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I didn’t do any digging in my muddy garden today, but I got a lot done as far as planting seeds for the future.
They may fail, but at least their finally planted.
What Did I Accomplish Today to Be a Writer?
I did Day 179 of the 100 Words a Day Writing Challenge 2024 through L.A. Writers’ Lab and spent most of the day working on my website. It was tempting to pick my Covid piece back up to fiddle with more, but I was waiting on a bit more feedback and figured I’d wait to hear from my readers first.
As for Instagram, here’s yesterday’s post:

Research & Development I’m Doing to Improve My Writing & Business Strategy
This morning, I made a payment for some artwork I’d commissioned while in Italy. Valeria is a painter, and I’d asked her to recreate something called a “Bottle Brush Bush”. The payment plan was to possibly do an International Banking Transaction, but we found out that would include a $75.00 fee – nearly half the price of what I was paying for the artwork (including shipping).
I suggested she sign up for PayPal to ease this transaction, and so she could sell more of her work to foreign clients visiting Tuscany (where she also works as a chef). She did, and the payment was smooth.
That got me thinking about how many people have inquired what my rates are, and how it makes my panic every time, because I haven’t really set all that up, or done much about invoicing. So, since Thursdays are my Research and Development Day anyway, I sat down and added a services tab to my website with three different categories, payment rates, and a plan.
I might as well follow my own advice.
I can’t believe that just like that I’m kind of “open for business”. It was very tempting to set my prices super-low, but looking at the rates other people are charging, and knowing the kind of time and intense concentration the work takes, I raised my price, while still taking into consideration that I’m rather a newbie doing this “professionally”.
Here are rates set by someone with much more experience:
Private Consultations With Alan Watt, Award-Winning Writer (lawriterslab.com)
Editing Services With L. A. Writers’ Lab In-house Editor Katharine Chezum (lawriterslab.com)
I used those rates and parameters as a standard to think through what it is I want to offer.
Here are links to the three pages I’ve posted as a result:
I’m sure I will probably go through them to tweak the details, but it’s a start. I tried to include a next step action plan throughout the storytelling services. I need to go back through and see about the other two.

I also put my picture in the posts, which was kind of a big deal, since I’m so apt to want to remain anonymous. However, I think it’s important to be seen some, to build more trust that I am indeed a real person.
Thanks for reading what I’m writing,
Jody Susan
Looking at the post below, from 99 days ago, made me smile, because it includes one of my favorite Instagram Posts ever made:
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