In The Interest of Full Disclosure...

ITIOFD. I kind of wish that were a common abbreviation.  We could call it Idio-Fud.  ITIO-FD

"Hey Spike, tell me about your hot date last night."

"Aw, no, Fred you don't want to know all the details."

"Heck yes I do.  Bruno said she was a stone cold fox!"

"Well, ITIO-FD... it was with your mom."

Well, anyways ITIOFD I'd like to share with you some basic facts about recent experiences.  No editorializing.  No bashing.  No comments.  Just the bare bones facts.

Make of these what you will.

1. On Wednesday, I wrote a scathing review of Textbroker and its services that was intended to be harsh.  Textbroker is a freelance writing community. On Friday, I received an e-mail and a DM tweet from a Textbroker executive.  She asked whether TravWise was, in fact, my blog, and expressed an interest in communicating with me so that "they could get me back."  Friday afternoon I wrote a lengthy (editorializing, dang it) 300 word e-mail explaining the blog post and welcoming further discussion.  Friday afternoon I wrote a semi-apologetic amended blog post about Textbroker.  Friday evening I received another DM tweet from the same executive. "I'll get back to you on Monday."  Monday, nothing.  Tuesday, nothing. 

2.  Today, I filled out the online form for the Publisher's Clearing House $5000/Week For Life giveaway.  I deleted all of my information before sending the form.  Ten minutes later, I filled it out again.  I deleted it.  Again.  The form is still open in a tab on my web browser.  I think maybe it is casting a spell on me.

3.  This morning I missed a writing deadline by thirty minutes.  I did not care show any outwardly measurable signs of distress.  This client receives high quality work for 50% less than my other clients.  (That's not editorializing. Those are facts. FYI. Idio-Fud.)

4.  I seriously debated spent twenty minutes evaluating the pros and cons of taking a nap this afternoon.  I went to lunch with my working wife and my in-laws.  I saw at least thirty people wearing either scrubs, nametags, or business attire.  I returned to my home to continue working.  I did not take a nap this afternoon.  Guilt may or may not have been the reason.

5.  I spend too much time... an exorbitant amount of... I spend approximately 1.5 hours managing social media every day.

6.  We are going to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner tonight to celebrate my brother-in-law's (brother's-in-law?) birthday.  It will rock.  (Editorializing... oh shut up.)

New Orleans in Nashville

This is NOT a recipe blog.  I feel like I have to say that up front.  I don't want you getting confused when you read what I'm about to post below this.  No, it's definitely not a recipe blog.  I'm not going to be working my way through a Julia cookbook.  I'm not going to discuss my favorite Food Network stars.  I'm not going to post a new, delicious ten-step meal every single day.  This is NOT a... ok, you get it.

That being said.

Last night, the wife and I had a houseload of people over.  I needed something delicious and amazing to serve to a large crowd.  Something not too difficult but with a little more pizzazz than a pot of chili.

Enter Gumbo, Stage Left

My mom's family is from Louisiana, and as I was slogging through the dusty corners of my hard drive, I discovered this recipe for authentic Louisiana gumbo.  It was incomplete, and I had to flesh out a few areas, perform a little roux research, and figure out how to fill in a couple of gaps.

The result, however, was incredible.  It was pass-on-worthy.  So, here it is.  Perkins Family Gumbo.

Perkins Gumbo (Version 2011)

• 3 large chicken breasts
• Salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 pound smoked sausage, sliced
• 1/2 cup flour
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 2 cups chopped onion
• 8 cloves minced garlic
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 1.5 cups chopped celery
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• Tobasco (to taste)
• 1 handful of chopped parsley
• 6 cups hot water
• 5 cubes chicken builion
• 1 teaspoon sugar
- 2 regular cans stewed tomatoes
• 1 pound sliced okra (frozen works great)
• ½ cup chopped green onions
• 1 pound raw shrimp, peeled and devained
Here's Whatcha Do:
 
1. Rub the chicken breasts with salt and pepper.  Heat the oil in a Dutch Oven (it HAS to be a Dutch Oven.  Any other pan will be TOO THIN) on Medium heat.  Brown the chicken.  Brown the sausage.  Remove the meat and set it aside.  Sprinkle the flour over the oil and drippings in the pan and add two tablespoons butter.
2. Now, get comfortable.  You're gonna be here awhile.  Turn your heat LOW and keep stirring that flour/oil mixture.  Don't stop.  For twenty minutes.  It will SLOWLY darken.  You want it to be the color of dark chocolate.  This is your roux.  If you burn it, you're done.  Go to McDonald's.
3. When the roux is dark enough, turn the heat up to Medium and add the Holy Trinity (celery, onion, bell pepper), the remaining two tablespoons of butter, and the garlic.  Cook it down for 10 minutes. 
4. Add the Worcestershire sauce.  Practice saying "Worcestershire."  Add the hot sauce, sugar, salt and pepper to taste.  Throw in the parsley.  Cook for another five minutes.
5. Now, if you try to put the meat back into the pot along with six cups of hot water, you are going to make a mess.  I transfer the veggies and roux into a stock pot at this point.  Pour half the water into the dutch oven and swish it around.  Pour that into a stock pot.  Pour the rest of the water into the D.O. and get the rest of the good stuff into that stock pot.
6. Add the meat.  Crush up the bouilion.  Bring this all to a boil then turn the heat down and let it simmer FOR AT LEAST THIRTY MINUTES.  The longer, the better.
7. Add the okra and tomatoes.  Simmer for AN HOUR.  If you skimp on the cooking time, I will find you.  I will know.
8. Ten minutes before you serve the gumbo, toss in the green onions and the shrimp.  Give it a good stir.  If it isn't thick enough, make a paste out of cornstarch and melted butter and add it to the pot.
 
