All Entries Tagged With: "writer"
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 [...]
You’re So Vain …
I remember a time when authors who self-published were a bit of a laughing stock. They paid a printing company to run off a certain number of their books, getting a cheaper-per-book rate for a larger print run, but essentially paying in the thousands for the privilege of finally holding a bound copy of their [...]
Amoebas
Who out there is ambitious about their writing? Who wants to write a blockbuster novel or pen a Hollywood screenplay? I don’t expect anyone will admit to it. That’s okay, I get it. No one really wants to engage when the topic of ambition rears its ugly head. It all seems a bit seedy and [...]
Pepper for President
As you know, I am running for President of the United States next year, my hope being that I can be safely ensconced in some deep underground bunker just in time for December 21st 2012, just in case the doom-mongers are right. Clearly, once in power, I will have to retroactively revoke the law that [...]
Internet Killed the Writing Star
The Buggles wrote a little ditty back in 1979 called “Video Killed the Radio Star”. It bemoaned the coming age of music videos, portending a career death to all those singers and groups who had once made their living from the radio. Stupid song, really. The singers and groups all inevitably ended up making music [...]
Morsmorde
Apparently, in Harry Potter spell-speak, that word means to “Conjure the Dark Mark”. I don’t know what that refers to in Harry Potterland, nor do I give a crap, but I like it. I think I may have a website called that. I’m a dour sod at times. Dark Mark. That’s me. Dark Mark Pepper. [...]
Floating Boats
I’m going to do something strange: I’m going to be constructive. I have donned my Tumblemoose trapper’s hat, and I’m going to offer some advice, á la George. Note that I didn’t say I’m going to be positive. That may also happen, we’ll just have to see. Let’s chat about novels. I know you’re writing [...]
Do You Really Wanna Write? Do Ya?
In a cinematic precursor to his current real-life lunacy, Mel Gibson played a nut-job cop in the Lethal Weapon films. In his first outing as Detective Martin Riggs, he grabbed the chance to talk a jumper out of throwing himself off a high-rise. Having handcuffed himself to the potential suicide, Riggs (suicidal himself) quickly gets [...]
In Very Bad Taste
During a trawl for relevant articles for a client this morning, I happened across a piece on a dining-out website. This is an extract, and it is quite genuine: “Natural or manmade catastrophes can act as earthquakes, which then generate tsunamis of interest in the flavors of that region …And now the newest incident with [...]
Social Notworking
Listen, peeps, I know social networking is important to freelance writers as a form of publicity, but if I spent all the time required to keep on top of it, I would effectively reduce my lifespan to one measurable in dog years. At the moment, I really can’t open the door to it all. Maybe [...]
Is This The Way To Unemployment? Blogging’s Made Me Sound Like A Right …
Apologies to Tony Christie for the title. Tumblemoose’s last post was pretty awesome in the slap in the face it gave me. I know (think) he wasn’t writing about me, or even including me, but, if I haven’t fallen right in, I think I am certainly skating all around that career-freezing ice hole identified by [...]
Firefox Up Your Productivity
I wrote a blog last year called The Enemy Within about the huge drain that Norton Internet Security places on your computer, causing it to run slowly and sometimes crash. For a freelance writer who needs flow in their work, that’s not good. I advised then that a new security suite called Vipre was my [...]
Out of the Pens of Brats
I wonder what the future holds for freelance writing. Tumblemoose did a blog last year on the wonderfully creative writing talent that can be found in the oh-so-young. Whilst such occurrences are undoubtedly widespread and should indeed be lauded, those of you who know my posts will appreciate I sometimes look at the darker side [...]
Want To Be, But Not
I want to be able to fly a helicopter but I don’t go around telling people I’m a helicopter pilot. There’s a good reason for that: I can’t fly a helicopter. I know what you’re thinking: I’m just being hard on myself; I probably can fly a helicopter, but just not as well as I’d [...]
My Christmas Writing Projects
I have written novels, but please don’t expect a Christmas card from me. They’re just too hard. I would rather stare at an empty screen awaiting a first page of a novel than look at a blank Christmas card. “The message inside this card is blank.” Sod that. If I see that on the reverse [...]
Raising the Stakes
Most creative writers spend their lives searching for the concept that will take the world by storm. If you’re attempting to write a novel and you’re not thinking this way, I would say your chances of making it are on a par with Iran’s chances of not getting bombed into oblivion by Israel if it [...]
Mr Prolific
This is a hats-off to Tumblemoose. I think regular readers will have noticed that Alaskan George posts his blogs the same time every week, month in month out. All are very well-written, entertaining, informative, and concern topics highly relevant to both the aspiring and established writer. This man is prolific. Especially when you consider he [...]
Writing Taboos
Is there anything you won’t write about? Name a topic, and there will be numerous websites dedicated to it. Many aren’t exactly mainstream. Of course, some will be written by amateurs, but there will be many others that employ the skills of a professional writer. Would you, for example, write articles about how anorexics can [...]
