I was browsing Reddit earlier, when I found a thread titled “What was your first paid freelance gig?”. There were quite a few interesting answers, and it got me thinking about my own experience.
Today, I’m going to turn things over to you and ask you to share your own experience: how did you start your freelance writing career?
Before that, allow me to share some stories.
I could be wrong, but I think that many freelance writers – especially those who work mainly from home – are more introverted than extroverted. At the risk of stereotyping, many of us prefer to stay indoors, read books, browse the Internet, and watch (good) TV shows or movies/documentaries.
Money for Nothing
I was planning to write an incredibly long, detailed post about the not-so-wonderful world of writing for websites that operate on revenue sharing models.
Part of that post was going to discuss a throwaway article I wrote several years ago for a revshare site on a lark, just to test the waters. Due to a lucky combination of good timing, optimization for a virtually unexploited long tail keyword in a big money niche and what one can only describe as stupid luck, I’ve made approximately $600 from that article over the course of five years. It took me approximately five minutes to find the primary keyword (there’s that luck) and about ten minutes to write the simple article.
I’m not underpaid, but I generally don’t make $2,400 per hour for lousy little pen-named articles designed for content mills. I still chuckle every month when I see the mill make a deposit into my checking account.
Anyway, I wanted to mention that article because stories like those are one reason why so many people hop into the revshare world. Unfortunately, they’re flukes. Anomalies. Luck breaks. You can’t count on them. They don’t happen too often. I was going to put that particular article’s numbers up against the other four I wrote in the same week for that site long, long ago to illustrate the point.
I was plodding through the post about revenue sharing while listening to George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh and just as I started detailing the story of the miracle article, I found myself half-singing along with Ring Starr’s “It Don’t Come Easy”.
It don’t come easy,
You know it don’t come easy.It don’t come easy,
You know it don’t come easy.Got to pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues,
And you know it don’t come easy.
You don’t have to shout or leap about,
You can even play them easy.
Well, in my case it did come easy. I goofed around as an experiment and made a big ol’ chunk of cash from writing that I’d objectively value at approximately nothing.
Some days, Starr’s lyrics do ring true for a self-employed writer.
However, there are times when it does come easy. The cosmic tumblers click into place and weird little miracles appear.
Accentuating the Positive
Instead of writing a post about the way things don’t come easy in the world of revenue sharing, I decided to write a post about the times things do come easy. I figured it might be nice to celebrate the crazy flukes and accidental victories instead of focusing on the ugly grind of making a living with a keyboard.
Here are my favorite easy moments… In no particular order:
The $600 Revshare Non-Masterpiece: This is the article mentioned above. A nearly effortless bit of experimentation continues to pay dividends years after its creation. There really is no logical explanation for why this article continues to earn and earn every month. Somehow, it continues to fly below the radars of those who work in the niche and Google, pumping out steady earnings for the content mill and me.
The Three-Page Report that Made Over $5,000. I was driving down the highway and a simple idea crossed my mind. Bum marketing (a simplified form of article-based affiliate marketing) was a hot topic in the Internet marketing world. I realized there was a very easy way to boost the value of the articles and to insure at least some up-front cash value for them. That relatively small cash payment could serve as something of an insurance policy for those who were writing free articles for directories in hopes of generating affiliate sales.
I came home, sat down and outlined the exceedingly simple process. I added introductory and concluding paragraphs, converted it into a PDF and posted it for sale as an information product on a popular IM forum with a little off-the-top-of-my-head sales copy. I set up a PayPal button and a quick automated download process for anyone willing to buy the guide. From top to bottom, it took about two hours.
The next morning, I woke up to over $2,000 in sales. Within three days, I made $5,000 off that simple idea. The almost equally awesome part was the fact that the folks who bought the report actually liked it. It didn’t take long for the concept to escape the confines of my hastily produced ebook and sales ground to a halt shortly thereafter. I wasn’t complaining.
The Luckiest Celebrity Blog Ever: I noticed that my wife was watching a TV show featuring a woman I had seen on another show the day before. Out of curiosity, I did some quick Googling and realized that her career was absolutely on fire and that she was poised for a major breakthrough.
At the time, I was experimenting with new keyword mining techniques and generating income via blogs monetized with contextual advertising. A few minutes later, I had claimed a Blogspot blog with a domain name featuring a common misspelling of the celebrity’s name and was setting it up with a number of quick posts that were little more than silly notices of other articles about the celebrity, combined with a brief excerpt of the source material and a link to the original source. It was a very crude homemade news aggregator, in a sense.
