Author Archive for Mark Pepper
I have two novels published hardback and paperback by Hodder & Stoughton - The Short Cut and Man On A Murder Cycle. I live on the Murcian coast of Spain with my beautiful wife and daughter. For the past five years I have been working in corporate intelligence for some of the largest companies in the world.
Adios Amigos!
This is my 100th blog for this website. The 100th and my last. I have decided it’s time to admit I have been straining the spider’s thread that has so tenuously joined so many of my rants to the topic of freelance writing. I have had a great time blogging for you all, and I [...]
Say What?
The core of freelance writing is communication. It’s a simple brief. We take facts, thoughts, opinions, and we convey them to our readership as effectively as possible. Depending on our task, we use a variety of skills to accomplish our goal, but the through line is always communication. A piece of freelance writing fails the [...]
Skull Cinema
I get no time to write creatively these days, and I don’t do a whole lot of reading outside that which is required for my work. I miss both, and for the same reason: Skull Cinema. This was a phrase coined by Stephen King. It describes the imaginary movie projector inside a reader’s head that [...]
Technical Writing and The Big Ba-
The idea of technical writing may put some freelance writers off. It sounds too much like you need to know what you’re writing about. Obviously that helps, but, depending on the specific technical area, you may be able to blag your way in with just good writing skills and a healthy dollop of common sense. [...]
Rise of the Machines
A couple of months ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon had struck a deal with British book retailer Waterstones to sell Amazon Kindle digital readers in all its 294 stores by this September. This development, according to the Journal, “reflects the growing need for physical book retailers to get a piece of the [...]
Get Stuffed
We all hope, as freelance writers, to make our mark in some way. You may, at the start of your career, have a few lofty ideals, much like an actor fresh out of RADA who will only play Shakespeare, dahling. A year later, still unemployed, he’s back in his village hall doing amdram Agatha Christie [...]
The Random Insanity of America
I read a funny story a few days ago involving a guy who ended up getting shot. Okay, that doesn’t sound terribly funny. Perhaps it was just the irony of the situation. Baldrick, have you no idea what “irony” is? Yes, it’s like “goldy” and “bronzy” only it’s made out of iron. Classic Blackadder. Anyway, [...]
Coping with Rejection/Dejection
As grown-ups, we all know that it is only children who get upset and cry when things don’t go their way. Big people, on the contrary, approach their setbacks with a stoical shrug, before moving on with their lives and never looking back. Yah, right. No one likes rejection of any kind. I don’t care [...]
Grow Up
I was amused the other day to read that JK Rowling is writing her first adult fiction novel. Did you hear that, all you post-pubescent Potter fans? Her FIRST adult fiction novel. Well, doesn’t that just pee all over your fiery protestations that the Harry Potter books are not children’s books? Straight from the horse’s [...]
Fit for Purpose
This is not – you’ll be surprised to learn – another rant from me on the lack of skills exhibited by certain freelance writers. No. I literally mean “fit”. And by “literally” I mean that is exactly what it’s about, which is the way the word literally should be used. The word literally should not [...]
Bucked Off The Hobby Horse
Are you feeling a little bucked off? Did you enter freelance writing to become a famous novelist only to wind up writing thousands of SEO articles on subjects that now haunt your dreams because of their overwhelming presence in your waking day? I expect the career of many a freelance writer has started out this [...]
Fly Me To The Moon
A story on Forbes online just over a month ago was entitled “So You Want To Be A Writer? Here’s How To Make The Transition From Your Day Job”. Straight away, I felt a little irritated. I know it was intended as an attention-grabber, designed to pull readers in, because – let’s face it – [...]
Go On, Beat Yourself Up
So, I was reading an article on the Wall Street Journal website a week ago and I discovered something quite marvellous. The story concerned a fire at the San Onofre nuclear power plant in San Diego. San Onofre has been closed down for a while because some pipes are corroding faster than they should, but [...]
Things Can Only Get Better
Assuming we all make it into 2013, I’m looking forward to the world economy picking up. Not that I expect that to happen in 2013 – I think we have some tough years still ahead of us – but, as and when things do improve, I am hoping the freelance writing landscape will also change. [...]
RAM it up your XP
It’s been a while since I offered you the benefit of my extremely limited knowledge of computers. Actually, I say that, but, as a freelance writer, novelist, researcher, etc, my computer has been the primary tool of my trade for many years, and I think I’ve learned a fair bit. I have never had to [...]
Does Anyone On Board Know How to Fly a Plane?
Me want repli too coment what man writ at botum ov old post. Well, according to Bob, that should suffice. Bob has just commented on a post by Monika from September 2008 entitled “Anal Reader Behaviour” (you have a lot of catching up to do, Bob, me ol’ mucker). The comment has not been approved [...]
Sensational? Seriously?
I’m publishing this blog a few days earlier than normal because there is the most bizarre freelance writing story circulating the internet at the moment, and it has got me slightly bewildered. An 85-year-old woman who works for the Grand Forks Herald has just become “an internet sensation”, thanks to a restaurant review she wrote [...]
Move Into Your Zone of Proximal Development
When I was training to be a teacher, we spent some time studying the theory of teaching and learning. Of note was the concept – known as the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) – expounded by Soviet psychologist and social constructivist Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1934). This is defined as being “the distance between the [...]
