid before you can have the almighty title!

However, I'm now technically a hired designer at the wondrous "Computer Penguin" , it's a brilliant new site owned by my friend that offers technical computer help to people via Remote Desktop Connection. CP is also branching into design where it will sell templates and that's where I come in! So rather soon (Late September!) I will hopefully be getting some kind of income thanks to my buddy. I'm going to keep designing when I have the chance and I'm also going to try a bit of illustration. If you'd like to follow my progress you can view my work at my DeviantArt. I have also decided to teach myself the coding side of web design and it is going okay, I now know (X)HTML 1.0 and a lot of CSS, I just need to put it all together to code a layout, then I will learn PHP.

Neeky things that have made me happy today!:

1. The new MSN 9 Beta 2 download, it's freaking amazing and I recommend that all of you get it! It is very different and very well designed.
2. Microsoft are getting things right, not only have they succeeded in a lovely design of MSN/WLM they are succeeding with Internet Explorer too, I'll always be a Firefox user but I hear that it loads faster and does snazzy things like Web Slices.
3. Google, my happiness with them has been ongoing for the past week, I have just discovered RSS readers and now I subscribe to everything! I love Google's mail, reader, calendar and everything else! It's the most handy website out there for me at the moment.

We have collected and analysed all the feedback (from the blog and also from your emails) and have used it to identify the main concerns about the scheme and modify the scheme to address them.

Below are the highlights/main points from the feedback and how we have modified the subscription scheme to address them:

• The bid allocation for the standard and gold membership was too limiting

• o We have increased the bid allocation for Standard members to 15/month and for Gold to 40/month.
• o The bid allocation to Gold members has now been doubled to 40 bids/credits.
• o Also, we have decided to keep the cost of each bid to 1 credit regardless of the project value, which means that essentially everyone will on average be able to bid for double the number of projects with the same credits.

• It would be more fair to ‘refund' the bids if the project does not get awarded

• o We see this point and do agree that it would be fairer to have such a system but unfortunately it would not be possible to ‘refund' bids because everyone would have to buy bids, then wait until project expiry to before the bids can be refunded.
• o We decided that it would be more practical to give more free bids (see above) to everyone that will in practice neutralise the effect of some wastage.

• The number of categories allowed were too restricting

• o We can see the point that a lot of providers have skills that span two categories so have doubled the free categories for both Standard and Gold members to 2 and 4 respectively.

• It would be very difficult for new providers to win work

• o Again, this was one of the major factors behind the big increase of the free bids for the Standard membership.
• o Also, we are working on a new system to allow providers (new and existing) to ‘import' feedback from projects they have completed outside PPH. We're hoping that this will help new providers start with some feedback and win work.

On another positive note, from the buyers asked separately about the scheme, the feedback was almost 100% positive about introducing some type of premium accounts for providers and also to limit the number of free bids to increase quality.

We expect this to improve the percentage of projects awarded, as the common complaints by buyers are that they have often have to go through a large number of bids from providers that do not necessarily have all the skills needed and also that some providers do not respond to the buyers during the bidding stage (and sadly, some don't even respond after they have won the work!).

It's worth stressing again that the main drivers behind this is to increase the bid quality and number of projects accepted, as well as provide an avenue for those who wish to benefit from lower commission fees. Without wishing to spark a debate about this (and you'll have to take our word from it or just ignore this comment!), it's worth noting that we actually estimate (based on the figures so far) that any financial gains from the bidding will be offset by the reduction in commission, so there will actually won't be any significant direct financial benefit for PPH - we are however hoping that the increase in the number of projects awarded will benefit both PPH and our provider community.

In summary, the new scheme will be as follows:

 Some other amendments to the scheme include:

• Longer expiry period for purchased bids - this has been increased and instead of expiring at the end of each month, the bids purchased will only expire at the end of the following month e.g. if purchased on 10^th of September, the bid credits will expire at the end of October)
• Free period when upgrading to the premium accounts - the period between the date of upgrade the end of the current month, will be free of charge for those who choose upgrade to Premium accounts e.g. if the upgrade takes place on the 7^th of September, the rest of September will be free and the firstly monthly fee paid will be for the month of October.

Below are a few things that could have saved me some major hassle, not to mention temporary insanity meltdowns, when I started on my home office-in-a-box/freelance business.

