All posts by David Todd

freelance writing, Suite 101

Turkey Soup

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Since I made my last post, on Wednesday, I’ve had a couple of good days. The arthritis flare-up has waned significantly. That flare-up may have been caused by certain contraband items I ate on Tuesday, which taste wonderful but apparently are not good for my body and which will remain nameless. Wednesday, Thursday, and today I’ve eaten right: no snacks, no sugar, NO CHIPS, no evening snacks, no anything except home-prepared food of reasonable calorie levels, adequate fiber, and lots of taste.

I also walked on my noon hour each day, a little over twenty minutes each day. I’m still trying to figure out what route I should walk and for how long, in the vicinity of our new building. I miss the parking lot with its nine laps to the mile. My weight is down a few pounds since Wednesday; I’m back on track toward reaching my weight loss goals for the year.

At work I found I had excellent powers of concentration. Yesterday and today most of my time went to a street widening project in Bentonville, for which public bids will be received on Thursday next and the final changes must be done my Monday. Today’s work was tedious: going through the utility relocation sheets twice and counting all the pipe, fittings and valves on the water lines. It’s grunt work, normally assigned to a junior level person. Actually, it was done by a junior staffer, and based on bidder questions I was pretty sure it was botched. So I checked it in detail, and sure enough found way too many errors to let it go by. So I took it upon myself to do the material take-off and, hopefully, get it right.

What, you may ask, does this have to do with turkey soup? In the process of having more energy and focus, I wrote three articles for Suite101.com. Two I wrote yesterday, one on an engineering/construction topic and one on stock trading. These were in line with my general strategy of writing articles with “evergreen” content. That is, they will be as applicable to a search on any day of the year. This is as opposed to articles of seasonal interest or current interest (per a news item). So all of my 61 articles at Suite were evergreen. Until today.

I decided to dip a toe into the seasonal article market. I decided to put my expertise with turkey soup as the basis. Each year I render the bones and make soup. It’s almost down to a routine. I don’t use a recipe, just add ingredients according to how I think they will work.

For my article, I used a strategy for trying to coax people to click on ads, whereby my revenue comes. First I checked “turkey soup” in a Google Adsense tool to see what the popular search words were and the amount advertisers are willing to pay for ads associated with those words, and ranked them. I checked the title on the Google sandbox and verified that it would attract appropriate ads. I used the best key word phrases in the title, subtitle, and internal headings. I found four copyright-free, apt photos, and used some more key word phrases as their captions.

But, the other strategy: I did not give a recipe for turkey soup. If I did that (which I could have even though I don’t use a recipe), the reader would be satisfied and not bother to click on an ad. But, if I can convince the reader that it would be a good thing for them to make turkey soup on Thanksgiving, and leave them short of a complete recipe, maybe–just maybe–they will be enticed to click on an ad for a recipe, and I’ll get some revenue.

We’ll see how this strategy works. The article has some good ads attached to it right now, though none specifically for “turkey soup recipes”. The ads change regularly, however, and vary depending upon the IPA of the computer. Right now it ranks on the first page of Google for some of the keyword searches, even in first place for a couple. Oh, it also qualifies for a Suite 101 contest going on right now for writers. Today so far it’s had six page views, which is not bad for an article’s first six hours. Stay tuned.

Suite 101

The bloom has come off the Suite 101 rose

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That is, if there ever was a bloom on it. I began writing for Suite101.com for two main reasons: gain some experience with web writing, and help build a writer’s platform. The amount of the payment was never an issue, though of course I wanted to be paid for my writing. Well, I may be doing something wrong, not figuring out how to properly optimize my writing for search engines or something, because payment is a definite problem.

Oh, I’ve been paid. In September I received a payment of $10.27 for revenues accumulated through August. Right now I’m due a payment of $13.16 for revenues accumulated through October. So far in November I’ve accumulated an additional $0.96, which will be paid whenever I reach another $10 accumulated.

I know, I know, some of you are laughing your something-or-other off at those numbers. They’re paltry. They’re sick. They’re minuscule. It makes me wonder why I’ve written and posted 59 articles there, amounting to about 45,000 words, to have earned a measly $24.39. Suite 101 says the usual parameters are: earning $1 to $2 per article per month; earning $2-$3 per 1000 page views. My numbers? $0.12 per article per month; $1.19 per 1000 page views aggregate and $0.57/1000 last seven days.

