And now I have a new reason to be glad:

They’ve been with us for decades. But now it seems open plan offices may be bad for us.

Excessive noise and lack of privacy, as well as constant distraction, cause workers to suffer problems such as stress, say researchers.

Perhaps even more worrying for employers is a 20 per cent drop in productivity blamed on poorly planned office space.

Only 20%? That actually surprises me. I’ve spoken to enough telecommuters to understand that the days they work from home are the days they are most productive. Heck, I can get more work done at Starbucks than I can in an office.

To me, working in cubicle hell is akin to trying to work on a plane. Crowded, cramped, recycled air, little light… the list goes on. I suffer from anxiety (crowds) and depression (everything else) anyway, so being in that kind of environment inevitably leads to burnout.

Now? I work at home. I shun pants whenever possible. My Chihuahua sits with me as my muse. Life is good. And the coffee is way better.

In fact, there’s a whole website for telecommuters called Working Naked.

And the woman who runs it, Lisa Kanarek, is having a contest: Where do you work naked?

I’m entering the contest because my home office has been stripped. It too is naked. Since the move, I have none of my belongings. No files, no notebooks – the 3-in-1 printer I was supposed to get in October vanished in a cloud of bullshit (my life is a very complicated story). Which means if I win any one of these prizes, I’m ahead of my own game:

Fellowes PS-79Ci Cross-Cut 100% Jam Proof Shredder
Epson WorkForce 610
Elfa products from The Container Store ($250 value)
Library edition binders from Russell + Hazel
Home Office Solutions: Creating a Space that Works for You book by Lisa Kanarek
One-year subscription to Flexjobs
Official “I’m working naked…are you?” t-shirt

I’ve gotta have that t-shirt, dammit. Anyway, grab your camera and get snapping.

But thanks to the wonders of the BlackBerry, I’ve been able to stay on top of things with my Google Reader.

Here are some articles I put stars next to, knowing they’d be helpful:

10 most common writing mistakes – we all make ‘em, let’s try to avoid them, at least in the rewrite.

Nobody’s reading my blog – you’ve got to get over this hit to your self-esteem, especially if you are a new blogger.

Flash is dead – and it’s about bloody time!

Demand Studios is now hiring in the UK and Canada

If you want to be a freelancer, you need to know about business – essential link!

Alright, I have 7 articles I need to pump out today. So the coffee maker is percolating, my brain is buzzing, and I’ll leave you to your day. Good luck and happy writing!

Their articles are upbeat, informative, hip and young in style. Very heavy into the how-to genre. For example, one of the articles available is How to Have an Affair. Think you can hack writing that kind of article?

Break Studios sign up can be found here.

Break Studios is for legal United States residents or citizens only, so don’t bother applying if you don’t legally reside or pay taxes within the US.

Articles for Break run between 200-800 words, and pay is low/medium. More than some of the penny-per-word content mills out there, but nothing that will allow retire writing just one article per day. The average seems to be about $10. They pay monthly via PayPal.

If you are looking to improve your article writing, try The Bloggers Guide to Effective Writing. Includes templates to streamline article writing, and tips to find inspiration when you truly believe there’s none to be found.

Good luck with Break Studios. Drop me a line after doing some business with them and let me know about the experience!

I’m slowly coming back after a long hiatus, and I need to rebuild my client base. Currently I have a few clients who I do small jobs for from time to time, but I’ve lost my backbone clients.

Backbone clients are the ones who provide the bulk of monthly income for any freelancer. They are the recurring contracts that help a freelance writer budget from month to month, knowing they will do at least XX number of hours at XX dollars per hour. Because I could not commit hours over the past few months, I have been unable to retain these backbones.

Time to start over.

In the meantime though, while hustling to score new regulars, I’m walking the dark alleyways of freelancing, using services like Elance, Textbroker and Demand Studios to drum up pay-per-piece jobs. They don’t pay much – sometimes mere pennies per word – but do enough of them and you’ll make some fast, generally easy money. Believe me, though, this is the difference between being a crackwhore or being a high class escort. My normal hourly rate is $25+, but with places like Textbroker I’m making maybe $13/hr. Yes, I feel dirty, but momma has bills to pay!

Another bit of word whoring is Examiner.com. This is an online news source which pays per pageview. I have been the National Republican Examiner for almost a year. I haven’t updated in ages, but I’m currently working on an article to get back into it. If you can post a relevant article 2-4 times per week based on news in your area, you can be an Examiner, too! Click here to find out more about becoming an Examiner (Tell ‘em Wendy Sullivan, Examiner 3339 sent you! Yes, I will be paid for successful referrals.).

The thing with freelancing is that even when the chips are down, there’s always some menial, McDonald’s-esque job you can do for fast cash.

Now, before I get myself into some kind of libel trouble, I am NOT saying that this fine advertiser is selling a scam.

In fact, I don’t know anything about them.

The ad’s landing page is full of absolutely wonderful… nothingness. The advertiser doesn’t have a name. You can’t say “Hey, this Bob guy made half a mil last year!” And this non-Bob doesn’t tell you HOW you too can make that kind of dosh.

