On Words and Business

A fascinating list of 10 things the author wishes were taught in freelance school.

These are great lessons for anyone working for themselves, in whatever capacity. Here are my faves:

1. Not all your time will be spent writing, or doing whatever it is you tell people you do.

2. You may consider yourself “just” a writer (or designer or consultant), but really you are a marketing specialist.

5. Train others to treat you right.

8. Continue to challenge yourself.

Advice for writers from George Carlin’s last interview:

On Finding a Unique Angle

“One of the voguish terms, which is so repellant to me, “thinking outside the box.” To settle for that kind of language is embarrassing. But that’s a very useful picture. I try to come in through the side door, the side window, to come in from a direction they’re not expecting, to see something in a different way.”

Thanks to Copyblogger for posting this and linking to the full interview.

Here’s a list of some common mistakes made by the girls.

And those made by the boys.

The comments are especially interesting, as there was some controversy about the first post.

In the midst of what was clearly a business call on his cell, a businessman stopped in front of the door to the cafe, to focus on his conversation.

As I approached, he noticed, opened the door, held it open, and stepped aside to let me in. Still deep in conversation. I whispered “thank you” as I passed.

It was a small thing for him to do. But huge, too, since not everyone holds doors open or realizes (or cares) about blocking traffic when they’ve stopped in a doorway. This is true especially when folks are speaking on cell phones.

Turns out there’s a whole foundation dedicated to random acts of kindness.

A good reminder that in our personal and business lives, small things are noticed. And do truly matter.

Does being a critic or reviewer make one a better writer?

I sure think so. One way to think about what works is to evaluate and critically consider someone else’s writing.

As a reviewer of reference books for Library Journal, I learned how to analyze a book in light of its purpose in life. And in light of the purpose of the magazine–is this a book a library should spend its limited money on?

How did the writer present the information? Was the book successful at what it intended to do?

On a personal level, it sometimes felt difficult to say that a book was unsuccessful. I know how much work it is to write a book of any kind, let alone a reference work that could’ve taken years upon years to research and write. But given the purpose of the reviews, there were specific reasons I could turn to.

I like to think I was fair, and pretty good at what I was doing. And I like to think that it helped me be more focused in my writing…about the purpose, about the structure, about the audience.

How about you? Can you critique another writer’s work? Can you ask the tough questions?

You’ve probably heard the statistic about how few words we actual use in our daily communications. It’s on the order of about 2,000 words, out of the hundreds of thousands there are. (Estimates vary widely.)

Here is an admonition to avail oneself of a thesaurus.

Which caused me to track down this site…the Global Language Monitor:

“This all being said, I now unequivocally state that as of 1:16 pm (Pacific) on the 22nd day of March in the year 2008 AD (or CE, whatever your preference), there were approximately 995,112 words in the English Language, plus or minus a handful.

Choose well among them.”