I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t like being a quitter. And I didn’t get into it primarily for the money. But good grief, 6/100 of a cent per word? I must be out of my mind to keep doing that. Even if I wrote no more articles, and the ones already up there earned at the same rate as they have for the first third of November, in a year I’d be up to .14 cent per word, and in three years I’d be up to .31 cent per word.

Meanwhile, my page views have begun to tumble, which I reported earlier. I’ll try to attach a graph that shows how the page views have taken a noticeable drop in the last two weeks. Having climbing page views always helped to offset the lack of revenues in terms of giving me an incentive to write. But if now page views are going to tank—well, I’ll have to re-think.
Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Health

Exercise and Arthritis

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For several weekends I’ve been planning to take a long walk. The weather has been good, and I need the exercise. But Saturday is a busy day of work around the house, resulting in very tired legs by 1 or 2 PM. Sunday we get home from church and, well, the Sunday afternoon nap syndrome takes effect, as well as the must watch football syndrome. So I haven’t made that walk.

But yesterday, with excellent weather, I decided to do it. Coming home from work I sat in my reading chair, read for twenty minutes or so, and was overcome by tiredness. Rather than go to the couch, I just put my head back in the chair and slept for perhaps fifteen minutes. That was all I needed. I read a little more, then headed out. I had determined that I would follow a new route, which I estimate is four miles. My previous longest walk was three miles.

So I headed down the hill, and turned left at the bottom instead of right. This took me on the long loop around the golf course–probably just part of the golf course, to the bottom of the dam, then uphill all the way home. I had planned on the difficulty of the last hill, but not of two intermediate hills. The walk took me about an hour and fifteen minutes, and I was quite tired. Later, Lynda wanted to walk, and we did another mile.

But I felt good. Tired legs, a slightly hurting right knee, a tickle in the throat from heavy breathing, but I felt good. That old single cusp on my aortic valve gave no problem. My mind was fairly well engaged, and in the evening I managed to write 1,000 words on my novel.

However, this morning my hands and wrists are killing me. Not sure what is going on with that. I had a good week last week in terms of arthritis. Why now? Actually they were hurting on Saturday after work around the house, but felt better Sunday, even at day’s end. Was it the peanut butter toast I ate as a late snack? I’ve always wondered if the sero-negative rheumatoid arthritis I have is really a food allergy.

Whatever it is, typing is quite painful this morning. Plus, it’s 8 AM, and my employer is beckoning. Let’s see what the day brings.

Suite 101

Writing for the Internet: Strange Happenings

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After four months of increasing readership of my articles at Suite101.com, about two weeks ago I saw a slight drop. Then last week I had another slight drop. Then Wednesday readership tanked, to about 60 percent of what it had been. This continued on Thursday, and today is shaping up about the same. What is going on?

It’s not a holiday season that people should be away from their computers. Nor have I written articles about seasonal or current events. All of my articles are what they call “evergreen,” that is, not tied to a season of the year, or a holiday, or a current event. They should be as important to people one day as the next. I suppose my history and poetry articles might do better when school is in session, but otherwise they are evergreen.

So what gives? It would appear that Google has changed its search algorithms, to my detriment. Actually, to Suite 101’s detriment, for a number of other writers there have noticed the same thing. My revenues have stayed the same or gone up slightly. Although, Wednesday was average and I don’t know yet about yesterday or today.

I’ll have to watch to see if this is a trend, or a temporary glitch. Let’s hope for the latter.

goals

November Goals

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Having just finished my October report, and this being the 4th of November, I’d better work on my November goals. Even though I didn’t do well in October relative to goals, I’m going to set a little bit higher goals in November and try harder.

1. Blog at least 12 times. I’ve hit this many consecutive months.

2. Post at least 8 articles at Suite101.com. My current plans call for more than this. I might revise this goal tonight and set a higher target.

3. Write 10,000 words in In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. This is in place of just finishing the chapter I’m in. If I make this goal, I will be about 1/4 into the novel.

4. Complete the Bible study goal of October. Assess where I am with that goal; complete the organization; and do the evaluation.

5. Make at least 4 writing related submittals. I won’t specify what type of submittals. I made one yesterday, so I’m 1/4 complete with this goal already.

6. Complete the started but unfinished appendix in my harmony of the gospels. Might as well keep it as a goal until I get it done.

7. Work on Screwtape’s Good Advice, my study guide of The Screwtape Letters. I may be teaching a class in this come February, and it would be nice to have this to use as a guide.

I’ll leave it at seven goals, and see what I can accomplish.

goals

The October Report

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Time to be accountable to my reader(s), and to myself. Here’s my October goals and how I did on them.

