All Entries Tagged With: "Writing"
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 [...]
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 [...]
You Could Be A Contender
I’ve been blogging here for nearly 2 years now and for the past 18 months I’ve been pleasantly surprised, if not downright shocked, that I’ve found anything to write about. Writing about freelance writing is really a finite proposition. You can keep tweaking earlier articles, adding new slants and what you believe are fresh gems [...]
I Don’t Tolerate Much
I must be getting old. I’ve turned into a ind of curmudgeon. I’m finding that as I go along, I’m a lot less tolerant of stuff. Aren’t we supposed to mellow with age? Seems to be going the opposite direction for me. In my younger days, I think I was pretty happy-go-lucky overall. I think [...]
The Politics of Writing
We’ve all heard the admonishment to be careful what you post on Facebook and Twitter. We are reminded that employers frequently check these sites to find out about a prospective employee. Okay. I’m down with that. If all of someone’s posts indicate they are a knucklehead then as an employer I would probably have second [...]
Preparing To Write
I was having an extended Twitter session last night when one of my followers asked what I do to get focused. This got me thinking about what I do to get prepared to write. My rock-solid answer is… It depends. Sometimes I’ve got a clear vision of an inspired writing session and I just sit [...]
A Time to Write
I had a blog all ready to go until I read the latest offering from Tumblemoose. I now feel compelled to say something more than just a comment at the foot of his post. First of all, I don’t think for one second that writing skills are a “use it or lose it” affair. The [...]
Enough is Enough
In the acting profession, the old adage is that you need to be in work to get work. In other words, people will give you more work when they see what you can do. There’s also a large element of bandwagon-jumping involved; people scrambling to employ you before someone else does. That’s why certain faces [...]
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 [...]
The Ratatouille Writer
One of my daughter’s favorite movies is Ratatouille. Hence, it is one we watch often. In case you are not familiar, it is an animated story about a special rat who finds himself cooking in a famous restaurant in Paris. The name of the restaurant is Gusteau’s and the owner of the restaurant had a [...]
I Need a Vocation
What? Did I say vocation? Please, no, I have two already. God, or whoever’s in charge up there, please do not land me with another. I meant to say I need a vacation. I felt my first stirrings of a vocation shortly after arriving at London University in 1984 to supposedly read History. I say [...]
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. [...]
Hello, My Name is Mark …
I’ve written quite a number of posts bemoaning the poor writing skills possessed by many who claim the name of “writer”. It’s pretty easy to do that when you’re not pointing the finger directly at one particular person. The last post by George, though, highlighted the problems faced when this issue does indeed become very [...]
What To Do When The Writing Sucks
The Editor at an organization I belong to posted a dilemma on one of the forum boards the other day. The organization is 100% ad free and does a lot of independent reviews on a variety of items that are of interest to the membership. It’s kind of a great system because the reviews are [...]
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 [...]
Thoughts on Freelance Writing Advice
As a freelance writer, if you’re looking for writing advice you’re certain to find it at every turn these days. There are literally hundreds of writing sites available and many of these are in a blog format, providing updated content on a weekly or even daily basis. For me, my email fills up nearly every [...]
Can Freelance Writing Be Taught?
(Here’s a sensible blog from me. Make the most of it – it won’t last.) This probably seems like a silly question. To a certain extent, all subjects can be taught. However, by the time a person decides that freelance writing is a career they wish to pursue, the formal education necessary to concrete in [...]
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 [...]
