It’s just a little bit of metal, right? This gray/black whirring, whining, groaning box that holds every one of my clients’ files, my book, all my original writing, photos of my nephews… It’s not really evil, is it? Not intrinsically so, I suppose. Yet, the power it holds over me (over all of us, really) to make our days suck is pretty substantial.

Yeah, the day sucked. In a nutshell, Contact Us emails from this site and Cheapskate Freelancer were vanishing into cyberspace when they downloaded into Outlook (I saw it happen!). They’d be there on the iPhone, and then when I hit Send/Receive…. POOF. No more email. No more wonderful new tools sent to me from readers. I’ve lost several in the past few days — all that’s left is the small memory I have of seeing on the tiny iPhone screen as I drank coffee in the morning.

But the bigger mystery here is not the emails… it’s the dependence we have on these little black boxes. How did this become the center of my world?

And another important question… when has it NOT been the center of my world?

For most of my adult life I’ve held jobs that revolved around these little things. I really can’t imagine what I would sit at a desk and stare at if I didn’t have these monitors. What a different world it must have been where you sat at a desk and could look unencumbered across the room to other people at desks. And perhaps those people attended meetings where everyone looked at the speaker, not down at a hand cupped over a BlackBerry.

At any rate, I spent the morning cussing at the computer and the afternoon listening to the IT consultant, who blamed my fondness for free and low-cost tech tools on the slow demise of my lovely HP Pavilion. Looks like she’ll be put out to pasture soon (remember the story of how she got here?). The fact that she’s acting up during crunch time for the book is akin to being dumped during finals week in college. But I’ll be making the switch to a new machine soon, and again the black anchor will be at my feet to keep me at the desk.

Your turn… what was the last job you had that didn’t involve a computer?

I signed the contract for Cheapskate Computing on Feb. 17, 2010, which means I’ve been working on this thing now for 34 days. It’s due May 1, which is 39 days from now. I’m now working 6-7 days a week, eliminating my social life almost completely and making my boyfriend’s life kinda miserable because I’m just not that much fun to be around. (He says, “Good morning, sunshine.” I answer, “I can’t deal with that right now. Don’t you know I’m writing a book?”)

As of this morning, I’ve written (drum roll, please):

175 words.

Um. Yeah. You read that right. I’ve written 175 words of what will probably be 35-40,000. That means I’m about .05% finished with the writing. And that word count kind of includes the title.

I know. You’re thinking, “Holy crap, Ziesenis. What the hell have you been doing?” Believe it or not, I am exactly on schedule for this thing. For one of the first times in my life, I didn’t just jump into the middle of a project and start writing it from both ends. I created two databases (using low-cost favorite SurveyMonkey) to collect data from the owners of the free and low-cost tools. With the help of my assistant, I’ve contacted about 275 vendors of tools to ask them to fill out the survey, and so far about 75 people have provided clear, concise and critical data to allow me to write up their products. By Thursday I will identify all the important tools that have not yet filled out a survey, and my assistant will visit their websites to find the missing information to enter into the database.

Next week we will download the survey database and do a massive mail merge, placing each tool with all the supporting info on its own Microsoft Word page. The tools will have comments from friends, the descriptions I’ve already written on Cheapskate Freelancer (if available) and all the information I need to methodically clean up and finalize each entry. My writing retreat is the following week, and I’ll hunker down and plow through the tools one by one, then group them into chapters, create a quick reference guide for each chapter, then finalize. After I come back from my retreat, Claire and I have about two weeks to fill in the holes that I will inevitably discover.

I gotta tell you, I’m proud of myself for being this methodical. Usually I’d kind of panic and jump right in, taking one tool and trying to grab info from here and there and everywhere to get it onto one page. I know for a fact that this would take me much longer than the way I’m doing it, and it would be frustrating and exhausting, and I’d feel like I was making mistakes and leaving stuff out. When one paints a room, one should always take the extra time to prep the room by taping off the edges, laying down the dropcloth, moving the furniture. Usually I’m so excited that I just open the can (after barely shaking it, not stirring it) and dip a paintbrush and go from the closest wall right in the middle. Now I’m proud that I’m taking the time necessary to prep the room so that the next step goes easier.

Yet, I fear that the next step will be harder than I imagine. What if each page takes 20 minutes instead of 7? What if the mail merge doesn’t work and I have to cut and paste everything by hand? What if I haven’t left enough time? Or I have a breakdown, or ….

Yeah, well. I have to plan the work and work the plan, and, as of today, the plan is on schedule. As they say, that’s my story.

Last month the notable blog TechCrunch issued an apology to its readers:

On Monday evening I received a phone call from someone I trust who told me that one of our interns had asked for compensation in exchange for a blog post. Specifically, this intern had allegedly asked for a Macbook Air in exchange for a post about a startup.

After an investigation we determined that the allegation was true. In fact, on at least one other occasion this intern was almost certainly given a computer in exchange for a post….

