Freelancer Despair

I am usually lucky at finding good freelancers to edit and proofread my work but this weekend’s crop is a bit despairing…

roger that

This one really wants to edit my work! What is he trying to say? A proofreader that writes “i” in lower case, puts a space before full stop, doesn’t start the phrase with a capital and doesn’t say anything coherent? Bothering no chance? Whaaaat?

 

no comment

No comment,,,,

 

Since past 7 years.png

… Since past 7 years? Is this right? I think it should be “for the past 7 years, or since 2011…”

 

into content writing industry

“THE content writing industry” THE grasp of articles is essential to an editor… I’m not even going to question the “into”, or “from last 5 years”…

 

I am having experience.png

“I am having experience”? I am having experience of running screaming around the room! And I am not a SIR (that is how carefully they have read my proposal…)

 

academic computer engineering.png

I want an editor for a sassy romantic text, this one does not seem to fit the profile…

 

finance wiz carfully

And same with the finance wiz who use his words “carfully”. Sorry cannot hire a proofreader who cannot proofread his words “carefully”.

 

no space after stop.png

This one is the best one so far, for real, not ironically. He just misses spaces after full stops. I can give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he was trying to save space in a limited character profile… but what if this isn’t the case? A proofreader that misses details…

 

the best tool.png

Lastly, I need a person, not a tool! And I’m not worried about plagiarism… my proposal clearly states they are just to edit a book proposal, not write anything, why would I need a plagiarism tool? I din’t plagiarise anything and I know it…

 

[deep long sigh ending up with a chuckle… I can’t deny this is funny]

I’ll wait for tomorrow, or the day after, or a week even, it may bring me a good option or my previous freelancer back… Wish me luck it seems I’m in need of it!

“Sideways Reality” reached the post of number 1 best seller

I know, I should stop here and just leave it at that, but I’m so real, sometimes it hurts.

This Best Selling ranking happened inside the Brazilian Amazon, for Kindle e-books, inside the category Collections & Anthologies, inside Fantasy, inside Fantasy, Horror & Science Fiction. Bottom line, I might have had to sell a dozen books to get there.

It was on Friday 8th April, I felt like running amok, screaming in happiness like a child with sugar rush just for having reached a Number One position.

Sideways Reality, my little short story collection is also doing very well in its FREE BOOK promotion this weekend, being 7th in the Australian Amazon for this same category.

SidewaysReality_Number7_FREE_AmazonAU_Anthologies_10Apr16_11.46am

Sideways Reality – My first in English at Amazon

This weekend I have self-published my first book in English at Amazon!

Find the book in the market you are registered at, search: Tania Crivellenti –  Sideways Reality” [at Amazon AU, US, BR]

This is a little book with only 4 short stories. It was born during Nano [nanowrimo.org] in November 2015. 

I have grouped these four stories together because they have elements in common, the fantasy, the fiction and maybe, because they are some of the ones I most enjoyed writing.

I feel as if the characters have a life of their own and when a poor teenager is trying to read but there is too much noise, I laugh alone; if you read the story you will understand why.

These creations are very independent from their creator, they do what they need to do, I just write them down as they pop into my head and shake it up.

You will read about a man who decided to forget a book he loved to read, about a boy who is exactly like any other boy on the outside, a man who could be a sociopath but instead sees what others don’t, and a man who deals with an unusual deformity.

Buy my book and enjoy!

[Then review it, reviews are valued their weight in gold for self-publishers like me. I’m positive you will increase your good karma if you do so!]

Simply Gerva, an Australian-Brazilian Romance

Simplesmente Gerva is my second self-published book at Amazon in Portuguese from Brasil. It is a fictional romance which was created in a very interesting way. I met another Brazilian writer and we decided, almost as a joke, to write a book in collaboration. The idea was that I would write a part and send to my co-author, then he would continue the story as he saw fit and send it back to me.

Capa Simplesmente Gerva

It took us months, I spent time in Brazil, then he moved to Perth, then he went to Brazil, I came back, and we kept writing.

We never knew what was going to happen, we had no plan for the story, what moved us forward was the character, Gerva. The end result was quite difficult to polish because of this structure but the writing was a great pleasure.

Unfortunately, it is not translatable, there are so many cultural references that it would become very strange if attempted in another Language.

