All Entries in the "Featured" Category
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 [...]
Let’s Freshen Up The Joint
I met Monika online way back in 2008 when I was just getting started blogging. I forget exactly how we connected, I only remember commenting on one of her posts where she had went on about some knucklehead grammarian who had made a lame attempt to blast her out of the water for a perceived [...]
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 [...]
Big Business Blogging
Big business caught up with the Internet over the last ten years. While they all have web sites, the idea of having a blog is still getting ramped up. This is good news for the savvy freelance writer. There is hardly a business without some kind of Internet presence. They are also figuring out the [...]
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 [...]
Are Writing Conferences For You?
One of the things I like about being a writer is the solitude that comes with the territory. Admittedly, I’m not much of a social creature. Many writers feel the same way. So, when I see workshops and conferences being promoted in the social media circles, I’m a little torn. On one hand, I’m intrigued. [...]
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 – [...]
Freelance Questions
I’ve got a number of questions in mind that would interest freelance writers. I don’t think any of them could stand alone as an individual post so it seems to make sense to me to consolidate them into a single post. Here goes. Writing Other Than Freelance I know that a lot of freelance writers [...]
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 [...]
What’s your pleasure?
I’ve been blogging here for a couple of years now. Four posts a month without fail. Typically, I write my four articles during the last few days of the month prior to posting them. It’s kind of funny. Each month I sit down and try to figure out what I’m going to write. Sometimes the [...]