We are all shaken here at TechCrunch – this is someone who was our friend and who we trusted to be honest with our readers. Our hope is that the intern learns something from this experience and grows into the kind of person that will be more welcome in this community.

I apologize to each one of you. I promise that we will always maintain complete transparency with you on how we operate, even when it isn’t such an easy thing to do.

TechCrunch discovers and reveals the latest technology news, products and services. I’m sure they’re offered goodies all the time, and their policy is to turn everything down (or at least I think it is — perhaps they accept products to try them out for review). But in general, there is much discussion about the ethics of accepting free products or services in exchange for a review.

In case you haven’t heard, I’m writing a book of reviews of my favorite free and low-cost online tools. Now I, too, have to deal with an onslaught of free offers. I have written to more than 100 companies to ask them for information about their products, and multitudes — scores, even! — have written back to offer me free upgrades to the full versions, etc. Oh, the temptations!

Ok, I’m lying. There have been only three. But I’ve accepted them all. (Ok, four if you count that a client of mine who has a tool offered me an upgraded account for life.) Should I turn them down? My reasoning is that I should be able to evaluate the full version and tell readers whether the upgrade is worth the money. The funny thing is that if I feel like an upgrade is worth the money (and the money is still what I would consider a bargain), I’ll upgrade myself if it’s a tool I’m likely to use a lot. I’m all for supporting cool tools and compensating those people who add such value to my life. But, of course, I can’t upgrade on everything, even if I love it. That would make it impossible for me to wear the “Cheapskate Freelancer” crown.

But between me and you, I bet everyone who offered me an upgrade will make it into the book. Although I hope this isn’t true, I may feel a certain level of obligation to them.

So, my questions are for you, dear readers… do you think less of a company that offers to upgrade or give something for free (none of them have asked me to do anything special)? Do you think I should turn them down? Would you consider my book biased if you knew I received upgrades? Should I simply disclose it in the intro (which no one ever reads, right?)? Or perhaps just mention in the write up that “the owner upgraded my account so I could take a look around the full version”?

Oh, and another issue… people are already asking me for free copies of my book. How should I handle this delicately? I get a certain number of free copies, but the rest I have to buy at a fairly modest discount. I’ll be doing giveaways with the book, but I can’t possibly gift it to all my colleagues. Yet I’ll feel a little silly asking people to pay for it. Dilemmas, dilemmas. Oh, the problems of famous authors, right?

Note to vendors who want to bribe me: For clarification, I will write anything you want if you buy me cupcakes.

So, the contract is signed, and the book is begun. Holy smokes.

The entire manuscript, complete with hundreds of graphics, dozens of contributions and about 200 pages, is due to the publisher May 1. That’s 54 days from today. Before I begin writing, I have to collect and organize an insane amount of data. I’ve been very busy with inquiries to free and low-cost tool vendors to get them to fill out forms about their products, plus I’ve been querying professionals about their favorite tools. And did I mention I’ve yet to begin writing? And, for whatever reason, my phone has been ringing twice as much lately with new projects from existing and new clients.

The workload is overwhelming. I’m officially daunted.

Every single minute that I am not working means guilt (including now when I’m taking time to update the blog), but I’m being as proactive as I can possibly be. I put D.J. on notice that most of my workdays for the next few weeks are going to be long ones, and I’ll probably be working every weekend. I’ve canceled haircuts, put off health care appointments, turned down visits and trips with friends.  I’ve warned friends and family that I’m strung tighter than the strap on my g-string after holiday feasting. I’ve increased the cupcake budget, and I’ve hired a temporary employee to cut, paste, follow up on inquiries and organize while I continue writing my regular stuff. She starts tomorrow.

And I’ve taken an extra step, a crazy step, an indulgent step. I just made a reservation for my first-ever writer’s retreat — a week in a nice condo in Palm Springs, CA. My retreat costs almost as much as I will receive as an advance for this book, and I’ll lose my regular revenue because I’ll leave my day job behind. My inner accountant is screaming — this decision does not make financial sense in the slightest. It’s logical to visit either my friend who owns a farm in Iowa or a buddy who lives in a house in the woods of Oklahoma. Both of those locales are more than an hour from a Wal-Mart. But I need to keep weird hours, withdraw from society and be a bitch when necessary. I can’t afford to be friendly or social, and my friends are too wonderful to ignore like that.

D.J. is 1000 percent behind my decision. “This is one of the most important projects in your career,” he said, “and you have to make an investment in yourself to make this succeed.” He’s right. Yet. Still. Umm. That’s a lot of money, and what if I get there and see the blank document as a blank wall? I’ll have wasted all this money, put my clients on hold and will be utterly disappointed in myself.

When my friend Troy was writing his book, he locked himself in the family motor home for several days to work. And he succeeded. Frankly, I think I will, too.

I take that back. I KNOW I will succeed. I have to succeed, and I’ve laid the groundwork to do so. I just need to put in the hours, and I’m ready to crank.

54 days.