{"id":30952,"date":"2021-04-14T19:24:44","date_gmt":"2021-04-14T23:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crowdcontent.com\/blog\/?p=30952"},"modified":"2021-05-13T11:51:44","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T15:51:44","slug":"writer-spotlight-richard-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crowdcontent.com\/blog\/writers-hub\/writer-spotlight-richard-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Writer Spotlight: Richard S. \u2014 To Infinity, and Beyond!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As a freelance writer, you&#8217;re probably familiar with the charms of working at home: the short morning commute to your desk, the flexible dress code, and the pleasure of having your pet as an office mate. Still, writing is a solo gig, and when you&#8217;re spending hours working alone, it&#8217;s understandable if you start talking to your pet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s why we&#8217;re pretty proud of our Crowd Content community. Although you may only know your fellow writers from a profile picture and a few online messages, there&#8217;s plenty of camaraderie to be found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some personalities shine particularly bright. We know which of you can tap out a witty comment or infuse a dash of levity into our days. One such luminary is Richard S., who&#8217;s made more than one writer laugh out loud in our discussion threads, generating requests for a &#8220;like&#8221; or &#8220;laughing&#8221; button. Someday, Richard may realize his dream of being a commander in the space navy, but for now, we&#8217;re glad he&#8217;s part of our elite force. Intrigued? Read on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Based in Sacramento, California, Richard has been writing off and on his whole life, and professionally for the last eight years. &#8220;I used to be an EMT, but I&#8217;ve done a lot of weird jobs, including private investigator and door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman,&#8221; he explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2016, he joined the Crowd Content squadron. &#8220;Work had mostly dried up at the platform where I used to do most of my work,&#8221; he recalls. &#8220;I tried a Best Buy PD here out of near desperation. The rest is history.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Richard has since earned his four-star badge and regularly delivers smoothly crafted PDs, articles and web content on a range of topics. &#8220;PDs are okay but unchallenging. I especially like articles that make me do some research. It&#8217;s like getting paid to educate myself online,&#8221; he says of his favorite projects. &#8220;I made a living out of Caring and Seniorly in the past, but lately it&#8217;s been all Teknicks and HomeServe. I have always preferred long-form articles with minimal formatting.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His biggest challenge when writing is also the flip side of those work-at-home perks: getting motivated. &#8220;My natural state is napping on the couch, so I really have to give myself a shove to start writing in the morning,&#8221; he confesses. Richard used to write in coffee shops until the pandemic changed the world. Now, you can find him &#8220;sitting in my living room, in my new recliner, a pillow on my lap as a laptop desk.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While we can confirm Richard&#8217;s talents are used only for good at Crowd Content, there are times he&#8217;s wielded his skills on those who least suspect it, and with hilarious results. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been writing bogus complaint letters to corporations and political figures for nearly 20 years,&#8221; he admits. &#8220;My best so far was when I complained to the makers of Preparation H that their suppositories were hard to swallow. They sent me a coupon and urged me to discontinue use of their product in the described manner.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Note to self: check if Richard&#8217;s written letters of complaint to Crowd Content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the meantime, Richard does have suggestions for improving our platform. &#8220;I&#8217;d like to see a 5-star writer category that pays write+edit rates for the most experienced and reliable writers,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I would also appreciate making editors wear business suits during working hours, but I&#8217;m not sure how we would enforce that.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An experienced wordsmith, Richard also has advice for those of you who are new recruits. &#8220;Have you considered learning to weld? It&#8217;s honest work,&#8221; he says. &#8220;If you must write, step up your exercise routine and watch your diet. Try to build some kind of structure into your day and don&#8217;t pull any more all-nighters after age 40. Try to always have a few chores around the house that need doing, so you have something to do while you&#8217;ve got writers&#8217; block.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Excellent tips. But the best way to really get to know our now-infamous scribe is to let him speak for himself. Here&#8217;s what else we got Richard to reveal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What are the five worst words in the English language?<\/strong> &#8220;Literally, ginormous, actually, problematic, squish(y)(ed).&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Who is your favorite author? What&#8217;s your favorite book?<\/strong> &#8220;I can&#8217;t remember the last time I got the time to read an actual book. I have gone through phases where I consumed pulp science fiction (think PKD and Heinlein), and other phases where I read a ton of popular science books. When I was a kid, I wanted to be H.L. Mencken when I grew up.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Have you been published by any notable sites or organizations (digital or traditional)?<\/strong> &#8220;I published at <a href=\"http:\/\/all-that-is-interesting.com\/author\/richard-stockton\/\">All That&#8217;s Interesting<\/a> for several years, and my author page is still up as an archive. If you look at it, please know that I had no control over the editing or layout decisions.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What&#8217;s your favorite restaurant or meal?<\/strong> &#8220;I mostly cook at home. For the last several months I&#8217;ve been on the Mediterranean diet, so now I make my own pesto sauce.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What do you think sets Crowd Content apart from other content platforms?<\/strong> &#8220;In the beginning, CC&#8217;s main draw was the high pay relative to the other platforms. While there&#8217;s less of a difference now, CC seems to have the most reliably full queues.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Complete this sentence:<\/strong> When I&#8217;m not working, I love to: &#8220;Daydream about being in a space navy.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ah, dreams can come true, Richard. But until you can command your own fleet of starships, we&#8217;ve got plenty of digital territory for you to conquer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before I sign off, a big thank you to all of you. We certainly couldn&#8217;t succeed without such a talented, hard-working crew. And now, we&#8217;re headed into the stars to find another Crowd Content writer to spotlight. Maybe it&#8217;ll be you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a freelance writer, you&#8217;re probably familiar with the charms of working at home: the short morning commute to your desk, the flexible dress code, and the pleasure of having your pet as an office mate. Still, writing is a solo gig, and when you&#8217;re spending hours working alone, it&#8217;s understandable if you start talking [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":30955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Writer Spotlight: Richard S. \u2014 To Infinity, and Beyond! - Crowd Content - Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As a freelance writer, you&#039;re probably familiar with the charms of working at home: the short morning commute to your desk, the flexible dress code, and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.crowdcontent.com\/blog\/writers-hub\/writer-spotlight-richard-s\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Writer Spotlight: Richard S. \u2014 To Infinity, and Beyond! 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