The site started making about $1 per day in Adsense earnings, so I kept adding occasional little posts. The celebrity’s star power increased to the Nth degree and earnings went up, up and up. Soon, it was making a solid $10 per day. Then $20. Then $30. I outsourced one hundred additional news aggregation-style posts with some of the earnings, loaded them up and set them to drip feed at a rate of two per week. The investment paid for itself within two months.
That site made a small fortune before people with real resources, strong content and a commitment to doing things the right way realized that a crummy little Blogspot blog was ranking in the top three for a series of high volume searches. The competition didn’t find it hard to knock me off, but that blog put a stack of fat Adsense checks in my pocket before they did. For what it’s worth, the site still generates about a buck every other day and I haven’t so much as looked at it in over two years.
Common Traits
All three of those weird winners share a few common traits:
They happened because I was willing to experiment. If I had been wholeheartedly committed to following THE plan and only THE plan, they wouldn’t have happened. This serves to remind me that keeping an open mind and trying new things can be a lot of fun and a source of profits.
They all defied duplication. Efforts to replicate the results with similar projects invariably fall short of those anomalous originals. I did have some luck with other Adsense-monetized blogs (enough that I still get a check every month from Google) and I’ve sold a few other information products here and there that have been well worth my time, but I’ve never come close on another revshare article. This reminds me that luck matters more than we’d probably like to think.
All three of these happy accidents share one other trait. They happened three or more years ago.
And You Know it Don’t Come Easy
I think that last fact may contain the most important lesson my three examples offer. In the last few years, we’ve witnessed an absolute explosion in the number of people trying to make money online as writers, Internet marketers and everything else imaginable. I think it’s an overstatement to say we’re near a saturation point, considering the web’s continued rapid growth, but the online world is certainly more crowded and competitive today than it was a few years ago.
I really do believe it was easier to mix some rudimentary knowledge with a little skill and a chunk of action to generate healthy chunks of cash back in the “good old days” (which aren’t particularly old at all, truth be told). As I think about other cool little bursts of luck I’ve had, most of them happened during or before 2008. I know I haven’t stopped experimenting with new ideas and I’d like to believe that my skills have improved. I know my knowledge base is more expansive.
So, either I’ve hit a long luckless streak or it’s getting tougher to hit the big time with little effort due to increased competition.
I wanted to go from a somewhat negative post about the doomed nature of 99.99% of revshare writing efforts to a positive reflection on the times when the money rains upon request. Instead, I think this post could still end on a somber note.
These days… Well… It don’t come easy.
Your Glory Days… And a Prize!
Ah, who wants to end on a down note? Maybe it can come easy. Even if it doesn’t, it did at some point and that’s worth a little party, right?
I open it up to you, the FWJ readership. Let’s hear your stories of glory days, your memories of times when things that shouldn’t have been successful turned into moments of accidental greatness.
Maybe it was the unedited, typo-riddled query that still landed you a plum contract. It could’ve been the time you sent off a piece of work you personally hated that the recipient loved so much you developed a profitable on-going relationship. Perhaps you had a magic revshare moment, too.
I don’t know what’s happened to you, but I have to believe you’ve had times when it all came easy.
Tell your story.
Oh, and just to encourage participation, I’ll tack on a prize. The best story wins a free copy of The Concert for Bangladesh on DVD. You get Harrison, Clapton, Preston, Dylan and even Ringo in their full bearded 1971 glory!
Let’s hear your tales of mysterious moneymakers, accidental brilliance and those unexplained moments of magic when very little effort resulted in a massive payoff of some sort.
So, the Internet Content Syndication Council is concerned about the allegedly abysmal quality of mass-produced articles flying out of the content mills. They’re so disturbed by the practices and output of the mills that they’re working on a series of quality standards and have discussed the possibility of certifying “legitimate” content.
I can think of few sillier endeavors.
Money Talks
The ICSC thinks ad spends should go to the producers of rock-solid content. That wouldn’t be a bad argument if they could convincingly demonstrate that an investment in top drawer material would yield a superior return on investment compared to buying space with the content mills. If they could prove the link between “quality” content and higher profits, they wouldn’t even need to worry about the mills. The market would dismiss them and they would wither away, as do all non-competitive business models.
