Archive for July, 2008
Staying focused
There are definitely times in the life of a freelancer when it seems that you have more work than you have time to do it. There are two sides to that situation. On the positive side, having work is exhilarating, (I hope) profitable, challenging, and a bit of an ego feed. On the negative side, [...]
Tracking your submissions
Dustin Wax at The Writer’s Technology Companion has written a four-part series on software to track your submissions. He looks at a number of interesting desktop and Web-based too, along with the good, old-fashioned spreadsheet.
I’ve tried a number of the tools that Dustin mentions, and (of course) there are a couple that I’ve never touched. [...]
Escaping the tyranny of “someone else”
Excuses, excuses. We can all come up with ones for not writing. The ones that I hear the most, and which make me want to scream, involve “someone else”. Mainly:
I can’t write this. Someone else knows more about the subject than I do!
Or:
Someone else can do a better job of writing [...]
Lessons in writing from song
I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t enjoy a good song. A good song can be relaxing and uplifting. It can also offer a few lessons in good non-fiction writing. Like what? Here are three:
Tell a story: A good song does this. With one or two exceptions, so does a piece of non-fiction. You want [...]
Google Docs adds templates
And lots of them — over 300. You can take a peek at them here.
The templates are a mixed bag. Some are decent, most are just blah. Not a whole heck of a lot in there for the writer, but I’m sure that you can modify any of the templates to suit your needs.
Using a [...]
Writing better reviews
I wrote a lot of reviews in the early part of my freelance writing career. Mostly software and gadgets, with the occasional book thrown in there for good measure.
What I enjoyed about writing reviews was the challenge. I had to balance a lot of contradictions. I needed to be objective but judgmental. I needed to [...]
Posts may be a bit far between over the next few days
As the title says …
I’m breaking in a new laptop (you can read about the beast here). On top of that, I have a bunch of deadlines and tasks related to my business that I need to tackle over the next couple of days.
That said, I’ve got a few longer posts planned for this space [...]
Pricing your corporate writing services
Money. It makes the world go ’round. It keeps you comfortable. It doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure can rent a little. All of that stuff. So why do many writers (myself included) feel awkward about pricing their services, especially to corporate clients? Don’t look for the answer here; I’m still trying to figure it [...]
Knowing when to stop
While she denies it, my wife is a very good writer. Before she put her writing career on hold to go back to school (and to do a bunch of other things) a few years ago, she was starting to crave out a decent career as a freelancer. Her work was solid, flowed well, and [...]
Advice for writing better headlines
Whether it’s an article, a blog post, or marketing copy, a strong headline helps grab the reader. Writing a good headline is tough. Doing that consistently is a lot tougher. As you can probably tell, I still haven’t mastered that skill.
This blog post from 37 Signals offers some excellent advice on how to write better [...]