Yesterday Robert wasn't feeling well. "Mommy, I have a headache, sore throat and feel like I'm gonna puke," he said looking pale and greenish. I did the mommy assessment and determined, "Okay kid, stay home."
Puke gets me every time. Does he know this at 10? Maybe. But he really seemed out of it. This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand I'm glad to be here to be able to let him stay home without calling a million people to cover for me, but by the same token that means I'm not working. Well, I work at home. But in this economy I'm truly--not working. I pitch and write and create ideas and send them everywhere. Folks like the concepts and genuinely say, "But Mary Ellen, I can pay $75.00 for a 2,500-word article" and I contemplate it. Well it's exposure. Something to show in print for 2009. Work is drying up.
There is a huge shift like tectonic plates underground realigning in a major earthquake. Print media is dying. Hearst laid off heaps of writers/editors. A start-up magazine I was going to write for never got off the ground. What's happening? Is it just a readjustment in an industry that needed it? Lets face it, the publishing industry has been a dinosaur whose time for change and a move on the social media Internet has come. Musicians have already made the transition to indie labels first, then to do-it-yourself mode producing quality work in their own studios and then marketing their music themselves to gain a following. Writers need to as well. I read somewhere yesterday that Amazon's e-book on Kindle (and Kindle 2) reading books online will become the only way to read in the next decade. Saves trees. So help? Brother / Sister can you spare a writer some work online?
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