How do I handle deadlines?
Read MoreDeadline! By Terry Freedman
Professional writer
Course: Writing for Blogs: A Taster 2021
My upcoming course on blogging is not a technical course, meaning that if you want to know how to set up a blog on Wordpress or something, this course is not for you.
Read MoreBash it out
Maybe it’s just me, but if, after a whole morning’s work doing research and reading, all I have written down is a title (and probably a working title, at that), I feel that I haven’t done any work.
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Earnings spreadsheet, by Terry Freedman
The key criterion of a writer’s success (Updated)
How do you know if you are, objectively speaking, a success as a writer?
Read More8 Key Characteristics of Successful Writers
What do you need to be a successful writer? Here are my thoughts on the seven main attributes you need to have in order to make it as a writer – or at least, to give yourself a fighting chance! I believe these hold true for any genre, and any form (ie book or article).The very first article on this website...
… was a review of a book called The Well-Fed Writer. That was in 2010, and the book seems to be still available. Do I still agree with it’s suggestions?
Read MoreFreelancing vs authoring Part 2: Authoring (updated)
If, like me, you enjoy writing and you would like to earn money from it, should you go down the freelance writing route or write books, or both? In the first part of this two-part series I looked at the advantages and disadvantages of freelancing, ie writing articles for newspapers and magazines. In this part, I consider the advantages and disadvantages of authoring, ie writing books.
Read MoreFreelancing vs authoring Part 1 (updated)
If, like me, you enjoy writing and you would like to earn money from it, should you go down the freelance writing route or write books, or both?
From my experience, here are the pros and cons of freelancing.
Pencil, by Terry Freedman
How to write quickly
Just as with painting and decorating, it’s all in the preparation. This is my method of writing articles fairly quickly.
Read MoreAdvice for would-be book reviewers
Terry’s top tips for writing professional book reviews.
Read MoreHow to help an editor
Reading this book made me reflect on the “tiny noticeable things” that a writer might do to make a magazine editor’s life easier.
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The Raygor reading level graph
The Professional Writer: Make your text readable
What is readable by a particular age group today may not be readable by that same age group tomorrow.
Read MoreThe Professional Writer: Learning the tools of your trade
Observe any specialist, and they know exactly which tool they need for a particular job. Writers, too, should know what tools they need, and how to use them.
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Proofreading, by Terry Freedman
The need for more intensive proofreading
Those people who implore us to always have someone else proofread a piece of writing are, annoyingly, completely correct.
Read MoreUsing codes when note-taking
You might think that recording an interview, and then transcribing it using an app like Otter, would be much faster than writing everything down at the time.
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Blogger, by Terry Freedman
7 things that every serious blogger should do
If you're going to blog, please don't disrespect your reader by publishing non-proofed copy, verbose (aka pompous) writing, gratuitous swearing, incorrect words and other horrors that could easily be avoided.
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hazardous area by Terry Freedman
The basics of good technical writing
Technical writing may not sound like the most exciting thing in the world, but (a) there’s a great need for it and (b) a huge degree of satisfaction is gained from writing user manuals that ordinary mortals can understand.
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Steps, by Terry Freedman
The professional writer: the stages of writing an article
Different people approach articles in different ways. I think it would be rather presumptuous of me to lay down the correct order of doing things. Therefore, this is a checklist of things to do.
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On this day, by Terry Freedman
On this day #9: A nice problem to have
Imagine being so successful as a writer that the main problems you have are managing the workload and managing the finances.
Read MoreShould writers enjoy copyright protection?
We don’t say, “Nice factory you’ve built up there, but it’s unfair that you get to keep it for more than a few years, and even if you do, you can’t pass it on in your will.” Who would bother investing their own time and money in the enterprise if they thought that would be the outcome?
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