It's my hope that these words of wisdom (WOW) will also benefit those of you adjusting to life as solo entrepreneurs:

• Invest In Your Physical Space: Part of the reason I settled into more of a makeshift office scene from the get-go was because freelancing for me was a temporary gig and not part of my long-term plan. Only, the more time that went by and the more I found myself with freelance work, the more I discovered that idle objects such as a proper desk, lighting, and file cabinets were critical to providing me with an organized environment suited for doing work. And whether or not I wanted to admit it to myself, uncomfortably slouching over my laptop sitting on the couch 12-18 hours a day still qualified as me working and earning money so why not invest in a home office that acknowledges that? And saves me from a future of bad posture?
• Time Tracking Widgets Are a Gal's Best Friend: The more clients and accounts I worked on, the more things got complicated so I started looking for the best tool to track and log my hours. To find the best tool,  I posted a question on LinkedIn's Q&A forum and while I got some pretty interesting feedback and networked a bit (always a plus) with respondents, I ended up finding the Harvest app through my Yahoo widgets. I can access the widget and start logging hours when I start working, juggle multiple accounts for single or multiple clients, and can later import all this info into a handy, dandy invoice. Harvest does this all on it own and saves me the headache of needing to go back and count hours. While it's always recommended to do your due diligence just to keep track of your hours, Harvest helps out in a pinch!
• Keep Your Support Crew On Speed Dial (or Gmail Chat, Facebook, or Twitter): It's important to stay upbeat and positive and who better to keep it real than your intimate crew of like-minded entrepreneurs. I have a group of a few gals and we Gmail Chat or Twitter ourselves into sanity (in the form of silliness) throughout the day, sharing our tales of woe and elation as we try to meander ourselves through the ups and downs of our freelancing lives.
• It's Ok To Do Group Events: As a freelance writer, networking isn't always my bag, but it's a necessary evil for those of us trying to drum up business and it helps facilitate us continuing to do what it is we love to do. I was at a loss for finding pertinent, relevant events (Mediabistro wasn't a broad enough group for my technology tastes) until I came across Gary's Guide. Simple in its interface, it lists all major networking events for technology and entrepreneur meet-ups for 11 metropolitan areas, including New York, Boston, and San Fran. I always find an event on there that's interesting and potentially a good hook for my line of work.

With that in mind, we have launched earlier today new features to enable providers to form virtual teams with other providers in their network and bid together, as a team, for projects. To start forming a team, you need to log on to the team section under "My Network" and once you have created your team, you will be able to invite other providers to join.

Each team creator is also the leader of each team and is responsible for placing the bid, communicating with the buyer and coordinating the work done. Once the project is completed, the team leader raises an invoice and collects the payment from the buyer to his PPH account. It is up to each team to agree their own business terms regarding payments from the team leader to the team members for the work each one has done.

To assist with the payment process, we are providing the facility (for those who wish to take advantage of it) for team members to raise invoices for the team leader, who can then pay them using the funds in his PPH account. This minimizes the number of payments and hence transaction fees for everyone. Alternatively, team providers can agree on another arrangement for settling payments but we recommend using the PPH payment system available where necessary.

Please send us your feedback if you have any comments/suggestions about the new features that have been launched.

Voltaire called Shakespeare's Hamlet the "work of a drunken savage."  The San Francisco Examiner told Rudyard Kipling that he "didn't know how to use the English language." Ayn Rand's Fountainhead was rejected because the editor thought there would be no audience for it. ("It won't sell" was the verdict given to a book that has been in print for more than half a century, and sold tens of millions of copies around the world). 

And on and on and on. (If you don't believe me, check http://tinyurl.com/653uao, which culls some of the rejections and reviews from Rotten Reviews & Rejections, edited by Bill Henderson & Andre Bernard. http://tinyurl.com/66xmxc)

So when we get those ugly little "thanks but no thanks" missives, we can soothe ourselves that we're in good company. Even so, rejections can be hard to take. Here are a few things to help you get through them -- and learn from them:

• It's not personal. Truly. A rejection simply means that on that day, that particular editor or producer or director or gallery owner did not see how taking on your project would enhance his or her business. There could be a thousand reasons, and many of them have nothing to do with you, the quality of your work, or its ultimate marketability.
• Rejections means your work is getting out there, getting seen. It is knocking on doors, introducing itself to the artistic community at large.
• Sometimes people who can't use your work today are kind enough to give you some hints as to how you might make it more marketable, or how you might improve it. Take these suggestions to heart: Most editors, producers (etc.) are far too busy to waste the time it takes to write such a critique on someone who they don't think has promise or talent.  
• Success is often a numbers game. You're working your way through the no's to get to a final yes.
• "No" doesn't ALWAYS mean "no." Sometimes it means "try again later." I once had an editor call me a year after his supervisor had rejected a piece of mine: She was gone, he was now in charge, he remembered the piece and liked it and wanted to buy it. Editors change jobs, magazines change focus, bars change managers, galleries change owners. If you're convinced a project has legs, send it out for another walk around the block.
• Look for patterns. If you get 20 rejections and every single one of them references the same specific flaw, you might want to take another look at your project and see if there's a way to fix it.
• The person sending the rejection may be a complete fool. At least YOU don't have to live with having been the person to turn down "Harry Potter."