Serve this gumbo over white rice and tuck slices of toasted baguettes into the bowl.  Garnish it with parsley if you are feeling fancy.  Bada Boom.
 
I know, I know.  You love me.  Stop crying and go make it already.

Falcor The Luck Dragon and Textbroker

Well, now I feel bad. 

I'm not really a confrontational person. I don't like to ruffle feathers and stir the pot.  Don't get me wrong, I will speak my mind if I feel that it is necessary.  But when I do, I usually feel like I've gone too far.  So, after I got an e-mail from a Textbroker employee regarding my scathing post about Textbroker, I reread the post in question...

... and immediately felt bad.

I may have been too harsh on Textbroker.  I compared the freelance writing community to Elance which may have been unfair.  I might have unnecessarily stomped Textbroker's good name into the mud.  I may have been comparing puppies to luck dragons.

If you came to me and said you really wanted to get a puppy, my review of Textbroker would be like this response:

"Why would you want a puppy?  They can't fly around and carry you around on their backs!  You should really get a luck dragon, not a puppy.  Falcor is the only pet worth getting."

Well, ok, yes.  A luck dragon would be nice.  But what if you really wanted a puppy?  What if you wanted something simple and easy to understand.  Something that required less maintenance.  A puppy would be great.  Textbroker isn't a luck dragon, but it isn't completely worthless either.

If you want a simple way to make extra money each month, Textbroker is fantastic.  If you don't want to go through the hassle of bidding on projects, creating a profile, advertising your services, keeping up with complicated client deadlines, and taking self-examinations, Textbroker is the perfect choice.  Textbroker has a huge collection of available articles that you can write immediately.  They pay their writers regularly.  They are usually fair with their ratings.  The only reason Textbroker didn't work for ME is because I was looking for a way to grow my freelance writing career.  I needed to be recognized so that I could gain loyal clients.  I needed expansion. 

I needed a luck dragon.

Real Simple Blog Contest

A few days ago I submitted an entry to the First Ever Simply Stated Blogger Contest!!  The contest involves writing a 300 word "blog post" style entry on your strangest or most unique friendship.  I am pretty excited about my entry; it was way fun to write. 

The prize for winning is $1000 smackers and a months worth of blogging on Real Simple's website in October.... woot! woot!  If you are at all interested, hit up the link above and check it out.  Anybody know any other fun writing contests going on right now?

Using Elance to Make Money

Yesterday, I talked about Textbroker and why I think it is a complete waste of a freelancer's time.  Today, I'm goingt to talk about Elance...

...because I think that Elance is exactly the opposite of a waste of time.  In fact, I think it's amazing.  Don't get me wrong, I won't be freelancing on Elance for the rest of my life.  For now, though, I'm going to show you how I can make a living using this incredible freelance community.

If you are a writer, a web designer, a marketing specialist, a social media networking specialist, an SEO writer, or a computer programmer... you can find WORK on ELANCE.  I'm talking about high paying, high quality, legit work, not cheap, ridiculous, five dollars an hour work.  You can actually be COMPENSATED for your time.

What Is Elance?
Elance is a community of freelancers.  You have to register to be a member of the Elance community whether you are looking to work or to hire.  Once you are a member (a process I'll explain later), you can bid on projects, complete work, and get paid.  Here are the benefits of freelancing within a community like Elance:

• Payment is always guaranteed with escrowed funds
• Clients are abundant; you don't have to hunt for hours looking for work
• Work is more substantial, projects come in packages of several articles
• Elance takes a cut of your earnings, not a monthly fee, so a dry spell won't cost you
• Your performance, client ratings, and skills are rated and ranked so that you can easily stand out amongst a crowd
• You can self-test to show potential clients what your skills are
• YOU are in complete control of how much money you want to make per job

If you are looking to jumpstart a brand new freelancing career, get yourself through a dip in client jobs, or do something totally new on the side to make a few hundred dollars extra every month you have got to try out Elance.  It's fun.  It costs nothing.  You can make MONEY. 

