Prose To Go

Today I was surfing the freelance writing jobs sites when I came across a professional life coach seeking writers to do articles on healthy relationships. He sought 500-word (or longer) features and already had key words to use for search engine optimization. In addition to having experience using SEO, he wanted writers well-versed in discussing relationship issues and who have "a favorable opinion about counseling overall."

So far, no problem.

"To determine a fair price to pay freelance writers, I posted a job announcement on several job sites read by thousands of freelancers. In reviewing dozens of proposals from experienced writers, I've consistently found the average bid to be $300 for 20 articles of at least 500 words each ($15 per article). That's how I've determined the price I'm willing to pay here.

"In addition to the payment, your work would be featured on my website(s) indefinitely and you would naturally be free to show future employers your work by referring them to the relevant pages on my Web site. I would also be open to writing you a very nice letter of recommendation."

Run that by me again? This seems a very odd way to go about learning what freelance writers should make. Why not just ask us? Exactly what types of writers responded to his job posting and which job sites is he reading? The "cheapie" sites, perhaps, and all of us writers know which ones they are.

How long have these "experienced writers" been publishing?

Unable to control my amazement, I decided to write this man an e-mail to educate him. Here's some of it:

"I was shocked and awed that this is an 'average' fee for an experienced writer. Since I would not waste time researching and writing an article that might take me two hours for $7.50 per hour, I question the caliber of these candidates.

"According to several freelance writing Web sites and The Writer's Market, most freelance writers charge at least $25 per hour. When I write an article for a small, local magazine, I make at least $500 for the article. This is a 1,000-word or less article.

"Granted, I have been writing for over 20 years, but this is my experience regarding professional writers. I realize that times are tough and some writers have to take whatever they can get, but these folks undermine the efforts of legitimate professionals. In fact, I think you'll find that most writers willing to work for $15 an article and exposure on your Web site are recent college grads and stay-at-home moms. You get what you pay for."

Obviously, I was a little angry, but I attempted to control my temper and not be too sarcastic.

Maybe you think I was unprofessional and biting the hand that feeds me. You are entitled to that opinion.

When I discuss this issue with other writers, however, we have realized that many people don't know what to pay professional writers. Often, they work in another field like this man and have never hired a writer before. They do know that to market themselves in this shiny happy Web world, they require wordsmiths.

Since this guy's probably a psychologist by training, he's used to writing in academic speak, which is vastly different from casual Web format.

I'm sure he makes very good money for his counseling work. Most therapists make what, $150 or more per hour?

Would I visit a counselor and tell him, "I've researched this on some Web sites, and the average counselor would bid $100 an hour?"

Sure, I could try that and probably get laughed out of his office. He would simply charge me a fee based on what other counselors nearby make. Therapists have organizations such as the American Psychological Association, which probably assists them with setting their fees. While I'm not 100 percent sure of that, it took me only seconds to search for the average, annual salary for a licensed, doctoral-level counseling psychologist two years ago. That salary was $75,000.

Writing, however, is not quite as simple. So much depends on whether you're writing copy for an advertising agency, magazine articles, books or Web content. Writers can't really take a one-size-fits-all approach.

Sure, this man could get a young writer to crank out some material that's good enough for his site, but how much editing and re-writing might he have to do? If he spent a little more per article, he could probably get cleaner copy and save himself some time he could put towards his real job.

Hopefully, I wasn't too snide with that counselor and he learned something today. I know that I did.

"I do think that the quality which makes a man want to write and be read is essentially a desire for self-exposure and is masochistic. Like one of those guys who has a compulsion to take his thing out and show it on the street." - James Jones

Don’t you just love a great quote, something pithy? This one says it all.

It sure isn’t easy to put your thoughts out there for the world to judge. In fact, I have to admit that, like most people, I really despise criticism. Probably because when I was a child, I heard so much of it. Not because I was a total screw-up; it was just something my relatives liked to do, like cooking Italian food even though we weren’t Italian.

So why do I write for a living? The living part might be better described as scraping by. It’s not because I’m brilliant. I have never had an IQ test, but if I did, I’m sure it’s fairly average. Especially if you ask me how to work my DVD player. It took me a couple weeks just to figure out how to add people’s phone numbers to my cell phone.

 Hmm, I don’t think I’m the next Alice Hoffman or Louisa May Alcott, either, much as I admire them. Especially the latter, because she supported her whole family with her work and most of her editors didn’t even know she was a woman. Back in the day, I guess, respectable ladies didn’t write.

