All Entries Tagged With: "freelance writer"
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Falling on Daft Ears
One of the many frustrations a freelance writer has to contend with is drumming up work out of thin air. It would seem that the internet is our oyster, but it’s not as simple as that. If you are surfing for websites that need a little literary TLC, there are still several problems once you [...]
The Chasm
Becoming a freelance writer is a leap of faith. Giving up regular employment to enter an overcrowded and competitive profession is a tough call. Even if you are talented, you will have to fight like merry hell to have anyone notice your brilliance. Oh, you thought it would shine like a beacon upon the world, [...]
LinkedOut?
Facebook on Wednesday announced its IPO. ‘Twas but a matter of time. Mark Zuckerberg is set to personally earn between $21 and $28 billion from it. Billion. Of course billion. He hasn’t spoken about mere millions in many a year. Million schmillion. It would be churlish to knock the guy. He took an idea (it [...]
Uuurgonomics
Someone I know – we’ll call her Miss X – told me a story a few days ago. This person’s best friend – we’ll call her Malingering Twat – has been swinging the lead on her job for years, claiming all manner of mysterious ailments that no medical practitioner can diagnose. She has been on [...]
Desk Potato
Apparently, although I suspect it’s something of a contradiction in terms, I am a hard-working couch potato. Well, probably not a couch potato because I sit at my desk to work. So a desk-chair potato. This must be true because when it becomes my time to vacuum the house and my wife unsubtly rolls the [...]
Write What You Know (You Can Get Away With)
So, just pop it into a preheated oven and cook at gas mark 7 for an hour. That’s what I’d do to cookery books. I appreciate that book-burning on such a grand scale is frowned upon in polite circles, but I don’t really move in polite circles so I’m not that bothered. The fascination with [...]
The Guilt of Freelance Writing
For someone who calls himself a freelance writer, I do precious little freelance writing these days. My other work and life in general gets in the way. I don’t feel too bad about that in terms of not being a jobbing freelance writer any more, because I’m still earning a wage, but I do sometimes [...]
Talent May Not Out
I expect you’ve heard of the expression “talent will out”. It’s linked most strongly with the acting profession. It’s the sort of encouraging guff you say to someone who is struggling but truly deserves to make it. It basically means – if they carry on acting – their talent is so great it will at [...]
Freelance My Ass
I don’t have much time for euphemisms. I’m fairly straight-talking and thus like to speak and hear things as they are meant to be spoken and heard. Your writing style may be different to mine, and certain projects will not allow for on-the-nail writing no matter who you are, but my favourite newspaper articles can [...]
