advice
Another look at dealing with article ideas
As I’ve written in the past coming up with good article ideas can be tough. This blog post offers 12 tips for generating ideas for articles. Even with a good amount of advice, though, there are still problems with ideas.
To be honest, I don’t have trouble getting ideas. As you probably know, and as the [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Confusing your readers
There’s nothing worse than prose that confuses. Good non-fiction writing is supposed to explain, clarify, entertain, and educated. The same can be said for fiction, too, I assume. But sometimes writing just confuses readers.
This post looks at the ways in which you can confuse your readers. Chances are you’ve read examples of writing like that. [...]
Writing a lot, in a hurry
I’ve been known to bang out decent (and better-than-decent) work in a hurry. Like what? I’ve written 1,200 word articles in 45 minutes, and have on several occasions plowed through a week’s worth of blog posts (for three blogs) in just over an hour.
But all that pales in comparision to what Laura Spencer recently did. [...]
Give them something more than words
As freelance writers, we tend to think in words. For obvious reasons: without words, we can’t write. If we can’t write, then we can’t make a living.
But there’s more that we can offer client, according to this article. Even if you’re not the most visual person (I know I’m not!), you can still expand your [...]