Liz Craig, Writer

I know I said to blog as often as humanly possible. That’s true. If you want higher Google rankings, you gotta blog your little heart out. And I haven’t been doing it. My bad.

But I can explain…

I’m getting my house ready to sell. There are painters, stainers, decorators, handymen and all manner of tradesmen running around my house, and I’m running to Home Depot, Lowe’s or Wal-Mart every day to get paint, blue tape and other redecorating essentials. So I’ve fallen off the face of the earth, as far as the blog world is concerned.

With any luck, this chaos will end within 10 days or so. So I’ll be able to return to regular blogging and living like a normal person.

Oh, wait. Living in a staged house is nothing like living normally. No wastebaskets or clocks, no free surfaces on which to place anything.

Well, as Arnold once said, I’ll be back. I just don’t know exactly when. For now, adios.

It always makes me feel warm and safe when I send out invoices at the end of the month or at the end of a project. But I get a cold chill when I realize that most clients don’t pay me for another month.

Is there a way around this time-lag between billing and receiving the money?

Some smaller clients who have control of their checkbooks will write a check sooner. But big companies with Accounts Payable people seem to drag their big corporate feet. Either that, or it takes that long to go through the maze of corporate bookkeeping.

The bills I get are due within a week or two. Like for utilities, insurance, mortgage payments and other things. At the Quik-Trip, it’s pay right then or go home hungry. So why do big companies get the big breaks?

If anybody has devised a system for being paid sooner than 30 days later, please share.

Y’see, I have an interest-bearing checking account. And for every day my receivables are delayed, I’m forfeiting interest! Actually losing money! So what should I do, charge clients my unearned interest for 30 days?

What do you do? I’d really love to know.

Weird unrelenting Arctic weather, weird and disquieting disconnect between the ever-rising Dow and the still-stagnant economy, and personally, weird since I’m not working in my home office as usual, but working on-site on some client projects.

I hate being away from the animals, but I enjoy the toasty warmth of the company cubicle, versus the drafty cold of my office.

I’m still open for new projects… so if you need writing help, be sure to call.

Brrrr.

Someone once asked local jazz great Bobby Watson why he was playing a gig for so little money. Watson replied, “Because you’re either appearing or disappearing.”

Sax man Bobby Watson

That’s a sobering thought. And it’s a great reason for doing pro bono projects between the paying ones. So last week, I wrote and disseminated news releases for two organizations I belong to (which also involved updating my media list because of all the newspaper staff layoffs). And recently, I submitted the winning entry in the informal “rename the Freebe Awards” (former name of the Freelance Exchange of Kansas City’s annual awards) contest and wrote copy for the call for entries and the event invitation. My designer friend, Laurie Chipman, did a literally cool design for both ICE Awards show pieces featuring a penguin illustration that just makes me smile. Especially because it’s a neat piece for my portfolio. You can take a look at the invite here.

Doing pro bono projects can be fun and can keep you from going nuts while waiting for paying jobs. It also helps out good causes, gets you together with people you like (usually), and makes you feel useful. Finally, when you do any kind of project, you’re out there “appearing,” not disappearing.

Today, I did some paying work, and that’s a good thing, too. So I don’t see my bank balance disappearing…