end of the year writing rants

Just because I’ve been MIA lately doesn’t mean I haven’t been working.

Quite the contrary; I’ve been working my Irish tush off to close out the end of my year in the black.

It’s not been easy. The last few months, I’ve been very focused on my niece and helping my sister with whatever they need. It’s sucked a lot of my time, but in no way am I sorry about any of that. Family First. Always.

However, it’s created some creative scheduling on my part. For about two weeks I was on the 3am plan with a wake up of 9am. Unfortunately, Peanut also got on that plan and now I am undoing what I’ve created (which would be a night-owl monster). Today was the first real day he’s napped at a decent time and woke up at a time that makes me think he’ll be fast asleep before midnight for a change. Yay!

The goal is to have all work caught up before the end of the year, deadlines met, projects finished and clients happy. I want to welcome 2009 in with a clean and green slate.

The first of my troubles comes from a long time client that had promised all of their writers payment by the end of the year for everything they invoice before last week. Awesome. I jumped on board of that. I tallied up everything needing done and sent off the invoice as well as some articles. The deal was, invoice what you write in December and then get paid by the end of the year. Would you not take them up on that offer? I certainly did.

Then the dreaded email arrived on Tuesday. There will be no payout. Somewhere communication was crossed and the company that cuts the checks, can’t meet that demand. Not only can they not meet that demand but the invoice that will be outstanding 30 days as of December 21st, will also not be paid before the end of the month as it should be due to the company shut down. So here I am, six days before Christmas and no extra money. Not that I banked on that money for Christmas (I didn’t) but it kills my plans for Shorty’s birthday on January 3rd also. The check won’t arrive until around the 5th. I guess I’m supposed to look on the bright side that when I DO get it, it will be three invoices combined and that will help start the new year, albeit delayed. It still gets my blood going though because for two weeks it was drilled to us writers in emails… get your stuff invoiced or you won’t get paid before the end of the year. My advice for the future: Don’t make promises the finance department can’t cash. Literally.

Enter rant number two: I received an email a few weeks back from a potential client. They had received my information from a former client who I did some work for earlier this year. The person wanted an e-book written on a niche topic and I was willing to write it but not at his prices *Cough* less than $500 for the entire project. We negotiated that I would edit the e-book instead and that they would find someone who would write the content for their budget. We set a schedule on when I would be starting work on the project and receive the down payment for the project (Monday of this week). No contact was made (and today is Thursday for those keeping track) so when I sent a message to the potential client, I was informed that the project was pushed back to January as they didn’t get the content yet. I’m not even getting involved in why there are no articles. I only care that I scheduled time to begin the project based on the agreement of when it would begin. I didn’t count on that money either. More this time, I’m a tad out of shape about the fact that I scheduled the time for this new client and made sure I had room to edit and proof the e-book.

To solve that problem I let the potential client now that I’ve already booked January (it’s true) and I won’t be able to edit said project. Since no money has changed hands and no contracts were signed, I’m not feeling to sad about telling this person No at this point. I look at it as doing myself a favor and avoiding what was beginning to look like a troublesome client and experience. Plus, now I have time to, oh well, I don’t know… blog?

Yeah. You’ve got to love that.

January’s going to be a big month; I’ve got two birthdays to plan for, a potential trip, and my regular work load. I’m not going to pack my first month of the new year so tight I have no wiggle room. 

I’m predicting that 2009 will be a big year all around both in business and on the home front. I’m looking to attend my first blogging conferences and hopefully at least one writing conference or retreat.

I’ve got more plans on the horizon as well. Not for this blog, I’m going to keep doing my thing here but I’ll be sharing these plans with you as they come together in the next few months.