Nine Months Later...

It has been nine months since my last entry. In that time, you would think something would have been born! The truth is, the proofreading business isn’t doing much, but through this gestation period I have come to several realizations.

First, it has been reconfirmed that I am lousy at marketing, at least at marketing myself.

Secondly, I struggle with writing entries about proofreading when proofreading does not seem to be a topic of interest or concern to a great many. I have spent probably too much money on a service intended to “tweak” my blog. A large key to success, they tell me, is to make regular entries on a blog. I know there are writers out there who produce copy with errors – I see it every single day! And yet, they don’t seem to be disturbed by their errors. Writing, to me, has always been something to be treasured. I want the respect that great authors in history have achieved. To me, that isn’t going to happen when there are flaws with what you put in print. Finding errors and correcting them provides me with some element of satisfaction, but writing about proofreading – well, even I don’t think writing about proofreading is interesting!

Third, I am realizing that there seems to be quite a push for writers to self-publish their works. Unfortunately, I fear that the negligence on the written page that I observe so frequently will carry over to these new works. That, in turn, means that people like me for whom typos just about jump off the page, will be driven even more crazy by a rash of new authors who want to see their name in print, but don’t care enough about the quality of their work to make it right before it goes to print!

Proofreading was intended to be a mainstay for income. I was hoping to work from home. Since my door hasn’t exactly been broken down by droves of writers requiring my services, I have considered freelancing. I‘ve looked at jobs that can be bid for online, as well as companies that pay $15 per article. Attempting to sort this out, I have begun to realize that I don’t want to write just anything. I want to write what I want to write, and only when I want to write it! Hence, and finally, that kind of attitude is probably not going to get me a lot of writing jobs.

Therefore, on this nine-month anniversary of entrepreneurial independence, I remain uncertain, frustrated, and disappointed in the results of my venture thus far. As I move forward through this morass of uncertainty, I pray that I will gain other insights to lead me to that “something better” I continue to seek.