Boom bada boom.

Anybody else use Elance?  Any hobby writers out there who have considered trying to freelance but didn't know where to start?

The Help

Alright peeps! It's Book Review Wednesday.  I just made that up.  I probably won't do this every Wednesday.  But for now, let's pretend that this is a regular thing.  Ahem.

BOOK REVIEW WEDNESDAY!!

A couple weeks ago I snatched up The Help by Kathryn Stockett as soon as my wife had finished it.  If you haven't read it, I'm going to try to avoid spoilers at all cost because I really think you should pick this one up.  While I am definitely a Science Fiction and Fantasy geek, I can appreciate a cultural, semi-historical fiction novel with the best of them.  And on a personal note, I love the Civil Rights Era of American History.  Ever since I went to the hotel where Martin Luther King, jr. was assassinated in Memphis, I've been infatuated with that movement in our country's history. 

In spite of that, I was naive enough to be disappointed by this book.  I'll explain that in a minute.

First of all, the characters in this book are so strong.  I love a book with good strong characters: characters whose voices you can hear in your head as if they were standing next to you and shouting.  I love being able to imagine a character's posture, clothing, nonverbal communication, all of it.  Ms. Stockett has her characters DOWN.  I also loved the story.  The humor, the intrigue, the old Southern charm.  It was all great.

The ending, however, left me feeling empty and dejected.  I found myself wanting a more definitive ending.  I wanted the characters to succeed.  I wanted more justice.  I wanted more recognition.

That's when I remembered... Kathryn Stockett couldn't write that ending because it would require a complete change in history.  The Civil Rights movement wasn't over in a week.  It wasn't over in a year.  It didn't wrap up neatly and nicely in a tidy little package where everybody, all of a sudden, got along.  In fact, the ending I found myself wanting would have been ridiculous.

"Now, I know I treated you like trash yesterday because you are black.  But now, I see that was wrong."
"You're right, it was wrong.  Wanna play Gin Rummy?"
"Oh yes."

Yeah. Stupid, I know.  This story ends with a handful of questions because that is what the lives of these characters were full of during this time.  Questions.  Questions about survival.  Questions about society.  Questions about change, about solutions, about unmet needs, about fear, about anger.  Some of us are still asking these questions today.  Some of us throw a huge temper tantrum when an African American man gets elected president.  Some of try to mask our prejudices by hurling stupid accusations about birth location and religion.  Some of us have forgotten the journey that our ancestors traveled. Some of us have forgotten our destination.

It may sound odd, but after reading this book I decided that I am proud of our President.  Not because he is black.  Not because he is the first president elected to this country that isn't as white as the signers of the Declaration.  But because, to me at least, he stands for another step on a journey that I think is well worth traveling.  I know that wasn't the intention of Kathryn Stockett.

Still, we can learn a lot from reading about the past.  We see where we've come from.  We see where we are going.  I see where I am.

Textbroker: Counting Pennies in Hell

I've been putting this post off for far too long.  I really want to discuss the beginning of my personal freelance journey and the important differences I discovered between two of the biggest freelance writing communities: Elance and Textbroker.

When I decided to try my hand at freelance writing, I didn't really know what an important and widespread field I was getting myself into.  A friend of mine told me she had made a few extra hundred dollars a month with a site called Textbroker.  Extra hundred dollars?  Ok, yes I'm trying this out.

Textbroker is a website where clients post their writing needs in different categories and writers can choose to complete these articles for a rate of less than two cents per word.  Categories include jewelry, home, business, computers, family, travel, etc.  Depending on how your writing rates with the Textbroker editors, you have access to different levels of writing jobs that pay different amounts of money.  The highest rating you can get as an "amateur" is a four star rating.  That's where I started. 

Here is the problem with Textbroker.  Er, there's more than one.  First, the jobs are first come, first served which means that there is no bidding process or freedom in deciding how much you are going to make.  If you write a four star article, you get paid 1.7 cents per word.  Every time.  No exceptions.  The second problem is that the a lot of the articles are filled with REALLY COMPLICATED guidelines that you have to complete before the article can be written.  Sometimes, just reading the guidelines for each article would take me fifteen minutes.  Then, the article would only pay about $5-$8.  Not exactly cost effective. 

The last problem I had with Textbroker freelance writing was the process by which they moved you from a four star writer to a five star writer.  Ideally, once you have written ten articles in a row with a four star rating, you can apply to be a five star writer which gives you access to better paying jobs.

Well, I've written about a hundred articles with all four star ratings.  I applied to be a five star writer.  I was rejected.  Why?  Because in ONE of the hundred four star articles, the editor at Textbroker didn't like some of my phrasing.  It wasn't wrong.  It wasn't grammatically incorrecct.  She just didn't like it.

After that, I abandoned Textbroker for Elance.  And I absolutely love Elance.