Happy Thanksgiving

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to take a moment to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you have a wonderful holiday. :)

This is one huge benefit of being self-employed - having the ability to just take the rest of the week off...so enjoy that hard-earned opportunity.

See you next week!

Busy Week Ahead

Hiya!

Hope you all had a relaxing weekend. Mine was absolutely wonderful - full of enjoyable moments playing with my kids and hanging out with my hubby. It even started to feel "holiday-ish." :) Down here in southern California, we don't usually get much of a winter. Thus, it was very exciting when we had a big drop in temperature...we even were able to light up our fireplace. In a nutshell, my weekend was almost magical, with firewood crackling in the living room, Christmas movies constantly running, much dancing with my munchkins, and even a few quiet moments of reading by the fire. :)

Just checking in to let you know that my week is already packed full of things to do even though it's barely begun. On top of several deadlines keeping me busy, I am taking an eight hour drive with Hubby and the kids to go to a very dear relative's funeral. Did I mention that we're going mid-week? Needless to say, there's a lot to be done, and I'm not quite sure how I'm going to manage it all. (Maybe I'll glean some great productivity tips out of this frenzied week. :)

I had some great post ideas planned for this week, but I just might have to put them on hold until at least the weekend. Anyway, I hope that you all have a productive and rewarding week!

Job Boards

Do you ever search writing job boards for work?

It's become part of my regular routine now. But I have to admit that I've been getting somewhat frustrated with it, lately, since most of the jobs that I hear back from don't really sound legitimate or the pay is ridiculously low.

In fact, I decided yesterday that maybe I was wasting too much time on something that never really seems to pay off, so I decided that I was not going to check out any job boards today.

Well, lo and behold, when I checked my email this morning, I had a perfect and well-paying gig (that I had found on a job board) just waiting for me!

Anyway, moral of the story: Never say never.

Although, I do think that it's important to keep track of how much time you actually spend searching for work on the job boards, and then how many gigs you actually get out of the deal. Doing so will help you in determining whether it's a good investment of your time.

If you do find it worth your time to look through job boards for work, here are two that I recommend:

1) Deb Ng's Freelance Writing Jobs Network
2) Anne Wayman's About Freelance Writing

I'd love to hear your thoughts on finding work through job boards. :) Do you think it's a worthwhile venture? If so, how much time do you spend searching?

Finding a Balance

It's already ten days into NaNo, so I'm sure that some of you have been typing away and are now seeing some great results. I'm jealous. I sooo wanted to participate in NaNo this year, but when I actually sat down and figured out my time, I decided that I should wait until next year, especially because Hubby and I are reallly trying to save up for a house right now. In this effort, I have been scouring the job boards and attempting to focus more on copywriting to bring in the extra income. So far, so good.

The only downside is that I've been spending so much time working that I haven't had nearly enough time for my kids. It can definitely get hard trying to find that balance between work helping your family and then work actually taking away from your family. Oh well, I guess that's the life of a freelancer, I suppose.

Anyway, long story short: I didn't do NaNo this year, due to time constraints. I'm sure it's an amazingly difficult, fun, and rewarding experience, and I can't wait to join in next year! How is it coming along for all of you?

(By the way, I've let all this extra work get in the way of blogging and tweeting. So I am determined to work out a better schedule - even if it means having to cut out a little of the extra work - so I will see you all again soon. :)