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0 pointsDoreenMichele6y ago0 comments

Yes, it's classified as a Dread Disease because of what it does to your entire life, not just your health and body.

Thank you for your kind words and good intentions.

But please note that there are good things in my life as well. The past decade or two have been pretty darn hard, but it's not all downside.

And because I have CF, I already do remote work and live like a germaphobe. So the pandemic is, so far, kind of an annoying inconvenience. And I'm trying to figure out how to provide solutions, such as:

https://writepay.blogspot.com/2020/03/textbroker-and-covid19... (which I posted to HN and it got no traction)

And: https://stoptouchingyourface.blogspot.com/

In my experience, people feeling sorry for me doesn't pay my bills, doesn't get me any real respect, doesn't get my writing taken seriously or get me traction, etc.

If you are really sorry for what I have been through, then help me make all that suffering mean something. Help me get the word out and get some traction and make a difference.

Turn all those years of suffering into a learning opportunity for the world, not one more reason for everyone on the planet to hate me, treat me like I'm pathetic and generally ignore me and the things I have to say.

Make my pain make a positive difference in the world instead of just being a private burden.

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l_davis6y ago

I looked at the writepay link, and then the textbroker site. They said that they paid between $4 and $8 per assignment. Is that true? How long does an assignment take?

DoreenMicheleOP6y ago

The pay varies, depending upon the word count and other variables.

How long it takes also varies.

When I started working for them, I sometimes made like $1.25/hour because I was homeless and deathly ill and blah blah blah and it would take me all afternoon to complete something wroth $5.

Eventually, I was making more like $15-$20/hour.

Something I wrote previously on the topic:

https://writepay.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-value-of-not-chasi...

You do need to work at it and get good at it, but it can become a middle class income. I was clear it had a lot of potential upside when I began and it worked within the restrictions I had, so I kept working at it and slowly getting better.

I absolutely haven't yet hit any kind of ceiling. I could still work longer hours, increase my rating, etc. There is still a lot more money I could make. It's just up to me to make that happen by getting healthy enough, arranging my life that way, etc.

l_davis6y ago

Then it sounds like it is a good solution for you and potentially could be a good solution for others who can write. I can see where people in IT (that's the typical audience here, right?) wouldn't care about work like that though. Most people in IT would rather do almost anything other than write, and I think most in the IT profession who can in the US can make more than $20 per hour on a 1099 basis, though that seems to vary greatly by type of writing and geographic location (I live in an expensive area so salaries/hourly rates are relatively high, though not the highest in the US).

DoreenMicheleOP6y ago

a. Most people in IT are not the people suddenly laid off.

b. Quote from my post today:

Some years ago, I wrote a blog post trying to encourage people on Hacker News to develop other services on the Textbroker model. It was basically ignored. Maybe this time it won't be.

And maybe I should expand on that in specific. At some point.

I didn't post it here to suggest laid off programmers should become low paid writers. The people most people are worried about are things like restaurant workers making minimum wage.

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l_davis6y ago

I looked at the writepay link, and then the textbroker site. They said that they paid between $4 and $8 per assignment. Is that true? How long does an assignment take?

DoreenMicheleOP6y ago

The pay varies, depending upon the word count and other variables.

How long it takes also varies.

When I started working for them, I sometimes made like $1.25/hour because I was homeless and deathly ill and blah blah blah and it would take me all afternoon to complete something wroth $5.

Eventually, I was making more like $15-$20/hour.

Something I wrote previously on the topic:

https://writepay.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-value-of-not-chasi...

l_davis6y ago

DoreenMicheleOP6y ago

a. Most people in IT are not the people suddenly laid off.

b. Quote from my post today:

Some years ago, I wrote a blog post trying to encourage people on Hacker News to develop other services on the Textbroker model. It was basically ignored. Maybe this time it won't be.

And maybe I should expand on that in specific. At some point.

I didn't post it here to suggest laid off programmers should become low paid writers. The people most people are worried about are things like restaurant workers making minimum wage.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse