Proofreading is Ded It’s to the point where I can’t pick up Time magazine at all. It’s not that I’m not fond of getting my news fix. It’s that I’m not fond of typos and grammar slips. I’d love to believe it’s just a recent problem, but when I subscribed a number of years ago,…
Right now there’s a fuzzy black spider roaming across the top of my desk hutch and along the edge of my fax machine. I’m watching him with a sense of curiosity and comraderie–the spider knows I’m here and I know he’s here, yet we’ve decided to go about our business despite all that. Sometimes, things…
The editor-in-hiding strikes again! Had a brief email conversation with a former interview subject. I sent him the story I’d worked on, and out came his red pen! “No wonder that magazine didn’t print it–that beginning is awful! Here’s how you should fix it…” Mind you, “that magazine” had gone out of business, hence the…
In my “other” career, I’m an editor. Actually, I’m the entire staff of a monthly trade newsletter. Because most of my articles come in the form of contributed articles (written by industry executives), I’ve seen quite a range of knowledge and writing ability come across my desk. What has become a standard “problem” for some…
Things That Bug Me, Part One: I saw one of those ads again today–the ads that beg good writers to check out their website, join, and bid on projects. Being the curious journalist, I looked. The jobs were certainly legitimate, so I looked a little further. Alas, the catch. The site is one of those…
Plagiarism and Fair Use
Once again, plagiarism is rearing its ugly head. This time, it’s the Harvard student who wrote a book and apparently referenced several different books–without attribution. It makes me wonder about the people in my chosen profession. Who would knowingly swipe something from another person? And how could an author knowingly screw over another author? Is…
Seven Ways to Gain Clients
In real estate training, we called it the Rule of Seven. It’s a concept that transitions very well into your marketing efforts for any writing business, or for any business for that matter. It’s an easy one–contact seven buyers and seven sellers every day. For our purposes, we’re going to consider our buyers are potential…
Starting a new project today–what excitement! There’s nothing like beginning something new, with the new hopes, the new ideas and the new anxieties that are attached to it. What a great way to start Spring! At the beginning of every project, I go through the same emotions that probably plague other writers, as well. First…
The announcement today by Katie Couric that she’s leaving NBC was shocking, but apparently more shocking was the announcement that she would be anchoring the CBS Evening News. Already, critics are saying Katie hasn’t the experience to handle the job. Frankly, I think they’re crazy. The woman has moxie. She took a job with the…
Sometimes as writers, we bend over backward to make our clients happy. Often we will cut our fees, sometimes too low, in order to keep a good client happy. While it’s okay to give a cost break when you can, you have to know when, and how, to say no. There are times when the…