Writer's Hours

Nothing like a big project to get the creative juices flowing. My idea was to increase the number of people coming to Talking To Spirit. Though I know we aren’t supposed to talk about it, I would very much like to make more than 18¢ a day with my Google Ads. Right now, if it were just numbers talking I’d need to increase patronage of my site from 100 a day upwards. But, it isn’t just that. It’s also the types of ads you run and those are determined by the content on your page. Some pay more than others. I don’t know exactly whose are more, but I’m willing to bet the pharmaceutical companies have some money, though I haven’t figured out how to work them in. Unless I wanted to talk about the headaches I’d get during the year before I started channeling. Actually, I do have a number of aches and pains and I am quite good at pissing and moaning. Hmm, just a thought.

At present I’ve got about 25 categories in my resource pages. Over the last few months I’ve expanded that to 65, but the new ones are still only on paper. I’ve been surfing the web for months to get 10 neato links for each of the new categories. What happens is I get out there and find even neater neato sites that won’t fit into any one of the categories I’ve already set into place. Which means I add another category. This thing has taken on a life of its own. I just added Trees. I wasn’t sure what else to call it because I ran across this really cool website called Tree Totem

I haven’t actually constructed the new pages. Right now it’s all in an excel spreadsheet with one page being a listing of the categories, both just as they occur to me and a second listing in alphabetical order with what will be the eventual page number next to it so I’ll be able to find it more easily. My map. The next page is where I put the links I find that I will use to seed the pages with. The title of the site, the url and whatever description is there. My plan is to have about 10 sites per new page. Some of those might exchange a link with me. Time will tell.

What you don’t typically see with directory pages is something substantial along the lines of content. It occurred to me last weekend to write an article for each of those pages. 65 articles? Like I said, monster project.

Something else is that I have kept track in another document who on my pages has given me a reciprocal link. I don’t have them for every site. But, there are many I’ve asked for a link and never gotten a response. Those are the ones that I really ought to make a decision about whether to keep or take off of my pages. To see it easily they should have a bullet or star next to the site’s listing and be set more prominently on the page. So, something else I should do.

And, a final thing was that each of my directory pages has a listing of all the categories at the top of the page. I’ve noticed that sometimes you can’t even tell that you changed into a new category because the listing has grown so even at 25 categories the meat of the page starts lower and lower on the screen. Not good. So, my thought this last week would be to remove the listing and put a return to main directory link up there. That will give me a good 2 inches or so for my page. So, not only will I be looking for more links and I think it’s about 200 I still need I’ll be restructuring the pages I’ve already got. That’s why I haven’t made any of the new pages yet. There’s too much that needs to be done with the ones I’ve got. And, you ask, “Do you get paid for this?” No. This is my weekend thing. I’m too tired to do it when I get home from work so I do it on the weekends. Right now it’s 2:50 am Saturday. I couldn’t sleep and decided to get up. Made myself a cup of decaf in case I decided to go back to bed later on.

These are writer’s hours, although, technically (barring this entry) I’m not writing. I’m researching.

The next big project ought to be some more content pages for Talking to Spirit. I don’t have a testimonials page. And, I’ve had a lot of nice comments come back to me over the years. I discovered last weekend I’d actually been snipping them from wherever they’d come from and putting them into one document. It’s a 2 pager now. So, I could put that up. Sort of makes you feel better before you plunk down $75 for a reading.

I did have 3 questions I answered this last week. Somebody was desperate to find work and I talked to him about that. Somebody else had run into a disreputable (according to my lights) psychic and I talked to her about that. And, somebody else was trying to pull my leg. I ignored that one until they came back more insistent than ever. I felt like saying, “Hey, cough up $75 and I’ll talk to you.” But, I didn’t. I just told her to stop bothering me, tell her date she didn’t want to eat spicy food and go see her doctor. Sheeesh.

I came home from work yesterday to find that Dennis, my husband, had done a Company Coming cleaning. It was a horrible job and it took him hours. The place is immaculate. It’s just so nice to walk down the hallway in my stocking feet and not be stepping on “things”. Lots of different things. All I know is they hurt. Bits of rocks…bits of cat chow…cat toys…you name it. Anybody who has a messy house and can’t see so well anymore knows what I’m talking about. Little things that hurt your feet.

I’m not inclined to cook or clean much anymore (somebody in spirit just said, “You’re not kidding about that.” Ha!) Anyway, I come home and either sit in front of the television flipping through whatever is on, I read or I come back here to fiddle on the computer. I also don’t iron much. Basically, I’m a slob. Which for a Virgo was an interesting turn of events. But, being a slob, I’m not happy with it. And, having a clean place around me is important. What motivated me though was the threat that one of the folks reading my website wanted to meet me. I said no. I’m shy and have a filthy house. And, I thought about it and decided that was a really lame excuse. This last week I asked Dennis if he and I couldn’t do a company coming cleaning. What that means for us is to wait until the zero hour before company is coming and then the two of us whirl through the house as quickly as we can stuffing things into closets and under beds and then whooshing through with a dust rag and a vacuum so the place looks presentable. The faster you do it the faster it gets down. Normally you wouldn’t want to spend more than 45 minutes doing it, but it has been at least 5 years since we’ve done a company coming cleaning around here I just figured it was going to be a bad one this time. And, that dear, dear man did the whole thing himself. I asked him whatever made him do it. It’s not something either of us want to do. And, he said, “I just thought that you had to work until 4:30, so I would clean until then too. So you could have a nice weekend.”

Happy weekend.