Unfortunately, they don’t appear to be winning the argument. As Mike Shields noted, the content mills are generating massive traffic numbers and they supply advertisers with highly-targeted eyeballs very efficiently. Companies spend dough to make dough, not to support an organization’s interpretation of what constitutes proper writing. When they see a positive ROI with the mills, they take their wallets to the mills. It’s that simple. Right now, they’re lining up at the mills.
Constantine von Hoffman noted that there are already sources of content that would undoubtedly meet any standards the Council might cook up. We all know that The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc. are there for us. Their content tends to rank well, too. Oh, and they get good traffic. Yet the money isn’t flowing in their direction–at least not enough of it to keep the big boys plump and happy. Why do these quality sources with trained professional editors and acclaimed writers struggle while an army of cut-rate freelancers and the mills who pay them thrive?
Welcome to today’s economic realities. You might think they’re ugly. You might not like them. They are real. The mills are delivering bang for advertising bucks. As long as they continue doing so, all of the quality credentialing in the world won’t make a difference.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the big ROI lies far, far away from the mills. If all of those people are putting their cash in the wrong spots, all the Council needs to do is to present those facts. If they could conclusively demonstrate that spending with sites that carry a higher grade of content would increase profitability over the alternative, the alternative would be gone. Poof. No need to credential a single word.
A Problem with Standards
The Council’s initial proposals with respect to content quality don’t really do anything to change the character of the allegedly rotten mill pieces. They quickly recognized that the subjective nature of writing quality made it impossible to set standards.
Instead, Ellie Behling notes:
The point of the guidelines is not to evaluate content itself — which would be a subjective task — but to develop procedures companies can use in creating or publishing content, said Tim Duncan, executive director of the ICSC.
More specifically, the four principles push for proper fact-checking, clearly stated dates of publication, timely corrections and updates, and clearly displayed credentials of the information sources, according to a release from the council.
Wow. That’s really going to keep the ‘Net free of shitty content. Factual content? Dates? Corrections? Credentials? Give me a break.
When someone writes the 9,278th content mill article about removing stains from your carpet, she can probably manage to maintain factual accuracy. The mill can slap a date on the page. She can write up a paragraph discussing her unquestionable qualification to address a common consumer issue. If someone points out a mistake, I suppose corrections could follow. That still won’t address common mill-related gripes like
The standards themselves are ridiculous because they fail to address the real problem ICSC members have with the mills–it’s stealing business, money and power from established industry veterans. However, if they really went after mill content with the degree of transparency required to ‘fess up to that motivation, they’d be left with no alternative but to engage in obvious, untenable cries to credential or approve content on the basis of whether or not it’s something they like.
They may be trying to get to that point through the backdoor. Matthew Ingram mentions that another proposed guideline is to ““ensure that all content submitted is vetted by established and qualified editorial reviewers.” Whatever that means. Established by whom? When? What qualifications? Why? What standards should these eminently qualified professionals use? The questions are legion.
It Starts with a “G”
The Council is tilting at the wrong windmill in the first place. The content mills exist and currently succeed because they understand something others don’t: Search. They know that money word starts with a “G”.
Google.
The mills kick ass on the search engines right now. Thus, they get the eyeballs. Thus, it makes sense to spend with them. If people didn’t rely on search to find the kind of information supplied by mills and their writers, no one would want to partner with them.
Content mills succeed in search because (1) they’ve figured out the long tail of search, (2) they’re creating content in response to expressed market desires (i.e. providing information for which people are already searching), (3) know how to build G-friendly sites, (4) capably exploit the limitations of Google’s search algorithm and (5) recognize that Google is interested in providing relevant search results, a goal that doesn’t necessarily line up with providing quality results.
Nonetheless, the Council is making content standards a priority instead of fighting Google. When they do address the issue of search with respect to mills and the perceived deficiency in content quality, they do so very carefully. Do you think they’re more comfortable griping about the mills than they are in actually confronting the core cause of mill popularity?
After all, as Frank Reed argues
In all honesty, unless the action comes from Google itself …there will be little that will be done. Consumers will have to ultimately judge what content they like or dislike and then advertisers can say whether or not they want to be linked to it.
And for that to happen, someone will need to show Google the err of its ways. Here’s a hint: The only persuasive arguments are the ones with dollar signs attached.
I’ve personally maintained that a change will, in time, come from Google. That won’t happen because some insider Council dislikes crappy content, though. It will come when actual users grow sick of search results that don’t measure up to their expectations and when Google starts losing numbers because of that dissatisfaction and/or the appearance of alternative means of information organization and acquisition.