Once in awhile, however, I'm a little over my head, content-wise, although I had what I consider a strong liberal arts education: I studied several languages, history, art, literature, as well as a variety of hard and soft sciences.

One of my current projects is a book about the meaning, construction, and dissemination of contemporary cultural icons. Which is fascinating, of course -- yet when liberally peppered with concepts of semiotics and hermeneutics, I start losing the ability to really follow the text as I edit. I can correct for spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc., but don't ask me to edit for meaning! (And, luckily, I'm not expected to.)

To give you a little idea of this experience (because I know you're all so fascinated by all this), here's the list of words I've corrected for spelling, hyphenation, etc. in this book so far:

antiapartheid
antihero
antistructuralist
Bildungsroman
cœur
hyperreal
intersemiotic
Logos
nonlinguistic
Peirceian
postmodern
poststructuralist
Salt 'n Pepa
sans
Soviet
threefold
transdisciplinary
West, Western (as in culture or society)

Whoo nelly. Luckily most of this dense theoretical stuff has been confined to the introduction, and the next few chapters have been interesting -- one on Nelson Mandela and one on the Little Mermaid!

The last project I did was on anthropology and climate change, and the one before that was on social security created by religious networks. So, I'm usually fascinated ... until the jargon makes me sleepy.

First, I apologize for the infrequency of my posts lately. Lot on the go right now and my stress level is up to here. Which is very high. As if in defiance, Time seems to be up to the challenge of racing me this week. Bastard.

But I couldn't resist at least starting the next set of questions Alex from Someday Syndrome asked his lab rats in their quest to discover and eliminate their obstacles to achieving their someday goals. If you have no clue what I'm talking about (I hardly do today, but that's beside the point!), visit his site and his latest post, as well as my previous post, here.

On to question 1, then, and I warn you: It's a bit incoherent, I think. I feel as though I'm struggling against the haze of a lot of drugs or something, although I haven't put anything even remotely close to Tylenol in this body in over six years. Stress and lack of sleep can be quite amazing.

1. Have you ever held onto a course of action that you knew deep down was not only no longer profitable to you, but was actually hurting you in some way?

Sigh. This question comes at an interesting time. I've thought hard about it, trying to find examples from my past, but I think if I'm totally honest with myself, the present is probably the best example.

The answer is yes. I've held on to freelance editing when I no longer found it enjoyable and it was hurting us financially, and I mean big time. I did this once, and I'm doing it again now. The thing is, I still don't know if deep down it's actually the wrong thing to do. Maybe I'm just not doing it right, you see. (More on this below). And I can't think of anything else to do besides editing. I never am sure of what I want, so in this case, it's not a question of holding onto something that's keeping me from my someday career.

Back when I first started freelancing full time, after a year or two major issues started cropping up. Although I was making good money per hour, the pay wasn't enough and not nearly frequent enough. I grew unfocused, I struggle with the typical freelance issues of time management, interruptions, late pay, being without work, living on credit, feeling guilty for being home.

We started missing bills; we sold our first house, afraid to lose it, and moved into an apt. I said I would quit freelancing and take a full-time job because, above all else, I felt all of our financial troubles were my fault. I was not pulling my weight. Simply put, optimism didn't live with me back then.

But I never quit the editing, even when I took on the full-time job at the library. I couldn't. I wanted the extra money, sure, but I couldn't ever say no to doing what I preferred. I hated the library. I was there for a year and a half before I quit and went back to full-time editing last November. I didn't know what else I could do (Belleville is very small, too, with low-paying jobs), and I had had it with working in the public.

Staying at the library that long had nothing whatsoever to do with optimism. There was no way it would get better. In fact, when I think back, I'm just not an optimist. Whenever I stayed with something, it was mostly likely because I felt I had no choice, or, frankly, because of pride.

Editing again and faced with the same challenges as before and, worse, fewer clients because of the time at the library, I've only recently asked my husband and myself: Should I just quit? And then, But what do I want to do instead??

Nothing. I don't want to do anything else. I can't think of anything else. I've searched myself through and through. What do I love? What drives me? What are my passions? I don't know! Everything! Books, books, and more books. Reading. Writing. Listening to my favourite kind of music, animals. It's a hard thing to answer for someone who is passionate as a general rule and for someone who gave up her passions of theatre and singing and writing fiction and doesn't even know if they're passions anymore partly because there's fear surrounding them, and who doesn't really know who she is anymore or what she likes.

