[DoreenMichele]

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.

[l_davis]

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?

[DoreenMichele]

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_davis]

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).

[DoreenMichele]

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.

[l_davis]

Was going by your context in this post "(which I posted to HN and it got no traction)". Didn't see a related post and other intent.

[DoreenMichele]

Thank you for giving me some feedback.

Just as you replied to something I originally said to a different person, you aren't the only person reading any follow up remarks, nor will I be the only person reading your remarks. It's like a conversation happening on a stage with an audience of indeterminate size, but potentially thousands of people (or even tens of thousands).

It's always hard to figure out how to craft replies that both make sense to the specific person to whom I am replying and to the larger audience.

And this conversation has maybe gone places I didn't really want it to go and it would perhaps be best to just walk away at this point. I don't like being pitied and then people get mad about that and feel I am ungrateful.

Yes, I have a serious medical condition. But I also have a lot of mojo and a lot of accomplishments to my name, though they are accomplishments that don't do a heckuva lot for a resume and that people tend to be actively dismissive of.

I'd rather get real respect from people, not tea and sympathy. That's no doubt part of why the past decade has involved so much social friction

Anyway, thank you for your interest. If you are as brand spanking new as your handle suggests, let's just assume you simply don't have context and leave it at that.

Cheers.