Until then, all of the standards, credentials and concern about the allegedly lamentable state of Internet content won’t make much difference.
Note: I’ve intentionally avoided discussing whether the Council’s initial assumption–that content mill articles carry the stench of inferiority–has any basis in reality. That’s because (1) I’m not really interested in another discussion of quality, mills and the folks who write for them and (2) it doesn’t really matter–even if the Council were right, their approach wouldn’t fix any problem. I’ve also intentionally avoided trying to portray the Council as a group of old-schoolers who just don’t “get it” or who are simply scurrying about, looking for a way to preserve their incomes. While it would be convenient to run with that notion, I don’t think it’s quite fair. Quite.
Three Bags of Gold
Some of us played a game on long bus rides. We called it “Three Bags of Gold”. It wasn’t much of a game. It was primarily an opportunity to concoct horrific, stomach-churning, soulless scenarios and to half-heartedly consider them in the context of our greed and morality. It was like a hypothetical version of Fear Factor with ethical elements.
Someone would yell out a test. “Would you cut off your little finger, grill it and eat it for three bags of gold?” We’d iron out the details. How would the amputation occur? Would there be immediate medical treatment for the lost finger prior to the barbecue? Could we season our severed digit when it was time to dine? Right hand or left? We discussed the current market price of gold and the size of the bags at great length again and again.
I feel like I cheated a little. Even though I still consider myself a “newbie” writer in the grand scheme of things, and although I put in some sweat equity in to querying for high quality freelance writing jobs, most people don’t come out of that with a print book deal early on in their career. I thought I might share some thoughts after-the-fact about how I feel having a print book in my name published by a publisher, not self-published.
By the way, this isn’t a diatribe on how to decide whether to self-publish or not. We’ll save that argument for another time.
Further Recommended Reading:
If you’ve published a book, anything you want to add to the list?
Photo by Ed Yourdon
When I began this blog (and eventual network) it wasn’t to make a profit. It wasn’t even to provide a free service. It was to share some writing opportunities with other work at home moms. As the Freelance Writing Jobs community grew, I began to think about ways to earn money while still being able to provide a free service. Many people urged me to turn this into a paying subscription based service but I didn’t for two reasons:
The problem is, when you’re providing free stuff every day, you’re not earning any money. It’s hard to justify the time spent on doing this sort of thing when you’re bringing any income into the household. The community rewards are terrific and inspiring, but it’s hard to devote time to non-paying projects, especially when your time is needed elsewhere.
Shared with permission:
Dear Deborah,
I have a confession to make. I Googled you to learn more about you and your “early years.” I can’t find much about you save for online articles and your blog. I’m interested in learning more about the beginning of your writing career, how you juggled a full time job while you were starting out and when you knew it was time to quit your day job.
Thank you for your blog. You and your colleagues provide a valuable resource.
Sincerely,
Loretta M.
I asked Loretta if I could respond to her email publicly because so many of you ask me about how I knew I wanted to be a freelance writer, my publishing career and when it was time to leave my full time job. It’s not a very interesting story, probably it’s typical and normal.
Deb’s note: To be clear, I am not taking sides. Both “James” and “Harry” are my friends and I hope this will be the case for a long time to come.
As the quiet partner behind Men with Pens, I found Harrison McLeod intriguing. While James Chartand was clearly the outspoken leader, the mystery behind Harry made me want to know him better. The Pen Men handled a couple of redesigns for FWJ and are responsible from changing us from a single blog to a network.
Each time I contracted James and Harry they went on and beyond the call of duty. James was in constant contact and I had several late night G-chats with Harry who never complained, even though I’m sure I can be a pain in the butt sometimes. They were especially helpful during the Great Server Crash of ’08, and when they dropped everything to help and never treated me like an idiot even though I’m technically challenged. I can’t remember when I had a better customer service experience.
By now you know both James Chartrand and Harrison McLeod are women. Each chose to make themselves public in their own way, reflective of their very different personalities. We heard from James a few days ago, and now it’s time to learn more about Deb Dorchak who most of you know as Harry McLeod.
You’re probably not surprised when I tell you Deb is the same quiet, gracious and talented person. The only thing that’s changed is the name and gender we originally knew her by.
