Hens Lay Eggs
food for thought
Merry Christmas!
Christmas is the reason for the season, or so they say.
A bit a research into the history of the holiday season gets interesting, especially when you consider how much of the old pagan traditions were adopted by Christianity and integrated into the holidays we celebrate. Regardless of your reason for celebrating end-of-year festivities, I hope you enjoy the holiday season.
Tired tropes
I went shopping recently. At this time of year, gift shopping isn’t unusual; however, I was shopping for a birthday present. My son’s fiancee has a December birthday, so we wanted to ensure she was able to celebrate both her birthday and Christmas separately. It’s important not to lump a person’s birthday into holiday festivities.
In genre fiction, doing something a little differently refreshes the theme. In real life, that might be shopping for a birthday present during the Christmas season. In fiction, that might be something just as small and simple or it might be a dramatic twist on an tired trope.
As I’m an avid reader of romance and a writer a romance, I’m familiar with all the tropes. There are a few I’ve grown to detest if only because they occur so often without those distinguishing touches that refresh them. Of all those tropes, one in particular comes to mind: The heroine losing her job and her cheating boyfriend/fiance the same day
In this trope, the heroine loses her menial job due to circumstances beyond her control. This trope generally places an indigent protagonist in dire financial straits that force her to consider less-than-respectable options to acquire funds, so she can maintain her cramped apartment in the big city. The options tend to involve a wealthy man who becomes her one true love. Of course.
The cheating boyfriend/fiance scenario often entails the heroine being both financially distressed and living with said man, thus booting her out into the streets without resources. Or she’s on the chubby side, and the boyfriend/fiance expects her to overlook his transgressions because she should be grateful for his attention whenever he deigns to give it to her. Of course, the fabulously wealthy patron … er … employer who rescues her from destitution, crushing disappointment, and low self-esteem believes she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
It all ends with the de rigeur “happily ever after,” which satisfies the genre’s requirement but don’t relieve the reader’s boredom with a worn out and hackneyed trope.
Truly, there probably isn’t anything truly new under the sun when it comes to literature, especially when it comes to this version of the eternal Cinderella story. The latest estimates I’ve seen say that anything from two million to four million books are published each year now. That’s an incredible, unfathomable number spanning both traditionally published and self-published books spread across all genres and encompassing both fiction and nonfiction.
That’s a whole lot of competition.
A hackeneyed trope is like a bald tire: it has no traction.
As far as the “lost job/lost boyfriend” trope itself is concerned, it’s common enough to be plausible in today’s world, especially among the Millennial and Gen Z populations, those younger adults for whom romance is primarily written. What’s odd is that it’s commonly written by older adults, adults who generally had a lot more life experience than many twenty-somethings. With life experience comes a certain degree of maturity and hard-won wisdom because life experience arises from poor judgment. The school of hard knocks delivers those lessons.
Older writers bring the wisdom of hindsight to their stories, even to tired old tropes. For authors writing to that trope, I urge them to use that wisdom of life experience to do something different—something new—to revitalize that trope.
The concern that one’s story has been told before is valid: an author does not want to retell someone else’s story. However tired and old the plot, the writer can revive it with his or her own unique treatment. That originality is what you should aim for: take something old and make it your own.
Or hire a ghostwriter who can do that for you. I’d be happy to write your story for you.
Every word counts.
Caveat Emptor
Publishing is an unregulated industry. Freelancing is unregulated, too. Gig workers don’t receive benefits like healthcare coverage, retirement contributions, and other perks that employers use to make full-time employment attractive. In short, freelancing isn’t for the faint of heart.
And it helps tremendously to have a partner who has a steady income, especially during those dry spells when gig work is hard to come by.
For me, 2023 and 2024 have been brutal. Following COVID-19, an already highly competitive market of freelance writers and editors swelled with a glut of new entries into the market, folks not wanting to go back to the office and thinking that freelancing was a quick and easy way to make lots of money. Scammers, always prevalent, increased in number to take advantage of those hungry gig workers.
I like to think I’ve grown pretty good a detecting them.
Recently, I submitted a proposal for a project consisting of writing articles. The job description stated that content briefs would be provided. The prospective client soon contacted me with flattery (my portfolio was impressive) and an offer of the lofty rate of $1.50 per word for two 1,400-word articles. No interview was needed: I was hired! Payment, the client said, would be made by the “sponsors” of the articles, not him. That’s a new twist.
The check arrived via USPS Priority Mail from Union City, NJ. A quick Google search did not find that business at the return address (in Union City, NJ) printed on the envelope. That same search found the sender’s name and business, a confectionery, in New York City, NY. As the client stated, payment would come from someone else, not him.
And so the discrepancies began.
The check was made out for the full amount: $4,050 for both articles due by February 20, 2025. He signed my contract and returned it, although the signature looks like a doctor’s prescription: impossible to read. Really, I can’t hold that against him.
The content brief contained the topics of the articles (“internet and youth development” and “social media and mental health”) and a handful of key points to address for each topic. The articles were “intended for an upcoming social sensitization program/webinar aimed at students aged 15 to 21.” I’m not sure how two articles of 1,400 words each fit into the online learning environment of a webinar, but I’m no expert in course design.
The client is Charles Hartman (which I doubt is his real name). I checked his email address (itproffllc@gmail.com). The “itproffllc” comes up with some close matches: ITPro.com (an IT company), IT Pro US, LLC (another IT company), and itprofiler+llc (a provider of journalism articles). Why would any of those companies be used to hire a writer? Granted, the article topics would be appropriate to the first two possible companies.
Hmmm.
Mr. Hartman sent me proof of delivery for the check and requested that I deposit the check immediately and send him proof of deposit. Um … no. I had to do my due diligence first.
Of course, I checked the check. The paper is not watermarked. The “rub here for validation” mark doesn’t darken when rubbed. There are no other security features I can detect with the naked eye. The ABA confirms the routing and account numbers exist as well as the bank to which those numbers are assigned.
Hmmm.
According to the check, the sponsor paying for the articles is an ammunition company. I called the company. They were closed for the weekend. So, I used their contact form to send a message requesting verification that the gig and the check are legitimate. I assured them I wouldn’t deposit the check until I received such verification.
I know they’re not. Also, why would an ammunition manufacturer want articles on those topics? Why would one company pay for articles for both companies? Why would a confectionery want an article on the assigned topics?
Hmmm.
I’ve been down this road before. The twist in this little adventure is the so-called client’s insistence that I deposit the check immediately and show proof of deposit. Were I not cynical and suspicious, I might have allowed the urgency of that request to send me to the ATM to deposit the check right away.
I can see two outcomes that would have happened had I deposited the check. One is that I’d receive another check from the other sponsoring company and be asked to refund the overpayment. Another is that Mr. Hartman would someone glean my bank information from the proof of deposit then use that information to drain my bank account. Of course, my own financial institution would penalize me for cashing the fraudulent check. Regardless, I’d be out a lot of money.
Scams like this are growing more sophisticated. Do your due diligence.
Even when you’re not the customer, caveat emptor is the rule of the day.
Hen House Publishing is happy to do business with honest customers.
Author
Hard boiled, scrambled, over easy, and sunny side up: eggs are the musings of Holly Bargo, the pseudonym for the author.
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