Writing Tips at GarySpeer.com » Writing and Life

What might retirement look like for writers?

Gary — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 01:12:16 +0000

What might the idea of “retirement” look like to writers — or artists of any sort, for that matter? As a writer, do you think of a day when you might quit writing? I mean really quit all together? I think about this every time I meet old friends I haven’t seen for awhile. I [...]

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What might retirement look like for writers?

Outsourcing appears to be ruining online writing industry

Gary — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:49:33 +0000

Outsourcing of content writing to Third World English speakers (for lack of a better term) appears to be ruining the online writing industry. The Internet is a VERY big “place,” pretty much unlimited in size, so it’s always difficult to generalize. So, really, I’m only speaking from my limited viewpoint and experience when I make [...]

Odd phrases people search for on the Internet

Gary — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 23:21:39 +0000

If you’ve been online for long, you’ve probably used Google, or Yahoo!, or Bing, or one of the many “search engines” out there to search for information, or perhaps for a particular website. Being word people, we writers (I say “we” meaning specifically my wife and I) enjoy word games. We enjoy anything fun or [...]

Insomnia? Might as well use the time for your writing

Gary — Thu, 27 May 2010 15:57:00 +0000

Last night was very restless for me. It seems the older I get, the less I can sleep soundly at nights. (We won’t even get into some of the standard aging and Old Guys reasons comedians seem to find so funny. It’s not.) What I’ve learned over the years is that a sleepless or restless [...]

Avoid overextending yourself on too many writing projects

Gary — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:06:18 +0000

After a few weeks or perhaps months of steady writing, especially if your writing involves work that you don’t truly love and have a passion about, you can easily find yourself overextended, even facing a sense of “burnout.” This is sort of a cautionary tale to serve as balance to my “pep talk” the other [...]

Wanna write? Then pull out that keyboard and hit it hard every day

Gary — Mon, 24 May 2010 23:28:57 +0000

The single most important tip I have for writers, whether you’re new to writing or you’re a wily veteran, is simply this: Sit down at that keyboard every day and write something. Even if you just write a little bit, do it every day. And if you have time and inclination to write a lot, [...]

Do you write ‘full-time,’ or do you also have a ‘day job’?

Gary — Wed, 12 May 2010 12:55:19 +0000

Do you write full-time for a living or do you also have to rely on some sort of “day job”? I am fortunate enough at this point in my life to be able to tack together enough income between Social Security Benefits (yes, I really am getting old), my wife’s income, and the stuff I [...]

Do your research, planning skills as a writer benefit your ‘real-life’ experiences?

Gary — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:40:58 +0000

I guess the title of this article is sort of an odd question, so let me explain a bit about what I’m asking. A family member came by last night and recounted his adventures and misadventures in the stock market over the last two years. Surprisingly, though he is very smart and very careful with [...]

Batty distractions hinder writing, if we let them

Gary — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 02:37:13 +0000

Just pray that door hardware holds. Those rusty hinges and that loose latch are all that stand between us and them. Oh, sorry. Got distracted for a minute there looking around our old house. You see, over the last three decades, we’ve done annual battle during warm weather with a colony of bats that keeps [...]

Drugs top my list of funniest sounding made-up names

Gary — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 17:18:46 +0000

I love to play with odd looking, odd sounding words. When it comes to such words, made-up names for drugs — legitimate pharmaceuticals, I’m talking about here — top my list of the overall funniest sounding and often the funniest looking. (I won’t even get into how strange advertising gets for such drugs as viagra, [...]