If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet. - Isaac Bashevis Singer

No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world,
but it is only once removed from the true world. At the
door of the hovel where I lie, there stands the plank on
which the dead are taken away. The gravedigger Jew
has his spade ready. The grave waits and the worms are
hungry; the shrouds are prepared-! carry them in my
beggar's sack. Another shnorrer is waiting to inherit my
bed of straw. When the time comes I will go joyfully.
Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication,
without ridicule, without deception. God be
praised: there even Gimpel cannot be deceived.

A freelance writer is paid per word, per piece, perhaps.

If you hear I'm dead, don't come to my funeral.