My Yahoo! Contributor Network Highlights

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I'm a member of the Yahoo! Contributor Network and make a few extra dollars every month when people read the articles I've written... As an independent writer, I look for any (and all) opportunities to write, and being a member of YCN has allowed me to have a place to put some structured, non-fiction articles.  For this entry I'm going to highlight a few of my more popular articles.

An Essay on Media Violence:  I wrote this as an essay during college, and converted it into an article for YCN.  Although it's around a decade old it has aged pretty well.  The article recently spiked in popularity, probably due to the recent media focus on gun violence.  I would like to make clear, because the content of this article is so old, that I do support the second amendment.  Maybe I'll write something political later, but mostly I just wanted to share this article because of its recurring relevance.

A Guide to Halloween Movies (Parts 1 and 2... but mostly 2):  I know Halloween has been over for a while (or is still a long way off, depending on how you look at it), but I enjoy the horror genre enough to shamelessly promote this article to other horror fans.  For some reason, most people skipped the first article I posted, and went right to second article.  Maybe they were looking for the best of the best, but all ten of the movies (or series of movies) are worth checking out if you haven't seen them.  I had to break this review into two articles because I went in to too much detail, and Yahoo! told me that either the word count would have to come down or I would have to find a way to create two articles instead of one.  Making two articles from one is relatively easy when you're dealing with a list, so that's what I did.  I also have an article about making Halloween inspired drinks (and one about what to expect from bartending school while I'm on the subject), but that list wasn't as popular as the movie reviews.

My Skyrim Articles:  The Elder Scroll V: Skyrim, probably one of my favorite games of all time, did extremely well.  I have two reviews; one about the game, and the other about a piece of downloadable content called Dawnguard.  If you want to read an article where I gush over how great this game is, try one of these articles.  I wasn't sure how popular the articles would be, and was actually surprised to see how many people were interested in reading about the game.

First Person, Like It or Not, We're a Government Funded Family:  This is my one and only featured article for YCN, and the one I received the most amount of comments from.  I don't think I really understood the implications of writing an article like this, and the vast amount of different responses I would get.  I forget the specifics of the assignment, but I qualified and excepted the job.  If I remember correctly, the assignment was to talk about the economy, government assistance, and was targeted more towards people who were actually experiencing "hardships."  The article had to be very specific as far as answering certain questions, but I think I was able to get across my point.  I would like to make a note, though, that I don't feel like I'm living with extreme hardship.  Me and my family do rely on food stamps, and probably wouldn't be very happy without them, but I neither feel like someone who is "milking the system" or someone that has "fallen on hard times."  This is just a side note to my life, it's an experience, and I wanted to share it with an interested audience.

First Person, My Experience Selling Plasma For Money:  This article is the most popular out of my collection.  I'm sure the economy has a lot to do with the success of the article, which is kind of sad.  I wish nothing but the best for my readers, and hope they are making enough money to afford whatever they need.  That being said, if you need some extra money you can read my article about selling plasma to earn extra money.  There is a certain stigma about selling plasma, but I've tried to take away the mystery of participating in this activity by writing about my own experiences.  I talk about the first day, what to expect, how much you might be able to earn, health concerns, and the actual procedure.

There are a few more articles available on my page (link given below), but these are the most popular, and happen to be my favorite.  They are original articles, written by me, and I receive performance payments for the traffic I generate.  The amount of money I generate from these articles might be enough to buy a burger at the end of the month, but I wrote them because I love to write and share my experiences and thoughts with others.  Enjoy them.

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