Frustration

I'm having a frustrating day. I pitched a national first thing Monday morning with something very topical - just an op-ed piece worth a mere £85, but it would have helped plug my book. Three emails and 2 chase-up phone calls later, I got a polite but very firm no.

This morning, I flung an op-ed post together on my other blog about MPs' expenses and it's been picked up and run with all over Twitter, media websites and the blogosphere. It's nice that people are taking what I write seriously, to the point they are spreading it across cyberspace for me, but apart from the publicity I have earned exactly £0.

Frustrated doesn't begin to cover it. I know things are tough in journalism right now but it's infuriating that I can't get paid even a paltry sum for a piece on disability, while a throwaway piece I did purely for myself to let off steam is probably going to see my blog ratings go stratospheric.

At least I've got 2 new jobs lined up for the rest of the month, copy-editing for a couple of clients - 1 regular, 1 new. That'll take the pain away a bit as my finances are looking rather iffy just now. I'm not in a unique position - other colleagues are also struggling and it's been a trending topic today on certain hack forums. I still have to pay the bills though...