You can't succeed at something if you never do anything. Or so they tell me, anyway. If I don't build the stupid site I'll never make anything off of it. If I don't make money off that one, I'll not be able to expand into another.
It's kind of silly, I guess, to earn money over and over on the same work. Build a decent site once, get everything set up, do the SEO, all that jazz, and (if I picked a good niche) I could eventually make money off of it forever. Well, or until the big G smacks me down.
My wrists are telling me that this not-actively-working thing is a good idea. My brain is seconding. I'm pretty sure my fingers or behind are interested in a vote. What I'm doing for money right now doesn't pay well, and it only pays once. If I can do something that pays equally crap, but over and over again, that's the start of something magic.
Sorry, lots more airy-fairy stuff today, not so much with the hard numbers/ hard work/ results. So to be fair-
Making the writing easier-
Like anyone else who spends more time with their computer keyboard than their SO (or other interesting people) I have bad wrists. My "desk" setup doesn't help. 'Parently sprawling across the bed isn't any better than slumping in a crap office chair. Loafing about on my side puts extra pressure on shoulder joints and spines and whatnot. It also encourages me to wander when I'm writing.
So I'm trying out speech recognition software. Sort of.
In the interests of cheap, I didn't buy anything new, I'm just using the speech recognition that's in Win7. I don't know how it stacks up against other products, I know that it works better than the one I had with XP. It recognizes most of my words and directions. Best of all, it was (sort of) free- it came with the OS.
I like speech recognition because when I *say* the sentences they make more sense. I stick to the topic, don't get lost as quickly, and don't (usually) go off on random parentheticals or just drop a sentence half way through. I can lie (lay?) on my back, eyes closed, and just talk. I can toss the words up in my head, hear them as they come out, and edit on the fly. It's kinda nice.
Problems I have with it, well...
You have to speak clearly- after half an hour or so I lose that ability. You need to remember the commands (another problem for me), and you need to check that it's translating correctly. About 10% of the time it comes up with something that, when reading it back later, really makes me wonder WTF I was writing. Also, I don't think I've managed more than 15 words per minute. If I compose in my head as I write, then type away, I can think for 20 seconds, write for 40, and still ge 30 words down. The talking-thing doesn't work that way. more time is spent going back and fixing things, correcting the computer when it doesn't know what I want, or deleting off what I don't want.
I've read (don't remember where) that eventually the speaking/ writing thing gets faster- the computer learns your speech patterns, you remember all the commands, and it all just works together better. Right now, at a penny a word, I can't really afford to play. My average output with speech to text is 600 words an hour. That's less than minimum wage. Much less, when you consider that I have to pay self-employment tax on it.
On jobs that pay better, I might go back to it. For now, though- before I've built up decent residual income- I need to write faster. Right now, that means typing.
Maybe someday I won't have to write at those rates, and I can get paid over and over for the same words. Today, it's all about efficiency, baby.
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