Everybody in the newspaper business is getting laid off. Even Rick Redfern. Redfern, the fictional investigative reporter in Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury comic strip, is getting canned by the Washington Post after 33 years on the job, according to a story line that debuted in the strip this week. He’s one of the lucky ones, Redfern’s […]
WordCount is finalist for top writing blogs award
Thanks to the nominations submitted by all you faithful readers, WordCount has been tapped as a finalist for Writing White Papers’ 3rd annual top writing blogs contest. Yahoo! The contest, created by Michael Stelzner, proprietor of the Writing White Papers blog, received 300 nominations, which he narrowed down to 37. According to Stelzner, he’ll choose […]
7 steps to cutting a story that's too long
Some stories take on a life of their own and before you know it, a piece that was supposed to be 750 words has grown to 1,000. Unfortunately, editors are pretty adamant about sticking to assigned word counts. So some trimming is in order. It may be tempting to turn in a too-long article and […]
Mediabistro.com on contributing editors: "gigs with teeth"
Mediabistro.com, the career center for freelancers and other media types, just published an illuminating article about contributing editors, and I’m not just saying that because I was interviewed for the story. The article, “Between Freelancer and Staffer: Contributing Editors,” by E.B. “Liza” Boyd, explains how the title means different things at different publications but for […]
You don't need to be serious to write about serious topics
Particle physics isn’t exactly simple. But just because a topic is complicated or serious doesn’t mean writing about it has to be. Take the superconductor supercollider that Switzerland-based CERN has been working on for the past 14 years. The 17-mile circumference Large Hadron Collider, which is intended to look for new particles that explain why […]
Nominate WordCount for best writing blog
Time for a shameless request. Michael Stelzner’s Writing White Papers blog is running its third annual contest to choose the top 10 blogs for writers. So I’ll just come right out and say it: vote for me! It’s been nine months since I started WordCount to blog about freelance writing in the 21st century – […]