One of my absolute least favorite things about being a freelance writer is trying to keep ideas flowing for multiple outlets. Some weeks, brainstorming for article topics feels like drawing blood from a stone. To come out on top, even in thin times, I’ve sourced a few locations where I know I can always find titles for blog posts. Continue reading
When I first sat down to start a blog, I knew that I wanted those big, pretty images I saw on other people’s websites, but I had no clue how to get them. I knew I had to pay – in money or attribution – to use images that weren’t mine, but I didn’t know how to properly go about it. The licenses just looked like a mess.
Despite the pervasive rumor that our dependence on the Internet is killing the English language, in today’s economy, everyone needs to be able to write well. If you’re a job-seeker, you absolutely must develop your writing skills if you expect to succeed. Employers and savvy potential employees realize that email, text messages, social media posts, and professional apps – such as Slack, Google Docs, and Trello – all use written language in order to communicate, and having more competent writers on a team means having fewer mix-ups down the line.
Continue reading
How do you start a blog? I’ve been asked this question at least five times in the last six weeks. I say that not with self-importance but with shock. Why would anyone ask me how to blog? I’m certainly not the most successful blogger out there. In fact, I feel as if I google “how to blog” every other day. No lie. Continue reading
I just finished Austin Kleon‘s Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered—and I’ll have a book review for you guys on Tuesday—and somewhere in the process of reading the first two chapters, I found my niche. When you start a blog, the first thing every advice page will tell you is to find your niche and identity your target audience before you write the first word. This tip was a stumbling block to me: what the hell should I write about? I don’t know about anything! Can’t I just blog about miscellany? For me, niches are elusive. As a class jack-of-all-trades, I’m good at a lot of things but not particularly great at any of them. I don’t have just one major hobby to occupy my spare time; I read, I write, I play video games, and watch movies, and look at food porn. Writing about food porn is not exactly the most promising career move. Continue reading