Getting Started At 1:30 pm

I'm feeling a bit hurried today. Well, I guess hurried and ashamed. For the past two Fridays I have decided to write about this time, 1:30 pm, which only gives me one hour and fifteen minutes to complete it. I really don't like having the time constraint. It puts a pressure on getting it done quickly. I feel, for most of us, hurrying is not always when we do our best work. It doesn't offer much reflection time, and almost no time for editing. But I suppose I can see the benefit of having to come up with content quickly. So, as far as “practicing” goes, I guess this is good practice. You know, deadlines and all that. This is where the ashamed feeling rears it's ugly head. I had Monday and Tuesday off, but I decided to leave this until today. I had plenty of time, I just didn't do it. The worst part is that I didn't even really do anything special with my time off. I loafed. I'm not happy to admit that, but it's true. That is another reason I feel ashamed. I have recently been trying to get some writing gigs on the side, during my down time. Then, when I had down time, I loafed, instead of trying to get a gig. I am not happy about this. Especially with the onset of the Holiday Season, my down time is dwindling, and I wasted my time. It's unnerving. It's especially unnerving because I know the cause. Too much booze. When I know I don't have to go to “work” the next day, I feel like having a few drinks. The problem being that it's taking me a lot longer to recover these days. I can't be successful starting at 1:30 pm.

I'm pretty bothered by this. Bothered enough to do something about it? I don't know. But I hope so. I have signed up on a couple of web sites that hire writers, so I've started the process, I'm just not being proactive enough. I have noticed though that on a couple of the sites, they're by specific time lengths, for completion. So maybe this hurry up practice is going to pay off in the long run. Although, I do not want to keep having to hurry. I've also noticed on a couple of the sites that they want articles written on certain topics. It's really making me realize how much work I'm going to have to do to be good at it. And I can't get that much work done starting at 1:30 pm. A couple of the things I've also noticed about these sites has got me into a bit of a moral dilemma. One of my dilemmas has to do with the fact that a lot of the “work” available has to do with gossip. Gossip! Whether it's sports or entertainment, celebrity gossip. That makes me sick. It makes me ill to think about what some of these celebrities go through. I know some of them stay celebrities because of this type of gossip, but that doesn't make it right. It seems to me that the ones who stay popular through this particular medium, are the ones with the least amount of talent. I refuse to work hard for them. The other ones, the talented ones, seem to be pretty good at staying away from this type of scrutiny, so why should I go out of my way to try to find some kind of interesting tidbit for a few dollars? I think they should be left alone.

The other part of the dilemma is that a lot of the “work” available is for product, or web site, reviews. As I wrote that, it kind of seemed like “What's the big deal with that?” The big deal with that is, they are asking for articles written “as if” the author had used the product. They totally don't care if the review is honest or not, as long as it sounds as if it's from an actual user. One of them was for a Plastic Surgeon! A fake review for a Plastic Surgeon, I almost got ill. The part that got me the most was that for some of them, not the Plastic Surgeon, I started the dialogue in my head “Is it really all that bad?” After all, it's just creative writing, I can make up a story. I've been making up stories for years. But then the new part of me spoke up. Writing fake reviews, even if no one gets hurt, is still a fake review. I am coming from a place in my life where I am trying to share the truth. I am trying to live in truth. And I just don't see where writing fake reviews, even for the writing practice, falls under the truth. So I'll wait until the right assignment comes along. But it's really got me thinking about how corrupt a lot of people, and businesses, are. It really kind of makes me sad. It reminds me of a line from one of my favorite songs, from one of my favorite bands: “Everything you hear, or read, or see on TV is a product begging for your fat *ss dirty dollar.” The more I realize that statement to be true, the less I want to be a part of that idiom. I want to be creative, and successful, but I guess not at “any” cost.

Daughn