one of the candidates for a new QCS logo... I've been playing!

Quality Communication Solutions (the company with which I’ve been freelancing full-time since September) is doing booming business, and needs some more writers!  QCS is stepping up its game, ramping up its marketing, revamping its website and logo (those are fun things I get to mess around with, thanks to my license-to-play in the form of a “Director of Media & Communication” title)–and yet we’re already at maximum capacity with regard to what our current team can handle.  Sooo…  We need more writers!

Let me tell you a bit about the gig (because, in case you hadn’t realized it yet, I’m trying to recruit YOU, my writing-friends) and then I’ll show you where to apply.

QCS is owned by Steve Brown–a writer himself, who just last month made the “leap” of quitting his day-job (well, night-job in his case) to manage this business full-time.  He does the work of bringing in clients, and distributes the content-writing assignments to his team of writers.

Resource Page for QCS Writers... Includes writing instructions, invoice form, Q&A forum, pay schedule, team updates, & other goodies

A day in the life of a QCS Writer…  Steve parcels out writing assignments as they come in from clients and posts each writer’s projects in an online file-management system, so I can log into my own folder at any time and see what I have lined up.  Every assignment comes with a 24-hour deadline, and when I’m done with each article, I upload it to the same online folder, where our editor can pick it up and take it from there.

When I have questions, Steve is available pretty much all the time on Google Chat and Skype, AND (this one I’m proud of) we now have a separate web-page dedicated to QCS Staff Writers’ Resources. (Check it out… Several of the pages are password-protected as private for the QCS team, but you can get a feel for what we have going on.)

Steve is looking for writers who can commit to at least 2,500 words per day (on weekdays), which is usually 4 or 5 articles. Weekend-work is always optional–if you’re looking for some extra on your week’s paycheck, you can pipe up to take some weekend assignments, but it’s not an expectation.

Pay for a QCS Writer… Steve pays all of us promptly every Monday via PayPal. [Pause here for me to happy-dance! I still can't believe I'm getting paid to write!] For tax purposes, we’re considered independent contractors, so he’s not deducting anything from the payments, although PayPal does nip about 2% as a surcharge on each one.  The payscale for writing is a sliding scale according to how many words are in each article ($2.50 for 600 words being a pretty standard-sized piece). If you go with that minimum commitment, we’re talking about $50 a week…

But also keep in mind that you can  take on as much additional work as you choose–pretty much the only limitation here is how much you actually CAN write in a week.  (And that’s a different answer for each of us–so I truly can’t tell you “how many hours” the minimum work-count takes, because it will be different for you than it is for me.  It’s even different for me from day to day, depending on what topic I’m writing about…)  I know I’ll also be asked how much a person can reasonably expect to make–and that, too, is dependent on each individual’s situation and speed.  I don’t mind sharing that my weekly writing-check ranges from $200 to $300–because that’s the amount of writing I can “reasonably” fit into my life.

I very much enjoy the fact that I’m getting work handed to me every day instead of spending my time combing the internet for writing-jobs, so the time I do spend is time directly devoted to the word-count for which I’ll be paid.  All I have to do is write.  Although that does lead me to…

Challenges for a QCS Writer…  I realized after my last recruiting-post (just six weeks ago–business is growing fast!) that I’d done our newcomers a disservice by not talking much about what this commitment involves.  As I said, Steve is looking for writers who are willing to commit to a minimum of 2,500 words most days, and the deadlines are truly critical.  If we (as a team) don’t get our work to the clients as promised, we lose clients.  Simple as that.

Having said that, there’s also plenty of room for flexibility IF you communicate with Steve about your schedule.  When I was at the hospital for a few days because of Keoni’s knee-replacement, for example, I asked for less work than my usual–and when I was on the road for Western Byways magazine for a few days, I requested no work from Steve.  If he knows what’s going on, that’s not a problem–what IS a problem is when he assigns ten articles to a writer and hasn’t heard back when the deadline arrives, and then the writer explains why it didn’t get done.  At that point it’s too late, and somebody else is scrambling to get those pieces written before the client walks…  (Often that “somebody” is ME–so I confess I have an additional personal interest in bringing on new writers who can handle deadlines. [grin]

If you’re wondering whether Steve will consider a freelancing “newbie” whose writing experience doesn’t (yet) include writing-for-pay, the answer is YES.  Quite simply, he’s looking for people who (1) Write Well, and (2) Respect Deadlines.

Interested?  If you have questions about any of this, please feel free to post them in the comments here (or if you’re not comfortable with that, you can email me: kana.tyler@gmail.com–although I’d prefer the “comments” area just because it enables everyone to see the answers)…  Either way, I’ll be answering. :)

And if you think you’d like to give QCS a try, there’s a quick-and-easy application form on our Writer’s Resource Page.  I’m hoping to see you there!

**********

Feb 15 Addendum:  Great questions below (and hopefully some helpful answers) including what types of writing we end up doing…  And in response to one of the requests below, I’m attaching a few of the pieces I’ve written in the last couple weeks, so you can get a better feel for the job… (Click on any of the titles below to read the article; bolded words are the keywords provided by clients…)

• A Cheese Tour
• Black & Decker CM1650B coffee maker
• How Can I Stop Smoking Weed Without Checking into Rehab?
• Murder Mystery Phoenix
• Socks Say it All at the Office
• The Ashoka Diamond Ring–A Legacy of Love

Poetry when I’ve been slammed, though… That I can talk about.

