Bidding on Elance jobs is an emotional roller coaster. Depression Some days, the jobs on Elance are just plain depressing. Like the ones that say, “We need someone to write 1,000 articles for our Web site – and in exchange for these articles, we will pay you TWELVE American dollars!” There are always people posting projects who pay pitiful wages, people with dubious-sounding businesses (“I need someone to help me write an e-Book on how to get rich in real estate speculation!”) and other assorted hucksters, fraudsters, and con artists. (Most people who post jobs on Elance...

I freelance because I have a passion for writing. Ever since I was three years old, when I dictated a story about talking, dancing vegetables to my grandmother (she wrote down the words, I drew the pictures), writing has been a constant part of my life. I love to put words together on the page. I love to search for clarity, meaning and insight through the power of the written word. I freelance because I have a hunger for freedom in my career. I believe that we are on the cusp of major changes in the workplace, where anyone with the right skills can work from anywhere. Instead of driving to a specific...

I had a blog back in the year 2000. My college roommate was an enthusiastic early adopter of everything related to the Web. He got me hooked up with my own blog, and all of our friends got blogs, and we all blogged back and forth, commenting on each other’s blogs, sometimes without even needing to carry on actual conversations. It was great. Then I graduated, started working full time, and fell away from the blogging life. Now it’s 9 years later, millions of people have blogs, some people make a good living from their blogs, and I feel like I’m late to the party. So what am I trying...