Writing To Pay The Rent

This isn’t just about writing for income, and I will say that right at the beginning so no one is confused. But it is going to touch on that topic.

When I first arrived on the blogging scene, I really didn’t know what it was all about, but many who were beginning to blog at the same time had a much more concrete view of what the purpose of their writing would be. Many of those writers/bloggers were inspired by a man named Hugh Hewitt to begin their blogs with the view to change people’s world views. I should amend that to say “Christian and conservative” writers and bloggers. The people of liberal politics had long seen the value in using media to persuade people’s thinking.

But whether bloggers of that time were convinced by a specific person, or of the many who had chanced upon this new door to influence, many of us were of the mind that our writing could “make a change for good”. I know that was always a powerful motivation for me.

It still is, but blogging and online writing has changed for many like me.

It’s A Slow Train

It was a slow train coming for me to adopt the idea that writing and earning money were linked. Or could be, or should be.

And I still believe that one must be careful with one’s motivations, not just in writing, but in all endeavors of life. I also understand that without some sort of support, no writer can keep at their craft for long. This is perhaps one of the biggest evolutionary changes for me: if you keep on writing, over time you find you become “a writer”.

In the meantime, I took a break from writing to influence people’s thinking. After spending a good deal of time in online forums, and the dialog that was common on blogs is those days (early years of 2000 to 2007 or so), I grew tired of what online “conversation” had become. No longer exploring differing opinions, creating dialog, or even giving a rational argument for one’s view. Like the rest of the world around it, the web sunk into the morass of polarized diatribe, pandering, and propaganda. It wasn’t fun anymore, then, either.

Yet, there is something very attractive in the way a person, of no means really, can engage in discussion and a public presentation of views, and touch the possible thousands. That is heady stuff. So, I kept on writing and started exploring the world of online income… some of the things which are called passive income, but truthfully aren’t passive at all.

This was a natural road for me since I had started my web experience with non-fiction types of writing… my garden website‘s nascence sprung from the pages begun at that time. In retreating from the hotbed of politics and religion I found solace (as a writer and blogger) in the garden. In the need to pay for the nuts and bolts of such a thing, I began monetizing. Not the easiest thing to do in my chosen set of topics.

Another thing happened along the way… aging.

The focus of life has shifted, and the reality of needing to produce some income for retirement has also become part of my intention for developing my writing online. This has created multiple motivations for branching out into other sorts of writing and interacting online. And let’s not forget the online revolution itself… Facebook and Twitter have mightily changed online writing and all sorts of things.

I still have not forgotten that desire to impact people, to influence society for good (or goodness sake!). I am just not sure how it all works together, or even whether it can.

Paying The Rent

Earning even a small amount of income online is a lot of work. In fact, for a person like me who is not business savvy, I could not write, if I were dependent on its income. Still, some of the things I do are paying for website hosting for my other sites (this one is free, and I own only the content – not the domain). I have ventured into the world that others entered long time back…. writing for income. This I do on sites like SquidooThis site was sold and no longer exists as a home to writers as recorded in this post, and just this week a few articles on Hubpages. They are looked down upon by some in the blogging community, and I understand why. The impetus now is for these sites to clean up the junky parts of the neighborhood.

I like that a format like Squidoo creates community. I haven’t found that in the blogging sector for a long time. I also like that it is set up to create online income for those who contribute. And I have stretched my writing wings in the more mundane aspects of writing. Which is not to demean it. Why be elitist about our writing? I have distaste for this kind of thinking that is so prevalent in the art world.

So, here I am starting to write on Hubpages, too.

I also have learned some marketing along the way which is very enlightening. You view things in our society a whole new way when understanding basic marketing techniques. We are immersed in it whether we realize it or not. Just look at the sales ploy of “scarcity”, for example…. but I digress.

What reasons might be for writing on such sites as Squidoo, or Hubpages, or even Blogger, for that matter?

  1. They share their income with the creative
  2. On the web, promotion is as important as creation. No one will just show up at your blog or website, anymore
  3. It is a free way to get instruction on almost anything, not least on how to earn money online; okay, maybe this is done a little too well.
  4. You network without realizing you are networking
  5. It encourages you to widen your horizons, the way surfing webpages used to “in the old days”

For me, the Squidoo site helped open things that I had long had an interest in but had no grasp of what it took to accomplish. One of those was utilizing the Zazzle site to create and to earn income. I am still making baby steps, but without guidance (and clearly the forums attached to such sites help,too) would still have gone nowhere with these avenues.

My Affiliation on These Sites

If you would like to read more about my thoughts on these sites, making an income online, etc. Check my WebHelp blog.

Community is powerful. It is necessary as well, and the sooner we learn that lesson in family, our neighborhoods and cities, and online, the better. It is just an illustration of “no man is an island” which we will face over and over until we “get it”.

Ah. Now you see I am only one step away from “soapboxing”, or influencing as I like to call it.