As far as ad copy goes, it’s great. Ignore the deplorable grammar (why didn’t they hire a fantabulous content writer such as myself to avoid that problem??) and focus on the emotions being presented. A desperate single parent, needing to provide for their kids, had to make money fast… are your heartstrings all a-quiver yet? The made-for-TV-Billy-Mays-esque “if you order now, it will be half price and I’ll throw in all this other free stuff” tactic is surefire. I mean, as web courses go, $76 really is a bargain.

But for what? What does the course teach you to do? Is it about web traffic and income streams, like Naomi has? Probably not. Is it an e-book about writing good and marketable web copy, like Jennifer’s? No idea.

The ad merely makes vague references to visiting ATMs – for all I know the lesson is about robbing them!

This advertisement plays on emotion. You want to buy the product without having a clue what it’s about. Believe me, I have seen the good and the bad on offer out there, and even I was tempted to click the Order Now! button. Which means it is an excellent ad; and that means that there is a chance that with advertising like that, the advertiser really did make that kind of money.

This post isn’t about avoiding getting scammed – you shouldn’t be allowed to play on the internet if you don’t already know how to trust your gut on stuff like that. It is merely to point out that in the advertising world, you don’t need to have a product – or even a name! – to make money. Damn, I wish I had that kind of chutzpah.

PS: When you click over to the landing page, and you scroll down to the “beach” image… Is that rocks on the beach, or dead fish washed ashore? Heh. I’d be willing to buy the product if it was dead fish – I like a little truthful cynicism in my advertising.

As a rule, I don’t like to work on the weekends – who does? However, in my corporate life, I was often called in on weekends to work on large projects. I wasn’t even paid overtime for it. So why would I begrudge putting the hours in for my own clients and my own business?!

I know that the first 6 months-1 year of running your own business is meant to be tough. It is – it’s really tough. However I’m finding resources that not only help me in a step-by-step way, but in a sustain-my-spirit kind of way. When I get frustrated, I go back to resources like Web Writer’s Guide to help me find a new angle and get my heart rate back to normal!

What resources do you use?

Perhaps it’s a phase that comes with working from home. Maybe everyone goes through this before they settle into a rhythm. I theory I should be able to crank our 8-10 articles per day. In reality I’m doing more like four. I will never make any money like that!

I suppose there are hyper-efficient people out there who do not need that terrible jazz/world music playing in the background while you sip a Starbucks latte. But I need that. Need it, people. It’s how I’ve always worked. I used to book days off from Corporate Hell just to sit and catch up on blogging and chai tea at the local ‘bucks. That’s just not an option right now, with the nearest ‘bucks being 45 miles away. And frankly, I despise the idea of paying for WiFi when I’m already spending $6 for a cuppa joe.

In reality, working from home is perfect. It’s just the practice part I’m having trouble with.

When I was a child I dreamed of being a writer, of not having to leave the house on rainy days (like today), of being able to move around and not have to switch careers mid-stream. Now I’m finally doing it. However, it meant leaving a $45,000-a-year lifestyle. No, it’s not a lot, but it was more than enough for me.

Now I have to learn to work my freelancing model so that I can start earning the same amount again. I’m hopeful. My first month I made $130. The second and third months I made $50 combined. This month’s earnings will be over $500! I have made good contacts and been given repeat assignments. I am building a good base for myself. I am marketing my skills as a freelance writer.

I still have so much to learn, but as it turns out I know much more than I thought I did. The years of blogging for free are finally paying off – now I can blog for money, too! I spend a lot of time reading articles by other freelancers who have been at this way longer than me, too. And books! Lots of books! I’m a member of MediaBistro, where the higher end jobs are posted. They have a book I will be ordering, Get a Freelance Life.

Another one I want is My So-Called Freelance Life. The table of contents makes it not only seem informative, but it is written in the easy-going style I appreciate. Not for me the collegiate texts of yore! In fact, the opening section is called “You fled the cube – now what?” How perfect is that?

I caught up with Six Apart CEO Chris Alden over a Belgian beer in downtown Washington, DC. The company is one of the most significant players in blogging, with its Movable Type software, Typepad blog services and Vox “social blogging” site.

As you might imagine, talk turned to the economy. And Alden offered a surprising note of optimism for his company. Of course, a crushing recession could hurt Six Apart’s big media customers (which include Conde Nast; the wired.com blog network is powered by TypePad), which in turn might affect how much those customers spend with Six Apart.

But on the flip side, a bad economy will probably lead to an overall uptick in blogging, Alden says. “When you don’t know where else to invest,” he explains, “you invest in yourself.”

Which is kind of a slick way of saying that when you get laid off or your company goes under, it’s a good time to build your personal brand by blogging. Or, for that matter, if you suddenly find yourself with a lot of time on your hands, you might blog to fill the empty spaces. “You look for a way to reassert control,” Alden points out. “That’s a reason blogging surges in down times.”

Now is the time for you to set up that website or blog you’ve always meant to start, and get out there and market yourself! I promise I will pass along whatever advice I can to help you. I hope you’ll do the same!