Whine Fest

You wouldn't think it would take a neurosurgeon (rocket scientists are over-rated) to print out a silly little wine label, would you? I've got a network administrator, a salon receptionist, an audio producer, a tea barista and a sales associate in my household. Not a dang surgeon in the bunch. Hence my dilemma of last night.

My second eldest son and I decided way back in April to revisit our Viking roots...as in barbarians wielding battle axes. Oh? You like those fellas? You should read UNDERCURRENT (sorry, couldn't resist).

Anyhoo--don't panic, this story doesn't involve any sharp weapons or blood--we thought we'd try to make a batch of mead. Mead is a honey wine, dating back to forever ago. It wasn't that hard to make, patience being the costliest ingredient. If you're interested in brewing your own, check out the Joy of Mead.

Back to story... Last night we were finally ready to bottle our beverage so that at Christmas when we entertain, we can whip out a bottle and everyone can ooh and aah. Nah. Who a I kidding? We'll probably just slug back a glass with din din, company or not.

Dang it. Off track again. Back to story... We've been saving bottles all year long, but the thing is that these bottles are naked. I stripped off the old labels and thought it would be super cute to design our own. Seems like innocent enough fun, right?

Wrong.

Who'd have thought finding an easy-to-use label template would make me want to stab myself a hundred thousand times with a sharp, pointy object? Seriously. It took me an hour and a half to finally get to a website that gave clear enough instructions and offered a template that would work. Grrr!

Hang with me here...it's about to get writing related. There ought to be a list on the internet that gives step by step instructions and a free downloadable label that can be easily understood and preferably written in English. And you know what? I just might do that and get paid for writing it. Is there something you could write in list format? Have I found site for you!

ListVerse will pay you $100 for a list. You don't need to be an expert--you just need to write English, have a sense of humor, and a love of unusual or interesting niche things (like, let's say, wine labels).

Here's how it works...you write your list (usually 1k words with a minimum of 10 items) and send it in. If they like it, they'll accept it and deposit $100 into your PayPal account. If not, you'll get a rejection and curl into the fetal position. But if it is accepted, they garner over 15 million views per month. Now that's an audience!

Even if you don't feel like writing a list, you can still pop over there to read some of the other lists. It is highly entertaining. Here's a link.