I give you, Deb Dorchak:
Yes. There have been a few insinuations along the way that James’ hand was forced into coming out. Some have even gone so far as to label it blackmail. What is even more disturbing is that this rumor is allowed to perpetuate and at no time has the record been set straight. In no way were revenge, publicity, slandering Men with Pens or any of its members, destroying MwP, or causing intentional harm to James and her family the motivation for this situation.
I left. I left because of personality conflicts with James. I quietly resigned, told four people who were closest to me, who I respected deeply and who I felt I had to apologize to if I had hurt them in any way. Whether or not they wanted to continue a relationship with me, as friends or co-workers, was totally up to them.
I was starting clean. I owned what happened and left it up to the Powers That Be to figure out how it would all turn out.
I honestly thought I’d be starting with nothing. No portfolio, no contacts, nothing. The net isn’t as big of a place as people would like to believe. All of us run in circles that overlap. For better or worse, news travels fast.
People are also not stupid. It doesn’t take much to connect a few dots. I’ve been told there’s a lot of negative fallout from this. If there is, I don’t see it. Or maybe I haven’t seen it yet. Who knows?
What I do know is that I used Harry in name only. I’ve always been a private person and even if one of my close friends I’ve known for years asked me for a picture of myself, I’d be hard pressed to give one simply because I’m never one to be in front of a camera. Just ask any of my High School buddies on FaceBook. I think they can count the number of pictures they have of me on one hand.
The thing is, personal life is personal life, business is business. I’d like to think that all of my interactions as Harry, whether they were on the blog, in IM or in other correspondences were handled professionally and that I didn’t lead anyone on to believe I was more than their designer, tech adviser or a friend to spend some time chatting with.
It started as a tongue in cheek joke. What amazes me is that no one can seem to laugh at themselves without getting offended. We were brainstorming blog names. I thought of that old skit on “In Living Color” called “Men on Film”. My mind made the leap to “Men with Pens”. The inside joke? The characters Harry and James were gay. They were both characters we had on an RPG creative writing board we used to run. We liked them, used the names and called it a day.
Looking back, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Hell, even my mother thought it was hilarious – and she dealt with the glass ceiling of the corporate world for twenty-something years. Now I’m seeing from the many points of view I read that it’s really doing everyone a disservice. Men, women, the human race in general.
Face it, this is human nature. There will always be one group or another that thinks itself superior. No matter how evolved you think you are, unless you’re Mother Theresa or Gandhi, or even Jesus Christ Himself, there’s still a small part in everyone that will in some way or another, be biased for some reason.
I didn’t start out to suck anyone in with a persona. And I don’t think I did, either. I hope not. Harry may have struck some as slightly feminine. That’s fine. I happen to be a woman who enjoys a lot of the things that men do. I ride a motorcycle, practice archery and iaido, I’d rather spend my time shopping for chrome than shopping for clothes, don’t give a damn about the latest fashions, never wanted kids and the moment a group of women I’m with start talking about babies, I’m gone. Are those stereotypical remarks? Sure they are.
I’ll tell you something though, stereotypes start with a tiny grain of truth. Maybe we over compensated for the masculine aspect. I don’t know. Men? Speak up, I’d like to know.
The increased income didn’t improve full force until we did the first redesign from JCME to Men with Pens. The writing was a struggle. It was long hours for very little pay and competing on auction sites for projects against third world countries bidding far lower than the rest of the world. Didn’t matter if you were male or female.
The moment our new blog design came out we started getting requests for graphics. Writing began to take a back seat. As I’ve said before, the work spoke for itself. From the time that site launched to the present, people came to us without any solicitation.
Now that I’m out, I find that the same is true. My work speaks for itself. The clients and contacts I have couldn’t care less if I’m a man, a woman or a Wookie. They like the service and products I provide and that’s the bottom line. I get paid what I’m worth, and if they don’t want to pay it, that’s fine. I’m not going to twist their arm or cry foul and pull the gender, race or any other card on them.
Didn’t even consider it much. I think if I were a man, I’d have the same personality. I’m very much like my Dad in that I’m quiet, like to work in the background and don’t go in much for following the crowd. I’m extremely patient and try to treat others the same way I’d like to be treated.
If I was trying to emulate anything at all, it was simply being a kind human being.
Harry never took over my life. The only thing that hurt the most and wore on me over time was I made some very genuine friendships. There were many times when these friends would come to town (after all, all roads lead to Vegas, don’t they?) I’d have to decline a drink or a visit and the opportunity to get to know them better, or even just to say thank you.
The urge to say screw it all and tell them was strong. But I promised I wouldn’t, despite my many attempts to ask James to give this up and say enough was enough and call the show to a halt. She wasn’t interested.
