Writing for the sheer love of it...

Writing for the sheer love of it...




RANT: First published at Fortitude



by peter petterson



The recent announcement that a new writing site's struggle to survive in the short to medium term could continue, will undoubtebly be thought provoking there. As a now member of that particular site, which I was aware of for a few weeks but had decided to sit and think about it, as they often say. I had made sufficient money from writing a commercial blog post on my 'The Green Planet blog' and had been paid out on Paypal. What should I do with my thirty odd dollars sitting in my Paypal account?



Well I made a commitment to invest on something online; I had not done that before. I have been ripped off before at Sidetick and a few other small online sites, and had my Adsense account disabled without any production of evidence that I had broken their TOS. If I had it would have been purely accidental because I'm basically an honest person. So why did I decide to invest in a writing site membership?



This particular site offered something that I have been looking for a number of years. I've been a member of quite a few blogsites over the years that have claimed you can write and earn a lot of money in the process. But earning money was not the prime reason I blogged; I enjoyed writing about the subjects that I was interested in. So in a way the new offer was too good to refuse under the circumstances. The money involved was profit from another writing venture and the modest joining fee was hardly a financial burden.



I have read their latest announcement that they were not intending to turn over and die, very interesting and indicative of a real determination to succeed by the present owners. Such an attitude could determine a members decision whether to continue or withdraw and seek an alternative.



During the last few weeks I have written a number of articles there, have been reimbursed for my initial outlay and now find myself myself in the black. So seriously, why would I want to quit at this stage when there are still guarantees to earn from quality writing? It is actually a strong incentive to continue writing at that site: to research, write well and edit. I intend to do so as long as there 'is' an incentive to continue writing and a solid guarantee that payments for writing, reviewing and refering continue.



While the TOS of the site may differ from when I joined up a few weeks ago, the reasons given why this has been necessary have been convincing in my personal opinion.



I will continue to promote the site in my own way as I have done during the last few weeks, and will explain why the owners consider changes necessary. It is better to have a lighter weighted golden goose, than a dead frozen chicken.



What alternatives to this site are out there in the writesphere and blogesphere? None that I am aware of at this stage. There are still those blogsites out there that continue to inanely claim a fortune can still be made from blogging, despite the lack of credibility and validity of such people, who probably claim the existence of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, and that Elvis was still in the building as well. I still come across other so-called writing sites that are no more than social network sites — not that there is anything wrong with these sites — but I object to the claim they are genuine money making sites, when in fact they only offer cents for impressions, or offer less for non-north American members. I find the latter really objectionable because it is supposed to be the World Wide Web after all.



I will continue to work at my writing site and hope the practise will improve my writing skills and result in some more modest but satisfactory income. I will continue to write for the sheer love of it!

All Rights Reserved.

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Times were a changing then - back to the nostalgic fifties...

 


Times were a changing - back to the nostalgic fifties...



ARTICLE: First  published at Fortitude



by peter petterson



As the years I've been on this planet actually begin to increase, time begins to peel back and thoughts turn to a different era. A different, less stressful and more peaceful time — back to those nostalgic innocent days of my childhood, down in the South Island of my homeland — New Zealand way down in the South Pacific.



Back to the 1950's when the population was half of what it is now, when New Zealand was Britain's farm, when inflation was something done to a football bladder,cars were a mixture of English and American; and Toyotas and Nissans were some unknown names along with karate back in Tokyo, and my hometown of Christchurch had as many bicycles as they do now. Peak hours would see hundreds of these push bikes streaming down the main street,(including mine on occasions), Colombo Street — about five and a half miles long with the title of longest street in New Zealand for decades.



Weekends were taken up with sport: mainly rugby union in the winter, and rugby league, soccer, and hockey having their followers, and outdoor basketball(as netball was called then). In summer there was mainly cricket, athletics and swimming. Softball would arrive very soon once the American influence began to infiltrate the former British colony a couple of thousands of miles off-shore from the West island — Australia. New Zealand was closed on the weekends then, no weekend shopping apart from a couple of areas in Christchurch's beach suburb of New Brighton, and up on Wellington's west coast in Paraparaumu.



In the summer the beaches attracted Kiwis by the thousands, and the tens of thousands on the other side of the Tasman Sea at beaches such as Bondi which would begin to attract New Zealanders too, in just a few years.



But out on the Canterbury plains Kiwis had almost an obsession with rivers on Sundays — picnicking up by the riverbeds, thermettes boiling away on the river banks with pristine water from the river. Firewood a plenty — and a .22 rifle packed in the trunk of the car for the inevitable pot shot at the pests of the plains — the damned wild rabbits. Those trunks have now been anglicised and are known as boots. Many a trip back home with the trunks filled with pine cones from the many plantations in the Canterbury area. No television in New Zealand in the fifties — no coca cola, pepsi or hamburgers either; but they were well on the way when the fifties turned to the sixties. Changes were on the horizon. The strongest thing most teens those days were some cold flagons of draught beer, or a bottle of Scotch if you could afford it — or scrounge it from your elders.



For me a couple of times a year, was a couple of weeks during the school holidays on one of the mixed farms — 30 minutes from town — dairy, sheep, pigs, poultry, crops and the annual haymaking. Could there be anything more healthy for a city boy with most of the food grown on site apart from a few staples — and fresh warm unpasterised milk straight from the cow? Great times as long as you watched your footing around the yards and cow bails. And yes, don't tease and antagonise that big black bull way out in his paddock.



New Zealand's foreign policy was British foreign policy — but change was on the horizon. Britain would join the European Common Market, and New Zealand would have to seek new markets for its primary produce, and that American Rock and Roll music would soon see Americans in person down Christchurch way as the American Deep Freeze program down south in the Antarctic in the New Zealand summer was based out by Christchurch Airport, and the American icebreakers berthed at Lyttleton Harbour, just over the Port Hills from Christchurch City.



Change was a coming, so was the coca cola, pepsi, hamburgers and American cream freeze ice-cream. Also in the New Zealand psyche just a few years in the future was a foreign southeast asian country named South Vietnam. The happy city boy would grow up and witness some real and significant social changes in New Zealand.



New Zealand would become a major mens softball world power in a few years too. Elvis would be joined later by names that would become world pop music icons — the Beatles and the Rolling Stones — and Vietnam would become a dirty word, and New Zealand's volunteer returned soldiers would have to be whisked in during the hours of darkness. Times were really changing!

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