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Confessions of a Proofreading Zealot (and How To Find a Proofreader for You)
I never was a good student, and I had very little interest in writing or anything related to writing. But, I soon discovered that I had an interest in words.
As a kid, I would go shopping with my mother. I would look at signs and labels and anything that was written and then try to decipher what I saw.
Eventually, I got the hang of it. Even so, I never really liked reading and writing until I started getting good grades in high school English and on my English Regents exam.
While I didn’t become a writer, I used writing in my career as a personnel specialist (military), computer programmer, and software tester. Then, when I retired from the software world, I had to find something to do.
What to do, fix words? That was it!
7 Interesting Greek Words and How to Use Them in Your Writing
If a native English speaker was asked to name seven Greek words, “It’s all Greek to me” would perhaps be a tongue-in-cheek response. And yet the English language is replete with loanwords—that is, words adopted from another language with little to no modification—from Greek.
Perhaps the man who most famously demonstrated this was Xenophon Zolotas, a Greek economist known for his two speeches at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in the late 1950s. As the story goes, Zolotas spoke in Greek, yet he was understood by his English-speaking audience.Continue reading
Managing Your Social Media Presence as a Professional Writer (When You Don’t Love Social Media)
There’s nothing like going on a camping trip and being forced to be without internet for four straight days to make you take a good, hard look at yourself and your addiction to your smartphone.
Heck, before I dove into writing this article, can you guess what I was doing? Yup, scrolling mindlessly through my Twitter feed.
At first, while I was camping, I definitely felt anxious about not being able to check my emails or text messages. What’s going on in the outside world? What if my client emails me with an urgent question or request? What if one of the editors needs me? I literally have no reception.
But I also thought to myself … What about my Twitter followers? Or my LinkedIn audience? Will they think I suck at social media?
Balancing the Demands of a Professional Writing Career with a Full-Time Job
While everyone else at the office celebrates another successful commute home by popping the tab on a cold one and settling into the couch for a night in front of the TV, the rest of us brew a pot of coffee (or load the first of many K-Cups), reheat yesterday’s General Tso’s, open our computers, and prepare to camp out for the night.
We’re professional writers, but that might not be what it says on our business cards.
A lot of people who work eight hours a day also have some kind of side hustle, especially those in their 30s or younger, and these after-hours pursuits are not restricted to writing. Painters, composers, upcyclers, photographers, graffiti artists, filmmakers, microbrewers, web designers—they all create in the off-hours, the five-to-nine.
These endeavors are sometimes monetized hobbies, or they can even be secret second jobs in multistage schemes to escape the cubicle life forever.
Either way, at the end of a full workday, these creatives devote themselves to an ambitious pursuit without any guarantee of a payoff beyond the satisfaction of exploring their talents and passions.