I have always wanted to write. I had ambitions as a teenager of writing a book; I loved my high school English class assignments of book reports, essays and creative writing. When I started college; psychology, sociology, interpersonal communication and English were my favorite classes. All of them required analytical writing, research papers, essays and expressions of individual thoughts. However, I did not pursue writing as a career because I lacked true motivation.

Now, at the age of 42, I have found the motivation to fulfill my teenage ambitions of writing. Mind you, I'm not looking to get rich fast or even get rich. I decided to take this writing adventure on for two simple reasons:

1. I love to write and express my opinions. I am a "soapbox queen."
2. I needed to find a way to earn extra money so I could buy a Dodge Dakota truck while still maintaining my "day job".

I spent a week researching blogs and articles on how to start writing for profit and during my research, I found links to sites of interest; magazine submittal sights, job bidding sites, blog sites and also information on affiliate programs. I have paid attention to all the warnings about being patient and when starting out don't expect to make money instantly. I am pumped up and ready to start setting up shop.

With thoughts of, "I can do this, I am ready", I jumped in with both feet: I created a blog at Blogger.com, HubPages.com, created an account at Xomba.com, signed up for Google Adsense, and Amazon affiliates program, signed up with FeedBurner.com for an RSS feed. I then started typing a few articles and posted a couple. I made an "idea list" for future writings, worked on a bio and created a personal quote. Then came the first wake-up call.

Adsense denied my application because my site was still under construction and did not have enough content to evaluate for ad placements. What? All the articles and websites said to create an account and then sign up to Google Adsense and other affiliate programs. I had a basic profile and two blogs posted, but obviously that was not enough. I guess you could say that was a notice of spreading myself too thin. I had followed all the advice I had read, but I followed it all at once. So, even though I read, "be patient, it takes time, you won't be an instant success"...I fell victim to trying to get it all done at once and actually not getting one project completed for proper income earning.

At the time, I had a basic blog site, was trying to figure out, by trial and error, how the RSS works and what it really is all about, reading article posting site guidelines, joining other peoples' blogs, and trying to associate my blog sites with categories when I received the denial from Google Adsense.

I decided to put all but one blog account on hold. Concentrate on the one site I want to use as my primary site, once that is completed to my beginner blogging satisfaction, I will move on to the next site and complete that site creation and so on.

Now that I have my main blog looking pretty and tweaked a bit here and there, I decided to start looking for small, get my keyboard wet, writing opportunities. In doing so, I discovered I'm not sure what is legit and what is a scam. For instance:

1. I have been asked twice if I had PayPal. Are PayPal payments the "norm" for writing compensation?

2. In regards to responding to writing ads (mainly on CraigsList) an announcement of a contest is received. The poster has received so many replies to the posting that a contest is created. All entries will be paid a minimal (.01 a word) with bonuses for the top 3 articles. (Which bumps the pay to .05 for 1^st place, .03 for 2^nd place and .02 for 3^rd)

The top 3 writers are also to receive more work.

Is this something a beginning writer should consider or is this an article collector scam. Granted IF he paid, it would cost him $2,590.00 for 200 articles, but that is IF he paid. In thinking this over, that is pretty cheap for 200 articles at 900-1250 word per article on specified topics to collect. I opted out of the contest by the way, based on a gut feeling.

3. How do you choose which writings to post on your blog for optimum client reference while optimizing search engine exposure and which ones to submit to paid or non-paid article sites for generating income and promotion?

For now, it is back to the drawing board of research, refining and writing for future postings... somewhere and hopefully, with a little more knowledge of how it all works, I'll be able to get my truck by next year! Think positive, think positive.