Freelance Writing

Out of the Mouths of Babes

I spend a fair amount of time with my children’s school helping out when I can. I was recently asked to talk to my son’s class as part of a “bring your parent in so the little ~~brats~~ darlings can grill them” exercise.

“What job do you do?” was one of several eager questions thrown at me to which I foolishly replied “I write for a living.” Immediately, there were moans and groans, the spotty oik with the earring exclaimed “BORING!” and Ms F, the young school teacher with the ink not quite dry on her PGCE, suddenly took a closer interest in me which was not a bad thing.

My son looked like he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him having fed his school chums on stories of Dad jumping out of planes, landing in a greenhouse in Holland and shooting a monkey with a grenade launcher while liberating the Falklands single handed. Right now I was blowing these myths out of the water and ruining his promo work by telling his mates I was something really boring like a “writer”?

“Better think of something quick sunshine,” I thought to myself, “the natives are distinctly restless!”
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Why should you critique your own writing?

Writing gives a two dimensional structure a three dimensional look. It creates visuals in the mind of your readers. It gives some form to a non-existent structure. Once put down in print, you have actually captured and contained it. Your idea has been made presentable. The more you do it, the more you are able to do it and it thus becomes easier for you to churn out writings and express yourself through words. Use words that you have learned in your mind to express your ideas. You really don’t have to wait until you learn the perfect words. The words that you have right now are enough; one can always refine everything later.

You should allow your writing to be free flowing. You should not stop yourself from putting whatever you are thinking into writing. Just write down whatever thoughts come into your mind about the subject. Make notes. Jot down all your ideas and phrases as they occur to you, and as an open minded writer, you should always keep a pad where you can write down notes where ever you go. It’s much easier to build upon existing material than it is to create it from nothing. Editing can always be done and refined later. You will generally find that you have an abundance of things to write about when you plan things this way.
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BOOK REVIEW: The Questions That One Needs To Answer

An analytical or critical review of a book is not essentially its summary. It is a description and an evaluation on the quality and significance of the book, in light of specific issues and theoretical concerns. It should focus on the book’s purpose, content, and authority. It is a work where the strengths and weaknesses of the book are analysed. When writing a review, some questions have to be kept in mind.

Main Questions to Ask

These are as follows:

Is there a specific topic that the book deals with?
Does it seem to have any overall purpose?
For what readership is it written?

The preface, acknowledgements, bibliography and index is generally helpful in answering these questions. Do not overlook facts about the author’s background and the circumstances in which the book was created and published.

Also, think about asking:

Does the author state an explicit thesis or a theme?
What are the theoretical assumptions? Are they discussed explicitly?
From what point of view is the work written?
Why did the author write on this subject rather than on some other subject?

Again, look for statements in the preface, etc. and follow them up in the rest of the work.

The Genre and Material

Is there a genre that the book can be categorised into?
How does the book fit into it?

What types of material does the work present itself as (e.g. primary documents, literary analysis, personal observation, biographical or historical accounts).

The Author’s Style

What is the style of the author?
Does he/she have a formal or an informal approach?

Evaluate the quality of the writing style and tone by using some of the following standards: clarity, originality, correct use of technical words, conciseness, fullness of development, fluidity.

The Audience/ Readers

Does it suit the intended audience?
What do you like or dislike about the book’s writing style?
Is the book readable as well as technically accurate? Is the language stilted, or natural?
Are the examples easy to follow?
How well is the book organized?

Materials and Sources

Are there other ways to argue from the same material?
Does the author show awareness of them?
In what respects does the author agree or disagree?
What theoretical issues and topics for further discussion does the work raise?

The Affect of the Book on You

Did the book affect you at all?
If it did, then how did you cope with it?
Did you have any preconceived notions of the topic?
Did it change after you read this book?
How is the book related to your own personal agenda?
What are your own reactions and considered opinions regarding the work?
How well has the book achieved its goal?
Would you recommend this book to others, and why?

The above mentioned questions will help in structuring the way you want your review to take shape. What it can also do is to open a new insight into the book that you are writing on. So keep them in mind and go ahead writing reviews on your favourite books.

Generating Interesting Articles and Titles – Part Two

Delving into parts we should not have to reach….colon cleansing made “interesting”

My previous post provided some generic formulae widely used for generating articles and titles that readers are attracted to. As a professional writer, you are not always in a position to pick and choose your assignments and you may be faced with producing content on the most unsavoury of topics. In this instance, I recently had to deal with an assignment on colon cleansing, and though the memory still haunts me, the writing show must nevertheless go on.

Previously, I dealt with “How to..” Lists and quoted a “Study” as a way of generating titles and articles. I will finish this off here, with three more general formula techniques.

Mistakes That Ruin Your Writing Credibility

picture of an erazer

The following are the most common mistakes that people make when writing for fiction, a manuscript or looking to promote a book title.

Poor grammar, spelling, typos and usage

One of the basic aspects of writing is being grammatically correct, without making silly spelling mistakes. The single most common error that people make is the usage of the passive voice. In passive voice, nothing is ever anyone’s fault, because people do not do things. Things happen to people. “Bobby ate the pizza” is active. “The pizza was eaten” is passive. Note that the action of food and the food is more important than the character in the passive voice. When writers are unsure of themselves they often drop into the passive voice. Along with this, people often make mistakes in the usage of tenses. Immature writers will begin stories in whatever tense they want, and not maintain logic in their use of tenses.

Generating Interesting Articles and Titles – Part One

Colon Cleansing is not a pleasant subject but……..

As a writer for hire, you may have some choice over your subject matter, but realistically you’ll take any work that pays what you are looking for. It’s a stark choice between paying the bills or not and like someone said, “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor and of the two, being rich is better!”

So you have an assignment to deliver articles on a mundane or less than interesting subject and now you have to come up with content that will attract readers and promote your client’s objectives for creating the project. This is where you can start employing some generic approaches for developing articles that can be adapted for pretty much any subject. Looking through these examples, you will probably start recognising the general formulae for many of the articles and content that you come across on the web.

Here’s our subject then – colon cleansing – this is a real project I worked on recently and frankly, it’s a pretty disgusting and distasteful topic, which I knew almost absolutely nothing about when I was given the assignment. Now, how do we go about generating article ideas for flushing out your insides?