I want to work from home. I like editing. I'm good at it. I'm not sure if it's IT, the way Writer Dad is sure writing is IT for him, but it's the one thing I keep coming back to because it's such a part of me. It could be IT, if I tweaked it...

Instead of quit altogether, then, I recently began to ask myself in blog posts: So what would I rather do, if I'm going to stick with editing? And the answer, as many of you already know, is fiction. Specifically fantasy fiction. Hence, the concept of EditQuest was born.

So I'm holding on, yes. I'm holding on this time because EditQuest excites me. I think that this, right now, is IT. I think I might be right that it's not editing that's wrong but what I'm editing. If I really love this, then it won't be unprofitable, and it won't hurt me, or us, right? I'll be pursuing it with passion. I'll be busy, I'll be paid properly, I'll be editing more efficiently, and I'm trying to do it all right this time, with a professional writer for my web copy and a stunning MwP theme. It will work!

But wait! Is that optimism I hear?

(Sorry. Questions 2 and 3 will have to come later. It's taken me something like two or more hours to answer this, and I've got editing that demands my immediate attention!)

Che valanga di risate i tuoi amici, eh?

Ma questa volta l'imprevisto era in agguato.
Perché non solo Scott Edelstein è considerato l'avatara della scrittura creativa negli Stati Uniti, ma anche e soprattutto perché 30 Steps to Becoming a Writer è certamente il miglior manuale di scrittura creativa che mi sia capitato fra le mani.
Da sempre.
Breve, conciso, preciso, privo di risvolti misticheggianti e strane panzane, senza l'insopportabile "ora vi faccio vedere un mio racconto come esempio di come si fà".
Se la scrittura è, come sostengo da sempre, una forma di raffinatissimo artigianato, allora questo volume è la cassetta degli attrezzi ideale, senza imbottiture, doppioni o giocattoli inutili.

Edelstein è un giornlista freelance, autore e ghostwriter americano che riesce a scucire fino a 250 dollari l'ora per la propria scrittura, segno che non è esattamente uno sprovveduto - scrive bene e conosce la tecnica.
In questo senso, come opara di un freelancer, il manuale offenderà tutti coloro che credono nell'ispirazione e nel talento infuso - ma che probabilmente non leggeranno mai un manuale del genere, visto che per loro scrivere è "un atto naturale, come uno sternuto".
Evviva le metafore di classe.

Per tutti gli altri, 30 Steps è il genere di libro del quale si dice "Se acquisterete un solo nmanuale di scrittura, acquistate questo!"
L'appendice Writer's Reality Check da sola vale il prezzo di copertina - una serie di tabelle con tutte le forme di censura (autoinflitta o cortesemente servita da insegnanti amici e aspiranti editor) che rischiano di ammazzare il nostro lavoro prima che veda la luce.
Cose del tipo... "Solo una persona frustrata e rabbiosa scriverebbe cose del genere" oppure "Perché non scrivi un bel bestseller, come Stephen Kingh?"
L'appendice non dice nulla sugli amici che ti regalano manuali di scrittura, ma si tratta probabilmente di una omissione voluta.

I trenta passi sono sequenziali - dal mettere insieme il materiale necessario al trovare il luogo ed il tempo per scrivere, al mettere le parole una dopo l'altra su carta.
Nulla è scolpito nella roccia, e vengono offerte alternative per personalità dell'autore, genere, forma.

Del volume esiste anche una versione aggiornata inclusa nel Complete Writer's Kit, in cui si aggiungono un lussouoso cofanetto, un mazzo di carte che riporopongono in maniera non lineare le basi del volume Scrivere Zen di Natalie Goldberg, un secondo manuale di Edelstein dedicato a come gestire i propri rapporti con gli editori ed uno stupido cartello da attaccare alla porta "Non disturbare - Scrittore al lavoro".

In entrambe le forme, il manuale di Edelstein è decisamente una piacevole scoperta.
Era ora che imparassi un paio di questi trucchi...

They are stealing your words and your pictures, your songs and your performances, and they are using them  and even reselling them all over the Web.

Don't believe me? Do a little vanity surfing... If you've got a body of work that has gotten out to the public, chances are that some of the public have appropriated it for their own uses. Google your name, and you might find your articles on websites that never paid you to post them.  It happens all the time.  

Sometimes, the intent is benevolent: They like your stuff, they give you credit, maybe they even link back to your blog, or link to your Amazon page, where people can buy your book. In many cases people don't know that what they're doing is against the law. Unfortunately, in some cases, they don't care.

