I’ve never been good at promoting myself on social media. I don’t have a strong urge to spam feeds with links to every story I write or share updates about being on assignment for whoever is currently paying me. I’m (happily) an introvert. I also grew up in a culture where it wasn’t normal to […]
Brevity, Word Choices & Bust My Buffers
Sometimes I like to set myself the challenge of writing about a specific theme with a fixed word count. Just as an exercise in writing, because no matter how silly something is, it still needs tempo and careful word selection. Later in this post, you’ll see an attempt from several years ago to write a […]
Haiku Word Choices
This post is going to start by stating the obvious: word choice is important for all writing. But it could be argued that the shorter the piece, the more precise language needs to be. Poorly chosen words are more exposed when there are fewer words around them. One of the reasons I first got into […]
Travel Writing Clinic
In 2022, I ran a bunch of online travel writing mentoring sessions, primarily to raise a little money for humanitarian efforts in the Ukraine but also to support writers at the start of their careers. It was also something to make me feel more positive and a way to do some form of community service. […]
The business of being a freelance writer in Japan, part 2
And here is the second installment of notes from my presentation for the Society of Writers, Editors and Translators on the business side of being a freelance writer in Japan (the first is here: http://www.tokyofreelance.com/the-business-of-being-a-freelance-writer-in-japan-part-1). This time, it’s about vetting clients and assignments and some general thoughts on doing the job. PART 4: VETTING CLIENTS AND ASSIGNMENTS & […]
The business of being a freelance writer in Japan, part 1
[Updated March 2022] From time to time, new writers and students get in touch to ask for advice about becoming a writer, so I thought I’d post my notes from a presentation I once did (for the Society of Writers, Editors, and Translators) on freelancing from Japan. Some of it might be useful to writers […]
More micro fiction – five new stories
A month or so ago, I posted something about micro fiction and why I’ve found myself drawn to writing it. Call this an update of sorts to share the following handful of micro fiction stories, each of which is either 50 or 100 words in length. […]
Assignment red flags and sniffing out potential deadbeats
Recently, I ditched an occasional client in relation to copyright infringement of my work. The details aren’t important here, but it did make me realize how fortunate I’ve been to have had so few deadbeat clients over the years. I’ve had some editors who have been inexperienced. Some have obviously not been the best of writers. […]
On Micro Fiction
Over the last couple of years I’ve been trying to work out how to write good short fiction – mostly in the 1,000-word (or thereabouts) “flash fiction” category – with the eventual aim of putting together a collection to publish in book form. In the past few months or so, however, I’ve also developed an interest […]