It’s certainly not because I enjoy papering my walls with rejection slips from national magazines and – soon, I’m sure – from book publishers. Although I’m pretty much used to that by now. I taunt the letter writers who can’t even use my name. If I smoked, I’d take a lighter to those letters.

I have a gazillion opinions on everything from politics to birth control, so that is part of the reason. Not that I think I’m always right, but I can probably find some research somewhere to back up my positions. Heck, if you can’t at least back it up, why even say it?

We writers have unique ways of looking at the world and we want to share that with you, the unsuspecting reader. You might hate what we have to say or you might agree with us, but the whole idea is to move you somehow, even if it’s only for three minutes.

That’s why I write. If you’re a writer, tell me why YOU do it. I’d love to see your thoughts.

Every day, we hear disheartening news about layoffs. Forbes.com estimates that over 362,335 people have lost their jobs between last Nov. 1 and Jan. 30. This figure represents those working  at America’s 500 largest public companies.

The latest news is that Cincinnati-based Macy’s Inc. is cutting 7,000 jobs, or 4 percent of its work force.

To make matters worse, America’s most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, observed his shadow Monday morning, which means that this already long, bitterly cold winter will last for six more weeks.

Don’t despair just yet, though. As of Dec. 31, our jobless rate stands at 7.2 percent, but the economy was far worse in 1982. That year, the jobless rate peaked at 10.8 percent. When the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics studied the impact of that historic year, they learned that 26.5 million Americans experienced some job loss during the year, as compared to 23.4 million in 1981.

Yes, 27 years ago, we suffered through about four years of recession. In fact, two recessions pummeled us from 1979 to 1983, when the job market finally showed signs of improvement.

During the worst of it, in 1982, 5 million people had been unemployed longer than 27 weeks, the bureau reported.

Many of the jobless that year were out of work twice or more, raising the average duration of unemployment to 15.4 weeks, versus 13 3 weeks in 1981.

The bureau estimates that 2.6 million Americans have been unemployed more than 27 weeks as of last December. That’s about half as many people who were out of work in ’82.

Just as in 1982, industries like construction and manufacturing have been hardest hit, with 23.6 percent of the lost jobs in those fields.

Why all the gloomy predictions of the newest Great Depression, then? This generation is not used to halting its carefree spending habits, and easy credit fueled that spending. We had no need to worry about the bills coming due, because since 1982, the U.S. has only experienced a recession once in 16 years, and we’re much more familiar with a 3- to 4-percent unemployment rate.

Compare that with a recession one of every three years, double-digit inflation and nearly 11 percent unemployment during that worst year. That occurred between 1965 and 1982, when most of today’s younger Baby Boomers were growing up and taking their first jobs. Those teenagers and young adults are now in their mid-40s and early 50s, in their peak earning years.

Although some of those workers are getting the axe now, the pain is not nearly as widespread as it was in 1982, when the economy was more dependent on producing goods, not services.

The jobless rate hit an historic high in 1982, but the good news was that only 17 percent of the workers who’d been idle that year had families whose annual income fell below the government’s poverty level.

Economists are predicting an unemployment rate of 8 percent by late this year, according to Forbes.com.

Suddenly, the worldwide financial crisis doesn’t sound like the newest Great Depression. The sky isn’t falling just yet.

Before you freak out because you can’t afford a $785 pair of Jimmy Choo strappy sandals, step back and take a deep breath. Get those expensive shoes repaired, rather than throwing them away. You’ll help the shoe repair industry get out of a 25-year slump.

You also just might regain some peace of mind.

As if it weren’t bad enough that we tail-end Baby Boomers have been overlooked in, well, just about everything. Now some guy who writes for the Washington Post and doesn’t disclose his age calls us the Dumbest Generation in The Kids are Alright. But the Parents...

He is talking about my cohort, the youngest Baby Boomers, people born between 1958 and 1964. These folks are in their 40s now and some political consultant has dubbed us Generation Jones.

In his article, Neil Howe never gets around to explaining why we are called Jones; I guess he thinks we don’t stand out. Howe, however, lumps us in with early Generation Xers, who were born between 1965 and 1978 -- or maybe it’s 1980. Also, he never explains why a generation, which usually lasts 20 years, has now become only six years.

No offense to Barack Obama, born in 1961, he writes, but even Obama has written that he and my age group didn’t get a decent education during the dazed and confused 1970s.