What do you do? Some see the exposure as good publicity, others see it as outright theft; In point of fact, it is sometimes both, and you have to decide: Is it worth the hassle to pursue the issue? Is the exposure worth something? How much time are you willing to spend chasing down people who steal your copyright? Some people try to go after every violation; Others only go after major companies who have deep pockets and should know better. Others don't bother. 

Sometimes the intent is not benevolent. Websites that plagiarize your work might copy it, or a part of it, without attribution, and try to pass it off as theirs. That's just out and out stealing, but these kinds of thefts are harder to spot, because you have to be much more clever about how you search. Searching for key words, unique phrases, or combinations of topics, or whole strings of text are ways to find plagiarized copy. 

Once you've found an instance of an unauthorized use, you have several options.  You might write to the offender, explain that your property is YOUR property, and ask them to take your work off of their site. You could bill them for it. (Although this is usually unsuccessful, sometimes you'll get a check in the mail, especially if you have registered the Copyright, which gives you strong legal protection.)   You could threaten to sue them (although, again, in order to do so, you should have filed a Copyright for the work with the US Copyright office within 90 days of first publication, or BEFORE the infringement -- more on Copyright in another post). You could write to the Website's host and fill in their complaint form -- if you can prove your ownership of the material,  the site may be taken down.

Here are some resources to get started. I'll cover copyright in more detail in future posts:

US copyright information from the Copyright office:  www.copyright.gov

The text of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which extends and clarifies Copyright protection of internet material:  www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act

Google information on how to contact Google about a site that violates your copyright: http://www.google.com/dmca.html

For a whole different take on the issue, check out Creative Commons,  which explains how creators can decide which rights they wish to retain, and which rights they are willing to give away:  http://creativecommons.org/

Our American copyright laws are full of holes, and they don't adequately protect ordinary creators. The ease of copying is having a huge effect on all aspects of the creative economy; it's one reason why music stores are shutting and will soon be a thing of the past.  

The important thing to remember is this: YOUR intellectual property is YOURS. If you want to take a Creative Commons License, fine. If you want to try to bill unauthorized users for their use of stolen material, go ahead. if you want to report a site under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, do that. if you want to shrug it off, you can do, too. But it's well worth a couple of vanity surfs to check who's using your stuff.

I am now officially a freelancer. And I have two projects that I am working on that are paying me dollars instead of pesos. Is this good? I don't know for sure but, it is something that I hope would work out for me.

I've lived a corporate life right after I graduated from college. My friends, the people I first worked with, are now managers/executives in the field of human resources. I am happy for them, but, unlike them, I followed a different path. I didn't plan on working and slaving for someone for the rest of my life. i have always wanted to start my own business, to work independently, control and manage my own time. I know I could easily get a job if I wanted to, however, I just got tired of all the daily grind of traveling to and fro from work. I procrastinated, all the while praying to God to guide me and show me where I should go next. I'm a firm believer in destiny, and when my last job didn't work out (They suddenly closed the operation without due notice), I believed God has something better in store for me.

Then suddenly my prayers were answered!

I suddenly found myself as a provider at oDesk. I set up my profile last August 20, got my first project on August 22nd, and now I just got hired for my second project. Two clients in just a week. I am still considering on getting a day job, something less complicated, just to fill up the time. But If I get more clients in the next couple of weeks, I may make a career out of this.

I go online 6-8 hours a day (sometimes longer if I need to do some research), then at the end of my work, I email my clients to inform them of what I have accomplished and what I plan to do next. when I am not in front of my computer, I help my son with his assignments, play psp games(check my PSP game reviews), watch a movie, and take the dog outside for a walk (I also plan on going back to my gym).

I'll try to see how this will work out for me, and maybe you can also consider trying this one as well. As far as I know, this one is legit. I personally know someone who was able to buy  a car, and save enough for a downpayment for his own house and lot with his earnings at oDesk.

This is a forum targeted towards India. The forum admin has been doing a noble task by providing contracted work to unemployed people in India. He has his unique style of selecting people for his work. He needs to know what kind of computer, internet connection one has got before assigning work. He also needs to know how many hours a person can dedicate. And finally he expects a proper resume too.

He has a point here. Let me go through one by one.

