What I like about eHow

Writing eHow articles is a mixed bag for me. If I’m tired, if I have to make a bunch of revisions on several articles in a row, if I do too many of them in a shot, or I spend 30 minutes researching and not getting anywhere, I feel like it’s the worst investment of time imaginable.
At other times, when the research is easy and I learn stuff I didn’t know, it’s a blast.
A lot of times when choosing articles, I’ll look for a specific field—animals, history, performing arts—so I can find something I like (although quite a few articles have only a tenuous relationship with the category they’re in, and have to be reassigned while writing). At other times it’s just interesting to go down the list and cherry-pick something I’ve never heard of that sounds intriguing. That’s how I wound up writing today on “reactionary colorblindness” and identifying the shingles on your roof (so you can find the matching brand if you have to replace some), and yesterday I wrote an article on Schiller’s theories of aesthetic impotence.
There are worse ways to spend my time. And even working for the paper, I didn’t make as much per hour as I do on a good day of eHowing.
I’m sort of looking forward to census work (my only regret is that a lot of it will be done when I’d normally be with TYG) for a change of pace, but it’s nice to know eHow is there as well.