Stephanie ain't wrong; I feel ya, sister-girl.

I'm on the upswing, a bit, but the beginning of 2012 has been a little dry money-wise for me.

Here's hoping that will change; I'm doing a trial edit for another publishing house, so maybe I will have two freelancing gigs editing books. And this would be developmental editing, with line editing as part of the package, so I would get some useful experience. I would LOVE to edit for Hachette or Luna or Orbit -- some great fantasy and para romance titles.

Thankfully things look like they will level out for a bit for June and July, unless another batch of crazy work comes it.

Right now I'm out in Orlando working on a new show and more poor full time employee is back in Los Angeles trying to keep all the other projects afloat while I'm doing this. He's mixing a musical, putting in a new show for the observatory, and a new thing for Six Flags, and I've got another team working on a project for The House the Mouse Built.

The life of the self-employed - either you are exhausted and overwhelmed, like ND these last weeks, or you are sitting in your office with nothing to do, feeling like you will be broke shortly. There is no middle ground.

Yep, this.

For reasons unknown to me, Google just sent me a $100 Adsense gift card. Would anyone in here like to have it? I really have no use for it at all - I'm guessing they sent it to me because I'm technically an officer on a corporate board, but the corporation is an apartment coop, not the kind of business that markets anything!

Let me know by email and I'll send you the code and URL.

Hi - I am currently being paid as a contractor, not an employee. This means I'm responsible for paying all of FICA, right? Is there a "tax-paying for dummy contractors" web resource or something? Hiring an accountant is right out, I'm barely covering expenses right now.

I think I'll be an employee eventually, but don't know the timetable.

Smonster, don;t say the IRS never gave you anything: [link]

Thanks, flea!! And OY. I guess I need to pay my first round of estimated tax in June.

smonster, your medical insurance can be a tax write off as well. Don't know if you're paying for that out of pocket, but when you're a contractor, many, many things are business expenses that can decrease your "income" as far as paying taxes go.

Start logging any mileage you drive for work, including any commute to and from work. As a contractor you can claim all of those miles.

At this point, smonster, just track your spending, or throw all your receipts in a box, which I fear is my method. You can get away with fairly token tax payments this year, since they don't have a history, and figure it out at the end of the year. Or you can take the advice of less sloppy people.