Freelance writers usually know when their payments are coming in, spend an inordinate amount of time chasing those that are supposed to come in, and worry insistently about trying to get them to come in. Although I am terrible with anything that has to do with numbers, rest assured I try to keep up on those numbers that mean cash in my pocket. So, you can assume I was damn surprised today when I received a check from a rather reputable publication that I was not expecting for a piece of writing I can’t recall.
Yes, I do write a lot of erotica. I’d say more than half of my output is naughty writing, either article, blogs, or fiction. But I also write for mainstream clients and attempt to get fiction or little humor essays into those inoffensive old mags that have been around forever. It was from one of these magazines, that the check came from, for… well… for whatever it was.
I went on the magazine’s website to search, to no avail, and just emailed a letter to their editor, thanking him and asking, ‘Hey, by the way, can you tell me what this is for?’ I’d at least like to grab a couple of copies of the magazine to throw around as I don’t get to do this all that often when I get some piece of erotica published. Old aunt Tessie is a sweet lady, but she won’t take well to logging onto some porn site to read my latest on the best positions for spanking.
Don’t think for a minute I’m complaining! I love getting money, and I love that it seems a venerable old magazine has published me. I just have no idea what the piece was! But you might find this happening to you a time or two. Lots of places have online templates to plug your writing into. In the case of what I am assuming was published here, I probably scribbled off a little humor piece of 100 words and sent it off. I’m sure I didn’t even save the few paragraphs, figuring, hey, if they can use it, great, if not, no skin off my apple.
I guess the lesson to be learned here is, just keep sending stuff, throw your writing out and about, even if it’s little quips or a short-short. You never know who might publish you, and when you might see a check, you were not expecting.