Maybe this part of learning what can help me pay the rent is obvious to you. I have an inkling that for individualists who have a high value on personal freedom, it is a hard won realization.

Paying the rent is not just about money. It isn’t about a materialistic society, it is about how we help each other survive and thrive. Work is important and necessary. All sorts of work -and having integrity and honesty in how we go about it- matters.

One more thing, influence is something we do everyday in all our actions, whether we realize it or not.

Eyes and Health

As a person with long standing and increasingly poor eye health I was very interested in this news about the massive rise in Asian myopia, the suspected cause, and suggested prevention. Consider how much outdoor time your children get during the day…

Professor Morgan argues that many children in South East Asia spend long hours studying at school and doing their homework. This in itself puts pressure on the eyes, but exposure to between two and three hours of daylight acts as a counterbalance and helps maintain healthy eyes.

The scientists believe that a chemical called dopamine could be playing a significant part. Exposure to light increases the levels of dopamine in the eye and this seems to prevent elongation of the eyeball.

BBC Science Report

Additionally, more than one study has found, this helpful eye health fact:

An analysis of eight previous studies by University of Cambridge researchers found that for each additional hour spent outside per week, the risk of myopia reduced by 2%.

Exposure to natural light and time spent looking at distant objects could be key factors

More info on eye health

With the added benefit of proper amounts of vitamin D (we usually are woefully deficient) and the implications of that deficiency in such maladies as diabetes make it even more important to make sure we, and our children, get more time outside in the sunshine.

The Future: Debate will increase over who has rights to medical care

He is not a “vegetable”, after all.

After the healthcare debate in the legislature is completed, the discussion will return to the ethical questions that have been so problematical for modern medicine and society. It is the type of story that Rom Houben represents that will become our focus. And it will pivot, not just on our ethos, but on the economics of trying to provide care to all of society.

Watch for distinctions to be made on who is worthy of care and who is not, while trying to maintain a PC exterior.

It is harder to rationalize euthanizing sentient beings, when the cloak of ” they are just a vegetable” comes off.

How to make practical this realization? Understand that even if a patient is unconscious or even comatose, they may still be able to hear and be fully aware of what is said in their presence.

Hat tip to Mark La Roi of WordFm

Learn Some Economics

Taking this out of my sidebar, but wanted to make it available for those who don’t mind viewing a fairly long video that is chock full of illuminating information. We always hear opinions on the economy and little about what is actually being referenced.
Well, this is posted to address that oversight. You’re welcome!

Learn Some Economics:

The Company You Keep

Is Happiness Catching?

…a pair of social scientists named Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler used the information collected over the years about Joseph and Eileen and several thousand of their neighbors to make an entirely different kind of discovery. By analyzing the Framingham data, Christakis and Fowler say, they have for the first time found some solid basis for a potentially powerful theory in epidemiology: that good behaviors — like quitting smoking or staying slender or being happy — pass from friend to friend almost as if they were contagious viruses. The Framingham participants, the data suggested, influenced one another’s health just by socializing. And the same was true of bad behaviors — clusters of friends appeared to “infect” each other with obesity, unhappiness and smoking. Staying healthy isn’t just a matter of your genes and your diet, it seems. Good health is also a product, in part, of your sheer proximity to other healthy people.

1 Corinthians 15:33
Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”

flock together
flock together

Eye Surgery Coming Up

I haven’t made the appointment, but I was told, gravely, that I must get some surgery on my right eye. I have already had two SLT‘s that did not take care of the problem, along with one trial of a new medication which also was not sufficiently capable of taking down the pressure. And I have suffered some vision loss in that eye.

I know I need the new surgery, but without insurance I will need to pay $3,000.00 for the thing to get done. That sound you hear? me gulping. So I have postponed setting up the appointment until I can save up some cash to cover this. Not complaining, but trying to sort it out and face up to it.

The procedure I’m looking at getting is a new type called Canaloplasty. It sounds like the best option, and I hope I can get some good results from it once I actually make the appointment and get it done. It might affect my blogging ability at that time since there can be a long (period of several weeks is possible). If that surgery doesn’t work, then they switch to trabeculectomy, which is possible when they start out with the planned canaloplasty.

Sometimes Inspiration Comes Harshly

This Link comes with two warnings, one is that the language is bad- and if you don’t like that sort of reality don’t follow it. The other is that this persons run through her old haunts and the memories that go along with it are inspirational not because she was there, but because she is in the here and now, an overcoming here and now.

Now follow Miles and Madness. Because I don’t care how strong the ties to hopelessness and destruction seem… they have been broken and they keep getting broken. And the human spirit was made to live.

LIVE.

Time Management Explained

I found this little slideshow very clear and it delivered an exhortation that we know we need. We have a certain level of understanding of it, but we seem to need it reiterated in numerous ways until we somehow internalize the message. Look it over, think about it, implement it. Just click through it. I know it can be hard to follow the advice- especially if you like to be perceived as a nice, supportive and friendly person. but it will help you be more of that where it counts in your life. Trust me on this one.