| 1 year ago :: Mar 11, 2009 - 9:17PM #1 | |
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I sat firmly on the fence as to whether or not to get my own domain, giving me a more professional look to my work. I got an e-mail the other day from Microsoft (I have MS Office 2007) about one of their newer online products, Microsoft Office Live. Part of the package is a dedicated domain allowing you to choose the name. What is usually $14.95 a year is now free for the first year for a short time... Geared towards small businesses (and who of us ISN'T a small business) I was able to create an e-mail address for it as well. While I am loathe to sound like an adman for Microsoft, this was a deal that was too good for me to pass up on and I decided to share it with the rest of you. My site is located at http://nmdfreelance.com if you'd like to take a look at what you can do. It has a long way to go before it's where I'd like it to be but, it's a pretty nice looking start. |
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| 13 months ago :: Mar 18, 2009 - 4:54AM #2 | |
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Nancy, You have a great Web site and super freelance work to date. I like Microsoft's Small Biz Web sites, too; here's mine: http://www.richardhenricks.info/ I'm still trying to figure out how to correctly leverage a Web site for freelance work (I'm reading Stephanie Chandler's tome on the subject right now) I'm sure I'll also eventually be doing more sports stories. I did a couple of sports stories back in my command info heyday, although I've never been much of a sports nut because I lost track of American sports over the years. Rich |
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| 13 months ago :: Mar 21, 2009 - 5:01PM #3 | |
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I'm liking the format you used for your site. I tried the writing for a base newspaper and quit after a month. The bitchiness in that office was too much for me, as I am pretty easy going. The office was going through some changes, transitioning from military personnel to civilians and the Major's secretary was unhappy about it, losing her "soldiers". Since I was the first civilian to come to the office, she took all her angst out on me. Oh, and she made it clear that she didn't think women had a place in military journalism unless they were in uniform. I left that place so fast it wasn't funny. It was about that time I opted to go freelance. That way, the only bitchiness I had to deal with was my own. |
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| 13 months ago :: Mar 26, 2009 - 6:25AM #4 | |
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I'm actually still not happy with the way my site looks. I'll change it (again) in a heartbeat if I see something better. Did I understand you to say that a female major believed civilian females had no place in military journalism? If so, that would be a new twist on the sexist theme, wouldn't it? Sheesh, if she'd spent time overseas she might have known there used to be a slew of female-spouse command information writers who thought someone had created GS-9 staff writer positions to placate female spouses ... (or maybe to placate military spouses in general, regardless of gender; can't remember). One of my two main writing mentors was one of those "slew of female-spouse ... writers," who eventually managed to rid one overseas base newspaper of an incompetent editor. I have a ton of stories like that. I may even be the only command info writer who was forced to use a pen name to get a particular piece into print (to avoid the incompetent editor). And then there was the time I was stationed in Vilseck, Germany, and I very nearly assisted a female lieutenant toward earning an Expert Infantryman Badge. She was in better shape and tougher than some of the grunts in my platoon ... blah :-) Yeah, freelance is much better. Many more writing avenues ... |
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