1. Blog 12 or more times. >>> I blogged 16 times. Score 1.

2. Write 7 articles for Suite101.com. >>> I wrote and posted 8 articles, so squeaked by. Score 2.

3. Complete chapter 7 of In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. >>> I did NOT do this. I did begin sharing the novel with my writers critique group, and did a little bit of editing based on those critiques. Perhaps I can give myself half credit. Score 2.5.

4. Make three literary or freelance magazine submittals. >>> Let’s see if I can remember, because I don’t have my submittal log here at work. I didn’t submit anything to any literary magazines, but I don’t think it was three. In fact, I think it was just one. I’ll check tonight and might edit this. For now I’ll put it down as a goose-egg. Score still 2.5.

5. Make sure that appendix [i.e. the one I’ve worked on since August] in my harmony of the gospels is finished. >>> Did not do. Not sure why I didn’t other than lack of interest. I did read a little in the harmony, and noted a couple of edits I have to make, but that gives me no credit. Score still 2.5.

6. Organize the various Bible studies I’ve started. This includes listing them, and evaluating them to see if I want to take them further. >>> I did some of this, early in the month, and my mind is somewhat hazy about it. I know I gathered all the loose papers of Bible study ideas to one place. I think I made the list, but I didn’t do the evaluation. Can I give myself half credit for this? I think I will. Score 3.0.

So there it is. Not the prettiest of pictures but perhaps not the worst. Hopefully I’ll do better in November, the Thanksgiving holiday not withstanding.

commuting, Engineering, Suite 101, Writing

The Joyous Sound of…Plotters

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I arrived at the office this morning, not knowing what to expect as to IT issues. When I left last night: e-mail was down; Internet access was down; our intranet was down; and all copiers and plotters were inaccessible. All the way home, through especially horrendous traffic, I kept thinking this would be a good time to launch my dream magazine, Technophobia.

This morning, I got to work about 7:30 AM after a stop at the bank and the gas station. Rounding the corner and entering the long, narrow corridor to my office, I saw a beautiful sight: an engineering drawing sitting on the out-put tray of a plotter. They must be working! I thought. Then, after getting coffee and completing my short devotional, the joyous sound came: the whine of the back-and-forth of a plotter head, producing a drawing. I about cheered these two sensory experiences.

So I took a chance. Calling up MS Word, I opened my daily diary sheet, chose the printer that’s supposed to be closest to me, and clicked . For five seconds nothing happened, then came the joyous sound: the printer/copier spitting out my document after it’s morning warm-up. Everything’s working; all’s right with the world.

So it’s back to the routines of the last nine years. Only difference is the route to work, and that only for the last mile and a half. I don’t have a key to the office yet (because the electronic entry is not yet installed), so I’ll come in a little later and fight heavier traffic on the commute. Before work I’ll have devotions then check writing web sites. On noon hours I’ll walk and write and eat simple fare at my desk. After work I’ll spend a half-hour or so waiting on traffic to clear by doing something else for writing. Hopefully, in between these, I’ll return to my past love of civil engineering and find meaning in flood plains and drainage ditches and sewer lines and streets, etc. At least I can write about some of those things at Suite101.

Engineering

The Move Is Over

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CEI is now in its new offices, still in Bentonville, not really that far from our old office. The moving company did some pre-moving on Wednesday and Thursday, to avoid being overloaded on Friday and have to go into an overtime situation. They took all of the library (which I had ready on Monday) and most of my office stuff on those two days. On Thursday and Friday morning I set up the library in its new place–135 boxes, give or take a box. My fingers were raw, my wrists hurt, and I was tired.

Still, on Friday I actually felt pretty good. I went back to the old office to assist in any way I could. I found and broke down utility shelves and moved them to the elevator, where the loading crews took them upstairs to the large storage space we are keeping in the old building. I gathered up old network cables for salvage or discard. I helped the movers load a large bookcase onto my pick-up, for delivery to my near neighbor (who also works here, and who had bought the bookcase). I went to the IT room and helped them break down racks of servers, unplug a whole bunch of connecting cables and sorted them by length and bundled them.

We had lunch at the old building, courtesy of CEI, which was very good. I set up the tables and chairs in the break room. I also suggested to the chairman of the board that we have an informal ceremony for striking the colors. The US and Arkansas flags are tattered and need to be replaced. No reason to leave them for the tenants. He liked the idea, so at the end of lunch we all went to the front of the building, to the flagpole. Without any veterans present (except the chairman and one board member), a couple of boy scout leaders handled the ceremony. The chairman and the CEO made brief remarks. I don’t know that I would call it a “moving” ceremony, but I’m glad I suggested it.