If you spent all your time back then smoking marijuana and dropping acid, yes, that could be true. Let’s say your teachers had faces pockmarked by LSD and were half-stoned in your classroom; then, OK, you probably didn’t learn much. If you were like me, though, and didn’t touch pot because you knew it would make you fat, dumb and happy, you did get a decent education.

Anyway, the point is that my group is the dumbest because we have performed the worst on standardized tests, earned the fewest educational degrees and have been least attracted to “professional” careers. We’re even supposed to be impatient with syntax, punctuation and citations, because we weren’t taught that “brainy stuff.”

I’m not sure where he got his facts, but I learned all my grammar, punctuation and spelling in my first six grades in school. True, I may have above average intelligence, but anyone with a wish to learn can succeed at any level. Bill Gates never finished college; does that make him dumb?

Howe admits that he’s generalizing in the article. You think? He points to Sarah Palin as his poster child, someone who stumbled over her civic facts. Did he ever consider that perhaps Palin was nervous being in the national spotlight and isn’t truly dumb? She has told at least one TV anchor that she was being flippant with Katie Couric and others who felt they needed to quiz her to see if she was vice president-worthy.

Of course, Howe received about 314 comments to his article, most disputing his so-called facts.

One astute writer noted that the SAT has changed dramatically in the past 30 years. Schools now put great effort into preparing students specifically for the SAT, while virtually no preparation took place 30 years ago, he wrote. Also, the SAT scoring standards were changed in the 1990s to raise scores across the board.

Two of my nephews prepped extensively to take the test, which is given way too much importance from college admissions officials. Instead, admissions staff should look at a student’s overall performance in high school – her grades, extracurricular activities and extenuating circumstances such as poverty. Some admissions people do look at these, but the scores on a massive, three-part test that begins at 8 a.m. or some ungodly hour before teenagers’ brains start functioning are not the most relevant. Consider the large numbers of teens and adults who suffer from test anxiety and that probably 80 percent of teens are sleep deprived.

My other three nephews, however, will admit that they spent maybe a few hours worrying about the test, figuring that if they didn’t know the material by now, no amount of last-minute cramming would help.

I only had one chance to take the test, and no one emphasized that it was vital to take geometry and some other math courses. I only took the SAT once because it costs money to take it, and since I am the oldest of five children, money was a scarce commodity back in the bad economy of 1980.

Nevertheless, I spent most of my childhood reading about five books a week. Today, I probably would have been one of those overweight kids everybody is anxious about.

Maybe we should quit worrying about who is the dumbest and focus on who can be the smartest. Instead, let’s figure out how to get our kids to read more often, help them learn and to love learning for a lifetime.

She shuffled steadily along the sidewalk through the heart of campus, and as she did, a few people would pause a moment, and perhaps recognize her. The woman of a certain age’s stature was hardly commanding. She might have reached 5 feet 2 inches in her bare feet. Her body was frail looking, with narrow shoulders that might have slumped on an insecure or depressed person. She might weigh 105 pounds on a good day, but she had an appetite for delicious food and drinks.

Dressed immaculately in conservative blazer and pants, she didn’t announce herself like a movie star. No diamonds sparkled from her ear lobes. She never had a Botox treatment. She was no Liz Taylor in her heyday, but she still lit up a room.

Her power source was her blue eyes which radiated a love of life. As she recognized her fans and waved, they would gingerly give her a hug. Everyone wanted to chat with her for a moment. She basked in the sunshine, yet didn’t ramble on about her boyfriend, dog, car or new house. She engaged in a fishing expedition, setting each wide-eyed 19-year-old at ease. She dispensed advice or gave directions with steady self confidence.

Questions spilled from her lips as she focused on the person in front of her. Her mind was sharp, even though her body was fighting a losing war with the enemy within. Her hands couldn’t perform basic functions like buttoning small buttons. Typing was a distant memory.

Yet as she walked this day on campus, throughout her life, people were attracted to her charm, her generosity and most of all, her ability to enjoy herself. Even today, it’s hard to believe she is gone. The largest building in the campus' pulsating core was named for her, many years before she died.

Who was this lady, with the gray hair cut into a casual style sprayed to combat the Florida humidity?

She didn’t sing like an angel and have her hairstyle changed five times a day, like Beyonce.

Yet she rocked her world, the campus of the University of South Florida.

She was Phyllis Parkins Marshall.