Response from “Employer”Ah, I love the smell of steamed pseudo-employers. Since my last post on the abominable rates offered by some “employers”, I decided I might just ask one or two what the rationale behind the pricing was. I asked, ever so politely, if the price they had quoted was a misprint. I did the…
Author: lwidmer
Employers, Hear This!Maybe it’s an overabundance of caffeine in my system right now, but I can’t look at another ad asking for specialized writing skills that offer a measly 10 bucks an article. Today, I saw two of them, each one offering a new level of ridiculous pay. (Warning – rant ahead) The first –…
Ye Olde ImageI had the displeasure recently of working onsite for a client. The client wasn’t the problem – the caliber of the other hired help was. See, they were talented people, and they were contractors there for those talents, but oh my word, their actions! I was unfortunate enough to share space with these…
Working for RoyaltiesIf I had a nickel for every time a potential author wanted me to ghostwrite or edit for a percentage of royalties, I’d have more money than I would have earned from those fabulous offers. Why is it so unfathomable for some clients to understand that writers require payment? I guess because for…
Technology BitesNo, I don’t mean “bytes” – I mean that sometimes those programs that are designed to make life easier do nothing more than irritate, annoy, and make life living hell. I’m talking Microsoft. As you may recall, last week’s episode had me trying in vain to take a Word document full of addresses (seven…
Personal Trainer?Part of our job as writers is often knowing when to put the brakes on client emergencies. Tell me – can one have a true client emergency? What does that consist of – death by comma? Severely dangling modifier? A participle that fights back? I say this as I come off the heels of…
More On Body PartsThe flak over the Newbery-winning book that has the word “scrotum” on the first page is probably yesterday’s news (thanks to our country’s collective attention deficit disorder), but dontcha just want to revisit this topic? No? Too bad. Here’s a link sent to me by my friend Anne that describes how the…
The Folly of Industry It amazes me every time I go about the task of creating mailers and contact lists. First, let me say I hate Microsoft because it has yet to explain to me how to merge a document into labels without an hour’s worth of hair-ripping failures. Mail Merge Wizard, you say? Ha!…
Death to Paper Queries! I can’t believe it took me an hour to “dash off” a query to a major publication! It’s not the conceptualizing, nor is it the writing of the query. It’s the printing of the letter, the envelope, the sample clips and the stamping and mailing. I’m sorry – what century are…
Body Parts and Censorship If you were to read a book to a child that contained the word “scrotum”, would you be offended? Or would you see it as a no-nonsense description of a body part? That’s the controversy boiling right now over a Newbery-winning book The Power of Lucky by Susan Patron. The story,…