• There are many people who don't have a proper computer and/or reliable internet connection in India. There are people who still use P3 computers (with 128 MB memory and Windows 98) and expect to earn $10 an hour. And there are some people who have a BSNL connection and think it is a reliable connection. There is no doubt BSNL has done a great job by making internet avaiable to rural people with affordable rate. But the question is, "Is BSNL reliable?". I bet it isn't. You could refer http://broadbandforum.in/ to see others' opinion on this issue.
• And the next point is availability. He'd like to know how many hours a person can dedicate. He doesn't want anyone to quit his/her present job and take his assignments. However, he'd like to know if the applicant can stick to what he/she promises. For example, if an applicant assures to work for 4 hours a day, every employer in this earth expects the same from the applicant.
• Finally resume. There are brilliant people, who speak/write English naturally/fluently, out here in India. Well, in reality, how many of them are working as a freelancer (part-time or full-time)? It's hardly countable. Many of those exceptional people join in companies where the starting package is more than what their parents earned in ten years. So it is natural to ask their resume before applying for a job.

A similar system was followed by www.luckweaver.com. Unfortunately, there were many people who started scamming. Hope it wouldn't happen to http://wahm.in/forum

I do a lot of freelance work in design. I'm happy to say 80% of my work is now illustration related, but I still take on occasional design jobs if they are interesting or for a friend ETC.

Recently one company I work for occasionally, going back on 6 years now, went through a middle management craze. They hired several new middle managers who, to make up for their salaries, start 'cutting costs' everywhere else. Now I have worked at some of the biggest companies in the world, and in management. I've seen this happen, I've even been part of it at times. One outstanding story goes like this: a company hires two new Vice Presidents of some kind (Vice Presidents are like fleas. Multiple quickly and suck the blood out of living things.) and at the end of the year the big savings they brought in is $15,000. Of course this came by cutting out a massively helpful customer service software solution and switching it to a sub-par system. Two six figure salaries added, lots of angry customers and bad work done - a success! Of course in accounting, salaries are considered separate from project expenses. So particular higher-ups (the less bright ones) actually think they have saved the company money. Smiles all around. Good job! Please god, make this end.

Anyway it's always interesting to see the middle management of a company swell. It's like a middle class employment program. Marketing departments seem to swell by the minute. Directors, Executive Directors, Vice President of Directing. 99% of the time, those departments do very little to create, establish or enhance a product. More often, they create disasters. Look at Disney Feature Animation during the time of the great swell. Producers, managers, Vice Presidents doing who knows what (other than collecting a check).
Instead of bringing in a high priced consultancy group to help a company be more efficient, I wonder if maybe, just maybe, a large company couldn't cut a marketing department in half and see a better bottom line, and empowered employees who actually do something. And this is the real point of this post. As a freelancer, you actually DO THINGS. You get them done. Projects are defined, problems solved. It's very efficient compared to a marketing department where 3 or 4 people actually do work, writing copy, design, maybe some demographics work if you're in an agency. But there's twice that many who spend their time trying to find something to do to prove they have something to do.

Read a great quote recently from Roy Disney: "Branding is what you do when there's nothing original about your product."

Soon, we can do our "thing" on auto-pilot. If we are writers covering a particular subject, we know the contacts, the resources, the websites, the new products -- everything we need to spit out an article. If we're musicians who play weddings, we can churn out "We are Family" and "Moondance" and  "Celebration" and the "Wedding Song," and "The Macarena" in our sleep. But too many verses of "Macarena," and it starts to feel like just another day at the office.

How to stay fresh?

• Mentally divide your work into the "bread and butter" category and the "shoot the moon" category. Your "bread and butter" work feeds your budget, your "shoot the moon" work feeds your soul. Both need attention, so be sure you budget time for both.
• Look for ways to make your "bread and butter" work as creative and rewarding as possible: I love finding ways to make "how-to" writing more interesting and fun using creative turns-of-phrase or off-beat anecdotes.  If you're a musician, sneak a few different songs into your standard set lists. If you're a heat-shot photographer, experiment with a couple of original, even wacky, poses.
• Make a plan for a long-term "shoot the moon" project, and commit a certain amount of time per day to it. Mornings are best if you can hack them (like a lot of artists, I have trouble with that) because you can get your time in before the exigencies of the workday start interrupting and derailing your intentions.  
• Let some fresh air in: If you're a musician, go to a concert by someone you've never heard of. If you're a writer, pick up a book by a new-to-you author.  If you're a visual artist, haunt the local galleries. See what's new, what others are doing. 
• Pick a small project to work outside your comfort zone. if you're a non-fiction writer, try a short story. If you're a classical pianist, try your fingers at a jazz song. If you usually photograph in color, try a black and white session. Who knows, you may find that your definition of what can work for you as a "bread and butter" project can be expanded to include a lot more variety and challenge.        

I’m no pollster, and I don’t have a degree in social sciences, but I’d go out on a limb and speculate that the feeling that one would rather be having fun than working is more or less universal. Especially if you work a desk job, or find fulfillment in hobbies such as sports, Wii, Settlers of Catan, crocheting, and other activities that both don’t pay the bills and usually can’t be enjoyed during the workday. Getting up on a Monday is roughly as anticipated as oral surgery.

