New Article on Athene and Pay-Per-Click Sites

I've put up a new article on  the Goddess Athene on Hubpages. Hubpages actually seems to be doing fairly well at the moment, with pageviews looking healthy and the Hubpages Earning Program delivering small but visible results rather quickly (speaking only of my own recent revisiting of the site).

Suite 101 seems to be looking a mite happier over the past couple of days or so, but it is  too early to tell if this prefigures a significant reversal of its current languishment.

On the fora of such sites, one is frequently advised that the key to these pay-per-click gigs is persistence, that eventually you will find your niche or somehow get lucky. No doubt there is an element of truth in that and the saying of it always makes me feel that I should pull my socks up and try harder. On the other hand, if someone were to say to you 'come into work every day and one day, maybe, you'll get paid,'  that would seem an unreasonable proposition.

Actually, thinking about it,  that is how rather a lot of the more interesting creative occupations work these days; you are expected to have put in a substantial amount of volunteering before they will consider you for a paid post. People must be bribed or cajoled to do routine and unpleasant work, but if the job inspires passion like writing, people will queue to do it for free.

Hello Again

Goodness, I've been quiet on here for a while, haven't I? Sorry about that.

Protracted Death of the Online Content Sites
Meanwhile, it seems as though the world of online content writing has gone belly-up. Six months ago or so, there was paid work to be had from Ehow, Brighthub and WikioExperts, that short-lived and mysterious site which offered small sums for random articles. All these sites seem to have undergone varying degrees of radical transformation boiling down to the fact that they no longer pay for articles or, if they do, not for articles from me.

The revenue sites haven't died, as such, but Suite 101, for example, is not a happy bunny.

Return to Blogging

The answer, in as far as there is one, seems to be a return to blogging. Hi :) Giving content sites rights over your work and a large percentage of any income you make from it seems somewhat pointless when you begin to suspect you have as much chance of attracting as many views as they do to your own little blog - not because you attract so many as that they... also blogging offers the pleasures of experiment and doing things the way you want rather than conforming to a set formula, and that suits me very well.

News from the Gardens of Lucullus
Meanwhile, my little classics site, The Gardens of Lucullus has lately acquired a growing online library of links to Latin texts and accompanying English translations, with an emphasis on sourcing fresh contemporary translations rather than the stilted and censored old stuff that is such an excellent advertisement for reading in the original. Have a look, here (if you're interested in Latin Literature, that is).

Right, that's about all I have to say for myself here for now. I'll try not to leave it so long, next time.

Pyramus and Thisbe

Pyramus and Thisbe is my latest offering on Hubpages. This tragic love story intrigues me. Found in Book 4 of Ovid's Metamorphoses, it does not actually appear to be a myth as such but rather a popular tale emanating from the Near East ( it is set in Babylon). It doesn't deal with gods or heroes but with  the love of an ordinary boy and  girl who live next door to each other, in a terraced street. This essentially familiar urban setting reminds us that the kind of crowded civic life we associate with modernity was already ancient by Ovid's time.

Very much part of the same sentimental tradition as Romeo and Juliet, or the Greek Romance novels, popular in the Roman Empire, it invites the reader or listener to sympathetically weigh the powerful emotions of lovelorn adolescents against the rights of parents (especially fathers) to make decisions about their children's marriages.

How did the mostly patriarchal Romans feel about these stories privileging sentiment over prudence? How did they feel about their sons and daughters immersing themselves in such tales? It is tempting to wonder whether they ever played a role in softening the attitude of a stern parent or strengthening the resolve of a stubborn teenager. Of course, there is no word of blame in Ovid, for the parents of Pyramus and Thisbe. The couple are perhaps only tragic because the gods cursed them with a love that was not fated to be fulfilled in marriage; the Metamorphoses is littered with many other such unlucky loves.

In writing news, Suite 101 seems to be picking up a little after months in the post-Panda doldrums. For some I believe the improvements have been dramatic; so far for me they have been modest but notable. I feel motivated to started getting more articles in and have one in the pipeline on ancient pantomime, which I hope to have out in the next few days.

Ehow, I'm finding less lucrative at the moment, with a preponderance of titles demanding very specific and technical knowledge to write successfully, however I check back hopefully now and then.