Also, this year, I’ve expanded my small editing practice. I mostly focus on small businesses whose owners have English as a second language. I offer quick-turnaround editing services to correct spelling, grammar, punctuation and formatting for a variety of documents, from blog articles and business letters to menus.  I charge by the word at a very affordable rate, usually determined off of a writing sample from the client. I have some experience with other languages (French, Spanish and Amharic) so can often help with choosing the proper English word or tense to convert a sentence into.

I was pleased this week to receive this endorsement from a long-time client Michele Benza, an image consultant in California.

This is my personal letter of recommendation for Jessica Ward.

I hired Jessica as my editor over a year ago. As English is my second language I need someone like Jessica to ensure that the documents I write, as well as my Ezines are perfect with no spelling or grammar errors.  Jessica has been editing my articles for over a year and it has been a great experience to work with her.

Jessica is also very helpful in others areas like business and social networking.

I highly recommend Jessica, she has always delivered excellent work and to make it even better, Jessica is extremely reliable and delivers her work on a timely fashion.

Michele Benza

I was thrilled to receive such a kind endorsement.  If you would like to learn more about Michele’s practice, I encourage you to visit her website at http://www.michelebenza.com/.  If you’re not in California, don’t fret–she works virtually too!

I’m thinking this will be the opening scene for my NaNoWriMo novel. Thoughts? Ideas? Feedback? 1st draft. Totally rough.

“Omerta”

He didn’t come home last night. Brooklyn to Jersey–a common commute. He usually calls if he’s out late, but dad is a silent type. He always has his reasons.

I urged mom to call the police and report dad missing. She insists that everything will be fine–but I sure can’t tell that from looking at her. She’s fidgeting around the house. Cleaning, tidying. The cleaners were here yesterday, but it looks like she’s expecting company. It’s making me nervous so I’m headed to my room to study.

At least, I’ll pretend to study.

This morning, in drippy black paint on our red front door was the word Omerta and a black hand print. Stupid vandals. Seriously–who tags in this neighborhood? It’s gated–of course, every pizza delivery man has the code–maybe one has a creepy artistic streak?

I miss my dad. He’s not my “real dad” but he’s been in the picture for a long time. He’s a great stepfather and has always treated mom and I as the center of the world. His business keeps him busy though. He’s the biggest diamond seller in New York. Being the biggest anything in New York will keep a person busy.

My dictionary didn’t have “Omerta” but Google tells me it’s an Italian noun meaning “secrecy sworn by oath; or a code of silence.”

Now I’m sure it’s the creepy pizza delivery guy. The goth one that’s always so twitchy and won’t make eye contact. Pizza, Italians–they go together. At least that’s what my dad says. He’s Italian–fourth generation, he should know.

I knew that pizza guy was a freak.

I’m still writing a Prosper Lending Review, and also now as a guest writer for DebtKid.com. I’ve had a few essays published as well, my favorite being “Dimples in the Rain” which was published by Divine Caroline.

My single greatest project has been the completion of a fully-rebuilt blog for frugal family living (this was a project I originally began last year),  The Penny-Wi$e Family. I’m also working on two e-books for readers, which I expect to have completed before NaNoWriMo begins in November.

If you are looking for more information about our family, thrifty living or my other projects, this Web site has a link to nearly everything, except for my two blogs, so I’ll post those here below.

Our family/adoption blog is here: www.jessc098.blogspot.com, and here you can learn more about our family’s experience with older-child and special needs adoptions. Also, it’s a great place to check in for the latest funnies from the kids, which are always labeled “Oh Dear.” My kids are clever, observant and kind and come up with a lot of these funny little observations.

I started a blog called “Pennywise Family: Laid Off and Loving it”  at www.pennywisefamily.blogspot.com. This started almost immediately after my layoff (the next week I think) and detailed how we calculated the costs of working, the savings of having a parent at home, the cost-cutting triage that we did initally just in case of financial shortfalls. I also regularly post other’s ideas and recommendations for cost-cutting.

No need to feel like a lurker, jump in the conversation, comment and ask questions, I almost always comment back in a few hours.

**Update: the interview appears here: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=7865743**

All the best,

Jessica

That said, I’m happy to be on my own, and without the fear of not being able to find a job, and without someone “pushing me out the nest” I don’t think I would have ever worked up the courage to go solo. 

The moral of this story: “Fear not, and work hard!”\

**Update**  This story has since been carried several other places

Yahoo business

  Here’s a funny thing about bloggers. We really help each other out.  In the print world, this blog and mine would be in direct competition, and we’d be working like crazy to take each other out.  We both have similar messages and similar audiences, however, blogs being “free media” for the reader, aren’t in competiton with one another (aside from the friendly page-rank competition).  You see, in blog media the readers will always read more blogs.  They won’t choose one over another unless your content gets old or stale or off-message.  Same goes for Twitter. It’s a media that truly is about quality. It makes for happy writers, happy readers, and happy advertisers/sponsors.  No adversaries here (except the SPAM commenters of course, but at least the bloggers are universally united against them).

I love the Internet.

My three year old daughter, adopted in September 08.

When I wrote down a nightmare I had about my daughter being abandoned by a babysitter outside in the snow, I felt as if I’d stepped way, way out on a limb.  This has been the most difficult manuscript I’ve worked on to-date, and I was thrilled when Seattle’s Child decided to publish it in their family essays section “Slice of Life.”

DIY Paperweight

Today I’m livebloging the San Francisco FINOVATE conference, and thanks to the modern technologies, I’m actually doing this from the comfort of my own home, with the company of my secretary-cat, Arthur.

The conference is now on break, so I’m catching up on posts and setting up all of my link-backs, but the experience of live-blogging an event via Twitter and Blog is fantastic. Very interactive and real-time, as if I was there at the event, without the handshakes and uncomfortable shoes. I can’t help but wonder how long the traditional conference and convention will continue.

I’m posting my messages at www.prosperlending.blogspot.com, but here are the links to some of the posts today.  On Twitter, the posts are tagged #FinovateStartup09.  Side note to convention planners, please choose a shorter hashtag. We bloggers can’t say nearly as much about your event when our 140 characters are taken up by your chosen hashtag.

Speculating a Prosper Re-Launch (by the way, I speculated right).

Pay it forward and win a Kindle

Just in time for Finovate, new features