A tree, by Terry Freedman. I selected this photo to accompany the article because it’s expansive, reaching upwards and outwards, and flourishing. That’s what we writers should be like!
When Sugar Pi De Santo sang “Use what you got”, I’m fairly certain that she wasn’t referring to writing and getting articles published. However, the sentiment expressed, especially in the first verse, can be applied more generally.
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hazardous area by Terry Freedman
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.
Read MoreI like to think that had there been anti-plagiarism software around when I was at school, and had my English teacher used it, I’d have been saved years of wasting time looking for ways to make money. I’d have enjoyed more sleep too.
Read MoreI failed to do much __________ , but I was pleased to have __________ a further 17% of my __________
Read MoreRoy Peter Clark describes and analyses fifty five strategies for writers.
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Steps, by Terry Freedman
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.
Read MoreOn the face of it, experimenting with reworking a piece of writing is pointless. I mean, why bother?
Read MoreAs you may know, the Dice Man makes all his decisions on the basis of a throw of the dice. Imagine if Hamlet was the Dice Man…
Read MoreLike Chekhov's gun (if a gun appears in Act 1, it has to be fired at some point), actions like someone clearing their throat are pointless if they add nothing to how we see them as a character.
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Dystopian Visions, by Terry Freedman
UPDATED! If you’ve never bothered with science fiction — it tends to be the poor cousin of literature — the stories I‘m looking at are, as I say, classics. All of them have really interesting, and prescient, scenarios. Some of them are even well-written!
Read MoreI like photographing scenery in black and white, even though it may seem counterintuitive to do so.
Read MoreThis course will look at examples of constraints created by some of the Oulipo’s main proponents, including the Hundred Thousand Billion Sonnets, the Metro Poem, and others.
Read More<Updated> You will need a novel and penguin and, if possible, a printed difficulty.
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Distrust, by Terry Freedman
A new report from the Reuters Institute is disturbing. As usual, journalists are being imprisoned or even killed for simply doing their jobs.
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You hear a lot of criticism of Microsoft, but one of the best things it did was standardise the way programs look in terms of menus and, to almost the same extent, icons. That's good to know because it means that there are rules governing where commands and features are located.
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Paradoxically, a spell-checker is only useful if you can spell! It's a common misunderstanding that if you can't spell, a spell-checker will sort things out for you. It won't.
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Templates can save you hours, and the only limit there is to the number you have is the size of your hard disk (or your cloud storage). Although Word actually comes with many templates, you'll almost certainly want to create your own.
Read MoreThe recent report by Smart Energy GB into how environmentally friendly British TV shows are is quite interesting, though not in a good way.
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NOT the camera I used! Photo by Terry Freedman
A few years ago I thought I would test the capabilities of a pocket camcorder I’d been asked to review
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Rules, by Terry Freedman. I thought this sign is a reasonable analogy to the likely rules in a post-lockdown world.
Do you read people’s writings about covid? I don’t, if I can help it.
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