In short, I was sort of a jack-of-all-trades on Friday. Got to the new office about 4 PM and worked till 6 PM on my own office set-up, and was far along with it at the end. Oh, and in the morning I received a call on my cell phone (our office phones being down, along with e-mail, Internet, etc.) from a client, assigning us a new project, one we will do jointly with the company I broke into this business with, Black & Veatch. It’s a relatively small share for us, but it’s still a project. That was a fitting event on a day we moved to quarters about 35 % of the size we had.

During these last five days I have not been able to think about much besides the move. So I’m behind on posts to this blog, such as end of the month report and new month goals. Haven’t written anything in over a week either. Hopefully today I begin getting back to normal.

Suite 101, Writing

A Form of Flattery

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That’s what they say about imitation–it’s the sincerest form of flattery. That doesn’t, however, extend to plagiarism and copyright theft. At Suite101.com, several people posted to the writers forum there today to say their articles had been stolen verbatim and posted at http://general-finance.com/. It has happened with at least two articles, possibly a dozen. One of the authors effected found that general-finance didn’t get them directly from Suite, but from another, content-washing site which posted them all with a date one day before they were posted on Suite, making it appear that a dozen different Suite authors stole work from this other site. Yeah, right.

This didn’t affect me, but it did make my get off my lazy cyber-butt and set up a few Google Alerts. This is a tool that helps you spot copyright theft automatically using their powerful search spiders. I set up three alerts: one for my name, and two for phrases in two of my articles. I set them up to report as an event was found. We’ll see what happens. Nothing so far.

I set up one alert for my name. Then I decided to Google my name and see what I get. I do this from time to time, also for my Internet pseudonym, Norman D Gutter. Today I found at least five other David A. Todds: a doctor in California who writes about secretions from nipples; a welder in Texas who makes political contributions to the Republican party; an engineer in Texas; a civil engineer in Oklahoma City–with his own firm; and another I can’t remember right now. Oh, now I remember: someone with a home for sale in Florissant, MO.

Several of the search hits were to my writings, including one that appeared in American Profile magazine, the Sunday newspaper insert that competes with Parade Magazine, in 2004. What I wrote and sent to them was:

America, settled by those who thought freedom more important than comfort, was forged to nationhood through the concept that men can govern themselves, if only they adopt excellent laws, then embrace them.

The best citizen puts ethics before law, law before gain, nation before self.

What they put in the magazine was:

The best citizen puts ethics before law, law before gain, nation before self.

That was close enough I didn’t gripe about it. Now, as I Googled my name, I found this latter statement at a number of places, normally with attribution to me. Here are some of the links:

The News-Sun forums.

WikiAnswers

Yahoo Answers

MaybeNow Answers

Then I decided to do a Google search for a key phrase in my published quote, and found this site in addition. [If you go to the site, you have to scroll down to near the end to see my words, slightly modified.] So, I suppose I should be flattered to think that this young man saw my words, thought enough of them to post them as his own. I guess I’ll let him get away with it for now. After all, I can easily prove they are my words if I ever have to.

career

Packing, Packing

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Our corporate headquarters moves on Friday. The word from on high is that we must have everything in boxes and those boxes and all furniture marked before we leave the office on Thursday. I’m in pretty good shape. All the furniture I’m taking is marked. I have thirteen boxes packed, and I estimate about eight more boxes–maybe nine–should finish me up.

Yesterday I finished packing the library. I think I blogged about this effort before. First I spent a week organizing the library, which was in sad shape from almost nine years of neglect. Then I took a week to cull through the materials and eliminate duplicates and out-dated material. I probably discarded close to fifteen percent of the documents therein. Constantly I was fighting things dumped in the room by those too lazy to properly take care of things, such as: surplus office hardware such as staplers, three-hole punches, tape dispensers, filing/storage trays; empty notebooks; and library materials I asked to be brought back there a month ago.

I beat my expectations of when I would be done by a day. As I was preparing to leave the VP over Operations came by my office and said he didn’t think I would have it done on time. I said to him, “Oh ye of little faith.” Today I sent an e-mail to the coordinator of the move, with the title “put a fork in it”. Ah, satisfaction.

The day remains dreary and my mood is better than last night. Have writers guild this evening, and need to decide what to take. I have nothing recently written to show them, so I’ll probably take the next installment of In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People.