No, never. I kept my personal life and my online life separate.
The internal personality conflicts, the power plays, the constant miscommunications and endless days of stress where there shouldn’t have been any. I was told I changed, and I really started to believe that. Using Harry’s name didn’t screw with my head half so much as the issues going on behind the scenes.
Last August I hit rock bottom. I had deep depression, felt totally alienated and really thought there would never be any way I’d be able to pick myself up and start over. I did that once before. Lost everything in a divorce shortly before I moved out here. It felt like I’d been through a disaster where my home and everything in it just got burnt to the ground.
I felt that way again. I had to dig deep and see where this was coming from. Had I changed? Had I lost my integrity? Was I being manipulated? Was I manipulating others? The mirror asks a lot of hard questions.
Now, before anyone starts to think I’m fishing for sympathy, I’ll be the first to tell you, that’s not the case. I didn’t broadcast this to the world, and I still don’t like talking about it. But that’s what happened. Again, it had nothing to do with gender, these were my problems, my situations that I either created myself or allowed to happen.
I owned it, picked myself up and made a decision. I could go on living like this or I could get off my ass and out of the pity party and do something about it.
Ahhh…the new biz. From the ashes of destruction grow glorious new things. Sirius Graphix started when one of my now team members, Rose Redelfs said she’d always wanted to write an ebook. I said go ahead, do it, I’ll design it. We’ll sell it. I wanted to do more ebooks anyway.
That led to talking to Wendi Kelly, who said she’d market that. From there I said I had a theme I developed, we should get that out…
One thing led to another and before I knew it we were three (four counting Elizabeth Fayle who was with us at the time as well) individual service providers pooling our skills together to drum up some business.
From there, Sirius Graphix was born. In the space of a week, we already had clients knocking at our door. We had no home site, nothing to show them from past projects, we didn’t even have our services and price list together.
But we had clients.
Within a month, the website was up. Yes, with a blog. That was a tough decision for me because I really don’t enjoy blogging. But people like what I write, so there you go.
When I realized I needed a good code person to help with the theme development and other technical aspects of web design (I think if I had to choose between coding and blogging, I’d take blogging) we took on Allison “Sushi” Day.
Although I knew I could have done this all on my own, I didn’t want to. I wanted to design. Not spend hours with code, or hours writing. Just design. My team allows me to do that. And I give them the freedom to do what each of them does best. You want to know the real secret to business? Teamwork. No micromanaging, no looking over anyone’s shoulder. Just let your people do what they’re best at doing.
We bounce ideas off of one another, and never shoot down any idea. Like Wendi is fond of saying, “There’s no such thing as a bad idea.” (much in the same way I like to tell clients there’s no such thing as a stupid question).
Alright. I’m putting my foot down on this one. Enough already with the gender thing. It stays alive because we keep perpetuating it. And before anyone starts quoting my own words back at me, yeah, I know I started it with that Big Idea three years ago.
That’s what growing is all about. I bet a lot of you had some foolish ideas in the past you thought were great, only to look back and say to yourself “What was I thinking?”
Clients are receptive to our rates because we’re honest about the time it takes to put a project together. As much as I would like to give stuff away (and Wendi has to frequently hold me back and remind me when I’m in an overly magnanimous mood) the reality is everyone’s time is worth something.
I’m no different. I still have bills to pay, expenses to take care of and an internet connection to keep connected. Hey, I may not have kids, but I do have a roomie and two cats who still like to eat – not to mention myself. Food is nice. Very nice. So is enjoying life in general.
The sky’s the limit. I’ve got several concept projects in the works, everything from theme development to publications. The Team and I can’t stop the ideas from coming and it’s going to keep us busy for a long time to come.
I missed the people who were there at the beginning. By the time I left MwP in November of this year, there wasn’t one name in the comment section that I recognized. It was like I woke up one morning, looked at the comments and wondered where everybody went.
Once it all came out, I reconnected with many of the old crew. I explained the situation, and apologized for any misunderstandings. Whether they still wanted to be friends or communicate was totally up to them.
What I found was an amazing amount of support, I was missed, and they were glad to have me “back”. It was something very personal, between me and them, and something I’ll never take for granted or forget.
For more information about Deb Dorchak and her new design business, please visit the Sirius Graphix website.
If you have respectful questions for Deb, feel free to post them as she agreed to come by from time to time and respond.