A blogging-friend was asking me last week about publishing poetry, and the best advice I can offer on that topic is to check out the 2012 Poet’s Market, which is a great resource for pretty much every publication everywhere that publishes poetry, with all the specs on how to submit, what (or if) they pay, what types they’re looking for, whether they accept simultaneous submissions (meaning you can send a poem to multiple publishers at the same time… or not), what percentage of submissions they accept, and all those good stats.  Poetry doesn’t tend to pay–but it does tend to publish.  And hey, it was the thrill of the decade for me to pick up the Anthology of Idaho Women Poets at my Barnes & Noble and see my name on one of the pages.  (Of course, none of you could have found it at your Barnes & Noble–it was a local offering only–but I’ll be honest, I was thrilled anyway…)

The same blogging-friend asked if my favorite poem could be found here on Kana’s Chronicles, and I had to answer “not yet”–but that’s easily remedied.  The following is a piece written over the three months when my youngest daughter, twelve weeks premature and weighing two pounds, was “imprisoned” in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). I’ve written some about this (Amazing Grace, How Sweet the SOUNDS) but hadn’t shared the poem…  Just one note to avoid confusion, before I turn over this post to myself-of-eight-years-ago: a couple references to myself by name are using my name-of-eight-years ago…  During a different marriage, and when I went by my first name rather than my middle.  (Post about names here, if you’re curious…)

So without further ado, here’s Neonate… Poetry written when I’d been slammed by life.

Neonate

an "electrical appliance" I wasn't allowed to hold...

When the baby stops

breathing, an alarm rings in the NICU.

At home, the process is reversed;

when the phone rings, the mother stops–

***

The baby lives in a box.  That plastic box, there.

The baby is an electrical appliance

on a short cord.

***

three months early

can a baby

live?

No one will tell me

at the hospital where I arrive

spilling amniotic fluid

three months early

***

water broke

in my kitchen

not good

calmly

called a ride

mopped, changed pants,

woke my son

bid him brightly bye in the car

into the doors where someone would know what to do

then began to cry

***

this community, colony of moms,

our lives in orbit

around the NICU–

I introduce myself where we meet

at the phone outside the locked door,

scrub-in sink, breast milk freezer.

We don’t shake hands.  We have all scrubbed, but we are nervous

of hands.

***

The next crib over, Jose

is empty already,

not a mom here I know

(week down, months to go)

we are not, after all,

in this together

***

I pump forty ounces of milk

a day for a baby only fifty

ounces herself

and three times a night I sit up

in bed expressing

milk without a baby

***

Day 12 I can’t pick her up have never held

my baby,

mother’s and daughter’s

wails on either side of plastic walls

I ricochet from the Plexiglas barrier

till I’m able again

to pretend I’m coping

Elena Grace, my two-pound Wonder... A very small handful

***

Lullabye

I’m sorry

little half-baked

baby, shhh, Mommy’s here

***

Baby Stats

Units

of measurement, units of progress

or regress

cc’s of breastmilk, grams of baby,

frequency of desats, occurrence of apnea

her body barely filing

            my two hands

            graying, unmoving.

            In my hands

            she has stopped breathing.

statistics, routine notation

on today’s chart

***

I hate the phone

It’s Janna Vega to see Elena, each day at the locked door

a bead on my rosary

this prayer repeated

***

disposable vessels

threaded

through this tiny body so unready

dozens of times a day

her life re-starts

Easter afternoon another infection

rosary occupying

hands empty of baby

HolyMaryfullofGrace merging

with this new IV drip

of antibiotic, drip

of Grace and I am praying

to ultrasound screens, to shrill alarms

to antibiotics,

to a stuffed frog, to pink blankets

to God in visible forms

***

finally allowed to hold my baby...

I can translate every alarm.

Oxygen desaturation, heart rate, infusion complete

I hear

in my sleep

I dream myself

outside the NICU door, barred

from entering, a stream

of nurses exiting sadly

assuring me she’s fine

***

In the evening, in the NICU

a day-nurse calls me from home,

we hang up laughing.

Sum up my life: I’m taking social calls

in the NICU

***

At Entrance Five still in maternity wear

new mom watches new dad strap in new baby

to drive home, finished

with this hospital.

To see my daughter,

I stride into Entrance Five pulling off my sunglasses

fiercely

aware there’s room for jealousy in a flat belly.

***

The Traveling Parent Show

goes home empties

the dishwasher, explains

how to put on pants

pumps breasts, grades quizzes, changes

wet sheets, slices onions

defines Amen

 ***

Amen means “thank you, God, for listening.”

***

one nurse hails another:

“Mom Cervantes on the phone”

which makes me Mom Vega

my son lugs his mailbox into the kitchen where

I sit with coffee and journal, logging

her removed oxygen tube and

his pet dragon’s change of color–

“Here comes your mailman!

See this mail is for you: it says:

Janna…  Vega…  Mommy!”

my name

***

I ask questions full of qualifiers–

recognizing the limited powers of medical fortune-telling,

and doctors’ desire to avoid

any promise that might break

Dr. Lawrence to his tape recorder:

“Mother asked appropriate questions.”

No, Mother asked questions

he might feel unconstrained to answer.

The other questions I’m not asking

She's been kicking ass ever since!

him.

***

From bare dirt by the emergency

entrance where I came in

daffodils come and gone, tulips

past, apple petals replaced

by apple leaves, roses coming on,

I am still parking

here marking time botanically

Reblogged from Emmie Mears:

Today’s post is by Friday Fellow and blogger Kana Tyler. She was one of my first friends on WordPress, and she has been an inspiration to me since she first discovered my blog. Kana is a survivor and a fabulous writer, and I urge you to all check out her blog. I know you will love her words as much as I do. A Learning-Journey Toward Valuing my Gender…  And Those who Share it! I labored for a lot of years under the weight of an odd prejudice. I was determined not to be considered a girl. And I don’t …

Today I’m guest-posting with Emmie Mears, so I invite you to take a field-trip to her blog to read… Cheers! :)
~Kana