“T” Is for Tell-All

Truth be told, my first week of my $1000/week challenge was kind of a bust. I worked at my other job 3 out of 5 days last week and I had hoped to make some of the writing time up over the weekend. Life, however, had other plans for me. The family decided to take me out for a combination Mother’ Day and Wedding Anniversary celebration. That consisted of a little shopping, dinner at a Japanese hybachi restaurant (good bye diet) and a movie (Something Borrowed). The weekend also included being called into unexpected service as a furniture mover.

While I enjoyed my day out and I didn’t really mind helping my daughter get her furniture, it definitely swallowed up my writing time. My paltry total for the week was just $329.28. Now most weeks I would be pleased with that kind of money but not on the kick off week of my new challenge. Here’s how the earnings break down:

                Gather News                                                                      $13.00

                Yahoo Contributor Network (YCN) TV Beats                      $16.00

                YCN News                                                                           $15.00

                YCN Assignments Submitted for Upfronts                           $3.47

                Demand Media                                                                 $128.00

                Private Clients                                                                   $166.81

What I learned from this week is that I need to be a little more organized and a bit more dedicated. Certainly I could have squeezed in more time during the week. I left it for the weekend and then that was unexpectedly taken away – not that I’m complaining about the family time – not at all. However, if I had not procrastinated, I would have come much closer to my $500 ‘getting started’ goal. I will make it this week.

Take away: Procrastination is a killer. If you can write one more article today, do so.

“Z” Is for Zero Hour

Today marks the beginning of two new challenges for me. The first is the Z to A May Blogging Challenge. Each participating blogger will make daily posts, except for Sundays, using a letter of the alphabet as a prompt for the day’s post. Since we did A to Z in April, we thought we’d reverse the order for May. You can get in on this or simply find other bloggers who are by clicking the Z to A button in the upper right-hand corner of this blog.

The second challenge and the one this blog will be about is Zero-Hour. I have been freelancing for nearly three years now. I have watched as others turned their dreams into reality by taking their writing to whole new levels of success. In recent weeks, several of my writer-friends, Amy Brantley, Sass Ashe and Lisa Mason took up the challenge to see if they could earn $1000 each week strictly from writing and related services. You can find links to their blogs on the subject in my blog roll.

This got me thinking about what I could accomplish. I think $1000 is a bit lofty for my situation. I currently homeschool two teenage boys and I have an outside, par-time job that schedules work for me at both random times and last minute times. These responsibilities usually consume the equivalent of two full work days for me each week. Still, I want to shoot for it.

So I must adapt. I cannot work just Monday to Friday, Nine to five. If I really want to achieve this, I will have to work any available hours I can. I am not yet at a point in my career where I can command high dollars for my work. I write mostly for content sites but I do have a few paying clients now and that helps.

I plan to aim for $500 the first couple of weeks and build it up from there. Once I find the right flow for my ever-changing life, it should get easier. Through this blog, I will post updates at least once a week and more often if time allows. I will share what I did, what worked and what didn’t. I hope you’ll follow along, share your thoughts and tips and keep me motivated – as if $1000 a week isn’t motivated enough! If you’re interested in taking the challenge, leave me a message and I’ll include you in my blog roll.