Honestly I guess some times in life one learns to settle
I guess I hit a reasonably low level of errors for me to be able to earn
I should be ashamed of myself
Online writing Page 4
Valuable advice there Sooty for the online writer and I like your turn of phrase as always, 'your y-fronts can be your office suit' etc.
I joined elance a while ago but haven't pursued it as I found it tiresome to wade through jobs that I realistically didn't even have the time or inclination to go for, so your article is right on the nose in it's content.
Good jobs come up maybe 2 or 3 times a day use the seen engine
May give it another look.
Quote: sootyj @ November 2 2012, 6:33 PM GMTHonestly I guess some times in life one learns to settle
I guess I hit a reasonably low level of errors for me to be able to earn
I should be ashamed of myself
I've just read your comment on Rebekka's thread in the critique section, so yes, you should be ashamed! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
Hypocrasy isn't inaccuracy
http://www.londoncomedywriters.com/blog/Dr_Sardonicus/dyspraxic-writing/
Sardos latest thoughts on writing. And Sardo has kindly permitted me permission to cut 'n paste the text. Incase the clattering collection of farm machinery and organic veggies catches a virus.
I'm hoping early next year to take a sabbatical from my day job for 6 months and support myself from my earnings as a commercial writer. This will hopefully taking me about 3 days a week and leave me the rest of my time to focus on focussing on a couple of projects I've been intereste in; starting an NCTJ journalism course, writing the pilot for the sitcom I've been wanting to write for a while. And I think I've finally got the skills to make a passable stab at on my own.
I'm also quite severely dyspraxic. A developmental neurological condition that strongly affects one's abbility to read, write, spell, focus and concentrate. So why am I going for a career that by any sane definition is the wrong one? And how have I got myself in the position to realistically be able to consider earn a living at it?
Well if you've got this far I'll assume you're interested and I'll do my best to explain.
First of all how does dyspraxia affect me?
1 Focus, like most people with dyspraxia I have terrible short term memory but surpisingly fast processing intelligence. It means I can think around a problem quite quickly but not retain alot of information.
2 Word transposition. I can very easily transpose words that are spelled diferently but have the same meaning (weak/week). Or I will almost always call someone by the name of the person I was talking to previously. You get the idea.
3 Visual hallucinations. Not as dramatic as it sounds, but words and sentences can swop places, wave up and down change colour. This especially happens when editing.
5 Add this altogether and I have an actually remarkably poor idea of; punctuation and grammar.
So how do I compensate?
1 Check and check again. Even though I usually get it wrong I always check through my work.
2 Time. Time is easily my best friend, a check with a 24 hour break will pick up stuff I missed the first time around. Two hours isnt quite enough but its better than nothing.
3 Technology. A good place for me to start is running what ever I'm working on through the latest version of word. Then go back and correct till the blue, green and red lines disapear. Word though definitely gets everything, and word seems more than happy to approve any document with semicolons in it (a program with a cultural cringe).
There are other programs that allow one to talk-type or read it back to you, or even coloured glasses are meant to help. I think it's a foolish pride, but I prefer not to use them. I worked hard to become a touch typist and I dunno it feels abit like giving in. My handwriting is so bad I actually don't own a pen and always have something I can type onto.
4 Friends and family. Where ever possible I get a friend or more usually my mum to check over my writings (thanks mum!). The problem is where as they can spot errors, they can't get the subtle nuances of what one is being asked to write. Which includes the accessable errors if one is using common parlance etc.
5 Cheat. I love getting urgent assignments, because I can say "24 hours no problems? of course I'll have to use my pad can't edit it properly could you proof read?" And then they proof read delighted you could do the job on time. Scripts for animators, VOs and all sorts of other things are quite forgiving as long as the script is vaguely readable. These days one maybe writing a script for a Canadian company, that'll be read by an American actor and animated in Bangalore. In that whole muddle a few errors can be forgiven.
6 Give up. One of the things about dyspraxia is I get very thrown by unclear instructions and if I make a mistake and remake that mistake once or twice. Then I literally can't unthink it, these and other things mean that sometimes I actually can't complete some jobs. And so will either cancel or pass those jobs onto someone else. Tough luck on me I guess.
7 No your limitations. I almost never enter competitions or open talent contests (this year I actually gave up on Newsjack). They almost by definition require you to be able to work to tight guidelines and get it right first time. I can't follow tight guidelines and I usually get most projects right on the 3rd attempt. It doesn't mean giving up it just means trying in another direction. So I guess I must be one of very few people I know who makes passable money filtering out decent attainable jobs from online job sites. It's a diferent skill but one which I can far more easily match.
So that's it really. Take heart all my fellow dyslexics, dyspraxics and other neurologically diverse. The neurologically ordinary may have some advantages but they don't hold all the aces. Having to focus so hard on my writing has given me some surprising and lucrative skills on helping other writers with their efforts. And where as I may not have got my sitcom or screen play produced yet, by and large neither have they. And the word yet it's not a four lettered word. Heck than puny little thing's only got 3 letters to it's name, it's going down.
Some interesting and honest points there, Sooty. Where do you see this leading though? The articles that you write seem to be on rather niche subjects, so is this purely to free you up to pursue the other writing objectives you mention? Or can this online writing lark in itself lead on to something more substantial and satisfying?
Well its been a steady progression.
Writing captions for iphone apps to start, then writing gags for websites, then writing for that Rodeo clown from Canada, then rewriting speeches and web content, then white board animations and now ebooks.
Each one a bit more money each one a bit more status.
It's increments but they add up.
I mean I've got a couple of scripts that I sold, awaiting development.
And like I say in the second article, I'm earning enough to take some time off work and concentrate on a couple of bigger projects.
Just got knocked down a whole peg, possibly two.
For the first time I've had a job canceled by a client (previously canceled them twice myself)
But sticking to the rule of its never worth getting bad feedback. Despite getting some rather annoyingly rude emails.
Add too thoughts for the future.
1 Cancel any job where you don't understand or believe in the product, especially if both are true.
2 Avoid any job where they prefer skype to email instructions.
F**k should have been an easy £100 for 2 hours work, instead 3 hours on skype and 2 hours writing for nought.
Bah.