Gerva is a typical Brazilian guy, with his forró dancing, his sensuality and flexibility in life. He meets a Brazilian muse and an Australian girl and with them lives many adventures.

I am in the process of writing the second book of the series, a continuation of this first story. Although my co-author lost interest in the project I am committed to the same process as observed in the first book: writing without knowing where the character will take me.

If you read Portuguese, note that you have to buy the book from the market where your Amazon account is registered:

You can read Kindle books in any device.

The Failed Minute Meditation

This was a failure. My friend and I created a Minute Meditation app, except it never worked Recently I started working at an app creating company and one of the super-smart-expert-in-creating-apps-guys told me: it is not possible to make it work. Because I have tried so hard at the time and exchanged a lot of communications with the contracted app developers, I actually understood why. Cannot explain though, it has to do with the way notifications and alarms work on iPhones.

It was the simplest of apps, basically not much fancier than an alarm. We spent months with back and forwards emails, screen-shots, and broken communication with people who clearly, like us, were not first-language English speakers. Except that they had a lot of difficulty in understanding and communicating the issues.

They failed to alert us that technically there was a limitation to the project.

At the time it seemed like the most brilliant idea ever, especially because I have ideas for other exciting apps and this one seemed like a good starting point.

‘I’m going on a meditation retreat’ my friend said to me.

‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah, I’ll send you the details in case I go missing!’

She didn’t go missing. In fact it was great. As I have this habit of learning from other’s experiences, I ended up partnering up with her and attempting to create this app. The idea was to create the chance to stop for a minute per hour to breathe and meditate, something designed for busy people.

Accepting failures is a big challenge for me, and being able to laugh at this maybe means I have learnt and moved on.

This is my record of the attempt, a record of the creation even if it didn’t work. Because risks are taken with the possibility of failure and forgetting the failures might make you forget the teachings from it.

With the experience, I have learnt that hiring cheap, overseas, freelancer developers is not worth it.I understand much better now the need to think deeply about the requirements of projects. Extrapolating to everything: unless you have the resources to create a proper product, paying high quality contractors, you better not do it. It is a waste of effort, energy and money. 

Minute Meditation ScreenMinute Meditation OptionsMinute Meditation Texts

This is what I wrote for the app:

What is One Minute Meditation?

It is the opportunity to stop, for one minute per hour, to meditate. Meditating may seem hard, but doing it for one minute at a time makes it easy. By doing so, you will tap into a new resource to change your quality of life. Get connected with yourself as a soul, as an infinite being of light. 

One Minute Meditation is taking responsibility for your well-being. 

See the settings to choose how many times you would like to do it per day.

How to Meditate?

Make your world hush for a minute. Breathe, just breathe. Inhale the energy, exhale what doesn’t serve you.

Look at the meditation screen and feel all your senses: see, smell, listen, taste and touch.

Be present, in the present, for the present alone. The next minute doesn’t exist yet. The previous minute is an illusion, as it is gone. There is only NOW and YOU. For one minute.

By practicing the Minute Meditation one or more times a day, you will train your brain to feel the present. You will expand your tranquillity and awareness – bringing new magic to your life. Problems and limits may disappear.

You will see new possibilities, feel energised and be opened to new levels of achievement. Our intuition loves meditation. Enjoy!

A Multicultural Ghost, Fio da Meada

Fio da Meada is the first book I have published. It was the first time I got over the fear of putting my writing out there and self-published at Amazon in Portuguese from Brasil, my mother language.

Fio da Meada, Cover

The stories are about a ghost who finds himself following a woman in the Manly Ferry, in Sydney. This fiction is based on the stories I have collected from my grandfather’s real-life. He was unique, with many funny tales, he was someone who enriched his life — before mobile phones and even telephones — with pranks and imagination.

The strongest image I have of him is this handsome older man, poorly dressed, with shorts my grandmother had been begging to be thrown out for years; with the softest shirt with a couple of wholes. We are seated in the small fishing pier in front of our ranch, for hours in silence. I can smell fish scales and worms. He is like a statue looking at the tip of the fishing rod. When he gets tired he gets up, find a large rock and throw it in the water creating a large splash. He ruins the fishing for me and the others, father, sister, cousins; then he walks away laughing out loud while we scream at him.

vovo01  avos_0002.jpg

If you read Portuguese, note that you have to buy the book from the market where your Amazon account is registered:

You can read Kindle books in any device.