Even if you like your job, it’s likely you have that complaint. That one thing that will help you keep your head held high on the fateful day you carry out your cardboard box, filled with desk cactus, photograph, and word-of-the-day calendar. The one thing you’ll fixate on for hours as you construct your brilliant letter of resignation. That nagging thorn in your side that is at the bottom of many a five o’ clock brew.

For my own amusement recently I constructed a list of past jobs and my main gripes. It went as follows:

Surf Shop Clerk - It was my first job, and I got it through my parents, who were desperate to have me interact with something other than a Depeche Mode poster and reruns of Headbangers Ball. I was 15. I was a goth. The shop specialized in long boards and Billabong gear. The clientele were wannabe Spicolis. I spent many of my shifts doodling intricate methods of torture involving curved fins and surfboard leashes.

Video Store Clerk - For a film student, to work at a video store specializing in independent film is a rêve humide (wet dream for the Will Ferrel set.) The only complaint I ever had was that its location, on a secluded street in a somewhat desolate area of the West Village, was prone to gangs of teenagers with more moxie and homemade weapons than an entire season of 21 Jump Street. The kids would regularly steal the boxes off of the wall, not knowing they were empty. It was more of an annoyance to straighten up afterwards than anything else.

Studio Assistant - I worked for a relatively well-known, older photographer who often did the covers for publications including VIBE and Rolling Stone. A well-paying, exciting, and somewhat swank gig if I do say so myself. The average workday involved a lot of permitted recreational reading, answering phones, and running errands for the stars of hip-hop and R&B. I had a coworker, however, who took a particular interest in slamming doors in my face, swearing at me whenever I was in earshot, and blaming me for everything that went wrong, ranging from her parking tickets to power outages. I was young and didn’t understand the idea of paying my dues early, so I left. Foolish of me. By now I could have been in the clink with Lil’ Kim, or ridin’ dirty with the likes of Chamillionaire. Bummer.

Fish Monger - Take your pick. Any complaints I had are obvious, and would have been easily prevented if I had just taken five minutes to rethink the offer and chose to stick it out as a cubicle crony.

Paralegal - I would have had roughly as much success if I had become an assistant to, say, an astronaut, or a prima ballerina. With no legal background, more tattoos than tact, and a boss who was more patient than that Dog Whisperer guy, my main gripe for this gig was my own ineptitude. I probably would have stayed in that fluorescent lit litigation tank forever, if Simon and I hadn’t gotten back in touch. Instead I fell for him like Lindsay Lohan after one too many quote-unquote Red Bulls and put in my two weeks’ notice after pushing papers around and misplacing a notary stamp.

Assistant to the Owner of a Pilates Studio - I documented this early on in Jerk Ethic, but many people have experienced the catastrophe of contagious crazy that comes with working for someone who is mentally unstable. Between the “emergency” calls at 7AM on my one day off that pertained to her misplacement of personal items in her house, to the relentless, high-school level jabs at my hair and my outfit, to the paranoia that rivaled Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, I eventually realized that either she would need to go on Haldol or I would have to spend even more of my paycheck on booze. Which was nearly impossible, ‘cause back then I was a pretty serious alcoholic. Chicken or egg, your guess is as good as mine.

Now, of course I don’t condone complaining for the sake of hearing one’s own voice (unless it’s my voice, then it’s just fine.) I wrote this list to illustrate one crucial difference between working for yourself and working for others. Sure, since going off into this scary, shaky horizon of freelance with my partner in rhyme, I have had many a negative or less-than-pleasant experience, ranging from deadbeat clients to projects that fell through to editing jobs that rendered the most intriguing parts of a piece mediocre mush. But with every irksome experience on our own there wasn’t a whine at the end of the tunnel. There was a lesson. And usually a make-out session to make each other feel better. Freelancing is like that. Sure, you could kick, scream, and complain about everything that doesn’t go just so, or you can learn from it and let it go. It’s that cheddarific line of “happiness isn’t the journey, it’s the destination.” Only it’s more like, a successful business isn’t grumbling, it’s the note taking. And the tonsil hockey.

Don’t worry, I’m not going all New Age granola or anything. I’m still filled with piss, vinegar, vagina jokes, and general cynicism. But I’m learning that learning itself quells the displeasure of work, especially when you’re doing something you want to be doing.

As for the rest of it, well, don’t work in a surf shop if you’re a dead ringer for Trent Reznor, bro.

My boyfriend’s blog is better than mine. Seriously. I hate him for it.

