A post....not what you expected though...

Simple observation….

It's harder to produce simple blog posts with photos from my library on a daily basis and much easier to bang out a thousand words on fireplace grates.

In short, Los Aventureros Longsmith has taken a backseat to the daily routine of cooking, shopping, childcare, walking two or three miles a day, and keeping tabs on the Little League World Series.

And then there's the 1,000 words on fireplace grates….

Part of the process of establishing oneself in a city you are temporarily living in is to join the various Facebook groups. The Antigua Classifieds yielded a strange opportunity earlier this week, an offer to write and make $100 US per day.

The post was vague but, as I am interested in freelance work, I took a moment to read the comments. A couple just tagged others and one was an offer from a “writer” touting their PR and “spin” skills, while at the same time using emojis and janky abbreviations. That earned a scathing rebuke….and that curiousified this writer.

I wrote a concise message and later that afternoon met up with a very interesting man who wrote and edited content for clients like Cigar Afficiaciando, Saveur, and Amazon-esque affiliate sites. I later summed up his character as a combo of a few hardened and semi-brutally honest New Yorkers I know and an amalgamation of my wife's various grant writing editors over the years. High standards and a very direct tone and delivery.

We chatted for an hour and I learned of his gunshot wounds, linguistic prowess, and his love of chain smoking, Brahva beer, and wine on ice. He coordinates 27 writers globally created content for his clients and he offered to start me at the bottom, writing about about the three best home sno-cone makers, for a cool penny per word.

However, by the end of our conversation he had assigned me a 1,000 word piece on fireplace grates for $30.

Within 8 hours, after putting toddler down for nap, making and eating dinner, and performing bedtime duties, there was my 1,000 word masterpiece in his inbox. The response was doled out in brief, drunken emails that seemed to reflect a level of satisfaction on his part. It took a whole day to get a clear response but there is now a path forward for my continued writing in this freelance manner...on topics that I can only guess!