Sometimes bad habits pay off

I admit it - I have a self-control problem when it comes to sleep. It's darn near impossible for me to go to bed before 1 or 2 unless someone else forces me to (or I know I have to get up early the next day ... and even that doesn't always work).

This wouldn't be so bad if I was getting stuff done while I stayed up, but a lot of the time I'm just randomly surfing the Internet, or spotting deals on eBay, or reading TWOP reviews of shows I don't even watch - now that's bad.

Last night I was killing time by googling my name ... sad, I know, but at least now I know that there's a lesbian Unitarian pastor who shares my name, so I won't be surprised if I get her mail. And last night I hit paydirt ... in the form of a story published under my name in a Cleveland business magazine, which I remember submitting as a freelance piece but DON'T remember getting accepted or paid for.

I originally wrote the piece for a magazine writing class while I was working on my master's degree, and I'm enough of a packrat that I still have most of my notes from the class. I dug out the file, and lo and behold, the article online is almost identical to the last draft in my file, with only a few minor edits.

On the one hand, woohoo! Another clip I can add to my resume!

On the other hand, what's up with publishing my story in 1994 and not paying me? And I'm sure I didn't get paid, because I made a huge deal out of when my first paid piece was published, and that was six months after this one.

So now I get to write the official "um, are you gonna ever pay me for this?" e-mail to the editor, all for a check that's probably not even enough to cover the gas I spent researching the story. Ah, the joys of freelancing.