Thanks for your donations! Makes the working day go by quicker. (Well, actually it doesn’t, ‘cause as a freelancer, just like for Kanye, hard work is never over.)

In good company.

Getting negligent with this. Probably ‘cause I’m trying to put food in my mouth instead of bile on your screen.

Come risultato, mi ritrovo ad avere qui in cima ad uno scaffale una carretatta di lucidi - non modificabii o aggiornabili, costosissimi rispetto al costo zero di una presentazione, e inutili senza una lavagna luminosa che li proietti, sfocati e storti, quasi illeggibili, su uno schermo.
La presentazione potrei al limite usarla come ossatura di supporto per un e-book.

Come secondo risultato, la mia presentazione in acetato pre-digitale mi mise al sicuro dall'essere accomunato ai molti colleghi che, ebbri di PowerPoint, scaraventarono - e ancora oggi scaraventano sullo schermo presentazioni agghiaccianti.

Tutto, ma proprio tutto, quello che il relatore sta dicendo è scritto sulle slide, giù giù fino al "Grazie e bungiorno!" dell'ultima diapositiva - tutto in testi verbosissimi con contrasti garantiti per causare la cecità o l'epilessia, immagini incomprensibili, animazioni che paiono effettacci per un film horror di serie z (da dove salterà fuori la prossima slide?) e tutto.
Orribile.
È dimostrabile che con la sola presentazione PowerPoint fatta coi piedi, uno studente può giocarsi tre punti di tesi, e un ricercatore giocarsi la simpatia del pubblico (orribile, sentire qualcuno che parla sovrapposto al solido mal di testa causato dalle scritte in rosso su fondo blu delle slide).

Da allora - da che mi sono laureato, intendo - ho proposto un paio di corsi sull'uso consapevole di PowerPoint a diverse istituzioni, ricavandone sempre un grande entusiasmo alla proposta ed una certa freddezza al momento in cui si dovrebbe concretizzare.
Imparare a usare PowerPoint?
E perché mai?
È così facile....

Già - anche spararsi alla testa non è poi così difficile, ma comunque c'è ancora chi sbaglia la mira e si condanna a lunghe ore di agonia.

Il problema, come ha fatto notare Edward Tufte nel suo fondamentale The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, PowerPoint non è fatto per insegnare.
È fatto per convincere.

PowerPoint è costruito per legare il pubblico ad un binario che va da A a Z passando per B e C e D, ma magari omettendo K e H perché sono imbarazzanti, o difficili da spiegare, o comunque potrebbero danneggiare la vendita.
PowrPoint è uno strumento fatto per vendere le idee - ed in questo senso funziona benissimo per presentare una tesi di laurea (dobbiamo convincere la commissione che abbiamo fatto un buon lavoro) o il riassunto di un lavoro di ricerca ad un congresso (dobbiamo generare consensi e magari scucirci una pubblicazione).

Ma avete presente cosa succede dopo, quando qualcuno fa una domanda?
Il relatore si ritrova a pacioccare col mouse e coi pulsanti, tentando disperato di ricordare gli shortcut da tastiera, alla ricerca di quella slide - era la 11 o la 13? - che illustra abbastanza bene ciò che è stato chiesto, o per lo meno tampona la falla.
Le lancette girano.
L'imbarazzo cresce.
Qualcuno, immancabile, in seconda fila, fa la battuta che era meglio ai vecchi tempi, con i lucidi...

Balle.
PowerPoint - ed ancor più Impress, della suite OpenOffice - sono strumenti potenti che permettono di fare meraviglie.
Solo, non sono strumenti adatti all'interazione con una platea intelligente.

È quindi con estremo piacere che ho passato il pomeriggio a baloccarmi con VUE, il progetto di Visual Understanding Environment sviluppato dalla Tuft University e reso disponibile al pubblico gratuitamente.
Immaginate uno strumento che vi permetta di disporre i vostri concetti non in slide allineate lungo un binario, ma per nuvole tematiche, tracciando poi diversi percorsi attraverso queste nubi, andando a toccare gli elementi che servono - ogni percorso potrebbe rappresentare un approccio diverso alla questione che si sta affrontando, ed in sede di presentazione ci sarebbe possibile scegliere la pista più adatta al pubblico, o cambiare canale a metà strada per assecondare domande o seguire impulsi del momento.
E possiamo visualizzare tanto le slide in sequenza che la mappa nella sua totalità, per consentire una visione a colpo d'occhio della reale struttura del nostro lavoro.

Il sito fornisce il software nella sua versione più recente, per Mac, Linux o Windows, più una abbondante documentazione.

VUE promette di cambiare radicalmente le mie future presentazioni - anche quelle del corso su come sopravvivere a PowerPoint...