Things Are Hectic

Adgitize seems to be down again. :(

I'm hosting my first giveaway over at Spinning Lovely Days. If you're from the US, please, please join. All you have to do is leave a simple comment. You don't have to pay for shipping if you win. The prize is 250 stickers or labels from UPrinting.

I wrote an article for Bukisa. It's Ten Tips to Tap into the Artist Within. I just shared some ideas (the ones that work for me) on how to spark one's creativity.

Btw, here's the review I wrote for Reviewstream. I need to set aside time and write more.

Process It Already!

At odds with myself the past week, I decided to just get down and write a review for ReviewStream. I wrote about a hotel experience, something that was bordering on nightmarish (but of course, I strove to be objective about it - I didn't want it to turn into a rant, lest the review get rejected). Anyway, it said there that processing period took about 72 hours. I wrote it on the 13th so I expected to know if it had been accepted before the weekend. Excited about it though, I checked the status of my submission daily. At first, it informed me that processing would be done by the 15th, which was fair - I expected something like that. The 15th came and it got moved to the 16th. The 16th came and it got moved to the 17th. The 17th came and it got moved to the 18th... This is GMT, okay? So I checked just now to see if it has already been processed, and what a surprise! It said that the estimated processing date has been moved to the 19th. lol That's just bull! I wonder if it will ever be processed.
Update: It has already been processed. They're paying me $.50 for it. Apparently, that's the bulk rate. I somehow didn't qualify for the $2.50 rate. Anyways, you need $50 in your account to cash out, so, yeah, I'll be writing reviews all throughout the year - or not. We'll see.

WAH Risks

Here we go again. The risk in freelance WAH. Anyway, hopefully it's really just a delay. I did work for somebody and upon submitting the completed assignment, I didn't hear from the client anymore. It has been more than two days. I have yet to be paid fully for it. This reminds me of two previous clients. One was just always late when it came to payment (oh but how very stringent about deadlines - really, the gall of some people). I had to remind him to pay me every time. I worked for him for a couple of months and then I decided that I didn't need the aggravation. One time, he even said to me that his track record with me should give me enough confidence or something to that effect, the nerve. And then there was this other client. I didn't hear from her for a long time. I really thought I had been scammed, and then a friend of hers contacted us (we were an entire team) and said that she was in an accident. I did get paid eventually, but, oh the stress of worrying about having been scammed. The money part is actually just secondary. What really bugs is the possibility that I had been fooled. Anyway, hopefully, it's not a repeat of either of those situations.

Doing Odesk

Didn't I say I'd start being active on Odesk? Anyway, just to accomplish this goal, I applied for two job openings (they're available by the hundreds per category; naturally, mine is writing and translating), not really expecting to be considered since so many other job bidders had been using the Odesk system longer (I've had an account for the longest time, but didn't really use it - I actually thought that might reflect too). I was pleasantly surprised to hear back from one of the buyers almost immediately. Yeah, so I've already put in 2 hours. Hopefully, there'll be more to come. :)

New Year Plans

Here's another year, along with it is another pledge from yours truly to be more organized and more courageous about making money from home. Speaking of making money, I'm so happy that Adgitize decided to go back to its original rate of $14/month. I think I'll just get a couple of things out of the way and I'll advertize again. Also CMF Ads has a new program called Spike. Essentially, you get to purchase 50 visits with $.20. It's a good investment although I do have some beef with the fact that it's taking days for my 50 visits to be accomplished. The last 10 visits is currently spanning 5 days. Last I checked, I was still good for 5 more visits. I hope they can tweak the program so all 50 visits can be achieved in a day or two. In other news, I plan on finally doing Odesk and Bukisa. C'est tout for now.