It’s been a good month and as always, there were ups and down.

Triumph:

• I got  my first taste of affiliate sales this month. Felt good!
• I did website copywriting for a client who was willing to take a chance with me.

Trials:

• I’ve been so busy with work, I’ve barely had any time to study. Going to take on less work the next few weeks and concentrate on giving a couple of exams.
• An invoice of mine is stuck. I got paid half, but the rest is yet to come with a promise that it will be paid. Not quite sure what to do. Let’s see how it plays out this month.

News:

Not much news except that my 6 week trip back home got delayed. I will now be going home in late September. As fast as the time is going, I keep wishing it would go faster. 

In other news, my personal blog has reawakened with a new look and an old feel. If you’re interested in blog posts by me that all start with the word ‘I’ – head on over to Cuppa Life

P.S: Don’t kill me if you see a new look over at The Base again soon. I promise this will the absolute last for at least a year. The colors won’t change. Just the lay out.

April has been a month of ample triumphs and trials. Without any further ado:

Triumphs

My first post for another blog “12 Places To Get Business Cards Online” got syndicated by ComputerShopper.com which receives around 200k visitors per month! Many thanks to Chris Cairns of Smart Life Blog for telling me about it.

It may be unprofessional and weird to write about, but this is my highest earning month so far. This is the first month I was able to meet my original, modest earning goals. The fact that i also took a 2 week break this month makes it incredible!

Work wise, I learned countless new things this month. I’m also gaining experience as a ghost writer. Surprising, but inevitable I suppose. So if you want blog posts, articles or e-books ghost written, you know where to find me

Trials

Work wise things are fine Alhamdolillah. The only problem I seem to have is with The Base. I’m struggling to find a balance between the kind and frequency of posts. I’ve tried scheduling posts and maintaining weekly blog columns. So far doesn’t feel right.

I’m adding another subheading to this report titled:

News

Things seem to be picking up speed in both my personal and professional life (knocks wood). 

I finally got a work table!!! It’s nothing fancy – just a flat surface. A very cool, smooth flat surface. I’m off the dining table and into my own corner which I’ve set up in my bedroom. 

I went to India for my break this month and had a blast! My husband has family there and a couple of cousins were getting married so I got to attend an Indian wedding as well. Cool huh? I was the typical tourist and took pictures of EVERYTHING. Got about 1k pictures in all. 

I’ve enrolled myself into a writing course. Since education is beyond expensive in UAE and considering the current financial climate, we decided it would be unwise to invest a substantive amount of money in my Masters. Therefore, I enrolled in a diploma course. I’m hoping this will help me in my career.

Can’t remember anything else at the moment. Until next month!

Technorati Tags: Blogging, news, Triumph & Trial Report, Writing

This picture was taken by me on my  first visit to Al Qasba, Sharjah last year. The fountain is just one part of an area that is described as the cultural hub of Sharjah.

There are countless resturants and cafes along with an amusement park area for kids and boat rides for anyone who’d like a trip around the canal.. Al Qasba also boasts of Sharjah’s tallest ferris wheel (which isn’t all that tall) and is called the Eye of the Emirates.

The place is lively, colorful and always bustling. It’s one of my favourite place to hang out in the evening.

Interesting trivia: Al Qasba is built around a canal.

Technorati Tags: Al Qasba, Eye of Emirates, Sharjah, UAE

Trials:

The past two months have seen me at two ends of the spectrum. February was the driest month work wise I’ve had so far. So much so, that I was pretty down in the dumps for a while. That’s pretty much all that happened in February.

In March, the only trial I faced was a lack of a proper workspace. Sometimes, in search for perfection, I come in my own way. So for now I’m still working off my dining table till I find the perfect desk.

The toughest part however was setting up this new place and scheduling a month’s worth of posts. I’ll be leaving for India on the 8th and won’t be back for three weeks. Combine it with the regular work I was getting, along with my idiosyncrasies related to The Base’s maintenance in my absense and I was a bundle of nerves!

Triumphs:

Even though February was bad work wise, somehow I was able to keep my chin up. Yes, I count that as a triumph. In March, the freelancing gods smiled on me. I got regular work thanks to a fellow freelancer. I also got my first post published for another blog and got a bunch of work inquiries.

Even though they didn’t work out, I knew people were noticing me as a freelancer and considering me enough to contact me. That’s a triumph in my book.

It’s been uphill ever since and I couldn’t be more thankful. 

The important thing to remember is that dry spells will come again. Next time however, I’ll be prepared.

Technorati Tags: freelance business, Freelancing, Freelancing report

Welcome to The Base! We finally have our own place!

Before we get to the important stuff, I’ll bore you with a few basics. I’m a freelance writer/blogger and have been writing since I was an anguished teenager pouring my misery in a diary.

But we’ll save the rest of my life story for later. Till then, enjoy the other, hopefully useful content and stay tuned!

Of course this place is nowhere near complete. The header and footer are dismal, I probably made a mistake in uploading the favicon (if you’re seeing a {p}, that’s not my favicon, it came with the theme) and I need to clean up the copy of the blog too. All this will take time and I was too eager to get this place live.

Feel free to leave encouraging comments!

Without further ado, here’s a round up for new and up coming changes.

Weekly Features:

Photo Friday:

In addition to Sunday Link Overdose, I’ll be introducing Photo Friday. You’ll find out what it is on 3rd April ‘09 when the first one will go live. I hope you like it! Feedback will be extremely appreciated.

Pages:

The other change is that of additional pages. You see the 125×125 banners on the right? Those are products and services I endorse because of my experience with them. The added benefit of being an endorsement is that they get a page all to themselves. My Endorsements will be like a sales page – only with a user’s view.

Then there’s the FAQs page. I read this awesome post on Freelance Switch about the benefits of having an FAQs page on your website. It’s one of those insanely useful things to have on your website that just offer a ton of information to anyone looking for it – particularly people who may hire you.

Changes in the works:

Here are a few things that will be introduced in the following months:

Website Reviews – Probably once a month. There are no bounds to the kind of websites I’ll review. If it’s interesting and useful, I’ll review it. I will be concentrating on blogs and websites that are new and have a relatively small readership. As or if the request for reviews grow, I may be doing them more frequently.

Freelancer Gold – Possibly a once a month feature, highlighting freelancer(s) who go out of their way to help other freelancers. They won’t always be mad successful or famous. The only criteria to be featured in is that they help. 

What you can do:

Here’s the ‘call to action’ that all successful bloggers keep saying must be in a blog post to make it work.

1. Submit your websites for review

It can be a personal blog or professional blog. If you want to improve or want to know how your visitors see and perceive your virtual real estate, send it in for a review! I will be preferring lesser known blogs that really need the review for technical and promotional purposes.

I will be pointing out areas they can improve in (design and content both) and suggest places they can learn how to fix them. If it’s out of my league, I’ll be recommending someone who could help them.

2. Nominate people for freelancer gold

Unfortunately, you can’t nominate yourself. Spread some freelancer goodwill and nominate others. Those who send in a nomination will get a mention and a link to their website when their nominated freelancer is featured at The Base.

Tell us why you think your nomination should be featured. How do they help individuals? State an example of them going out of their way to help. Anything that sets them apart.