I'll be happy to comment on any written work for a reasonable fee. In fact, if you have an actual story I could maybe ghost write or co-author... BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY!!!!
Seriously, is there a small weekly paper in your town? Offer to write a column for them occasionally. Local history, odd facts, whatever they're interested in that you think you can do. For free at first, until you build up a reputation. Then "hang out a shingle" at the end of your column stating that you do ghostwriting, co-authoring, etc., "write or call for rates." Might earn you a coupla bucks here and there, and give those writing muscles a workout. Short pieces, tight deadlines are very good discipline.
I came across a site a few weeks ago that i thought might sere a similar purpose: http://coqandbull.net/ But I haven't investigated. The local paper is so low-exposure that it'd be a pathetic vehicle. Although there might be more noticeable platforms. Seems I recall something in Memphis along those lines ("Southern fiction" journal of some sort)
I was thinking if I got published there, or a similar site (as if you can call an unpaid submission "being published" but at least it's visibility) then i could use that work as examples of my abilities on e-Lance.
No not at all. I meant as a vehicle for what graemet was suggesting...very few of those 500 readers are going to be in need of a ghostwriter or whatever. Back in the 90's I wrote op-ed columns for a local religious monthly and I tried to capitalize on that by advertising writing services, including speechwriting during the political season...never got a single response.
Funniest thing as we were coming back from a fest a few weeks ago. A friend of mine was raving on about the whole RGI series for the better part of four hours... Today, I noticed a post it requesting your stuff in the shop's next book order... W&BB
Why don't you write a technical manual or something. Oh that's right you always say they don't want that stuff. Well how about a tech manual from the new movie?
Another reason why I tend not to read stuff posted here or on other boards - aside from the fact that there are only so many hours in a day - and a reason why I insist on a confidentiality agreement whenever I ghost or edit somebody else, is because there are folks out there who are the equivalent of intellectual ambulance-chasers sharking around for opportunities to sue for "theft of concept." This despite the fact that an *idea* can neither be copyrighted nor "stolen," and for every Art Buchwald, there are probably a thousand cases that are dismissed out of hand. But some people would apparently rather put their energies into working an angle than into something creative.
I've discovered it's basically a feast or famine life. I'm still trying to verify that there's actually a 'feast' part involved at some point, but to accept the proposition that there's feasting going on by a writer somewhere is my one irrational indulgence of optimism.
