Expert tips from a nurse-turned-writer

P.S. I’m not an expert-expert, but I do make a living by stringing words together and want to share everything I learn with you!

Celebrating Black history

Hello writers,

We’re approaching the end of Black History Month, observed in February to commemorate the birthdays of two abolitionist icons, President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Want to know more? Read all about this iconic celebration through ASALH: the organization that founded Black History month!

Talk soon,

WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK

Self-editing skills

Most writers have editors. But did you know you have to edit yourself, long before you submit your work? Let’s be honest—no one wants to read your first draft, right? It’s often a hot mess. (All mine are!) Before you give your piece the big send-off, you need to take these self-editing steps:

• Cut the fluff: Kill off your excess adverb darlings, delete whole paragraphs that don’t add anything, and check for repetition.

• Sleep on it: Never submit a first draft on the day you wrote it. Instead, give your brain the renewing gift of sleep, and you’ll catch 2000% more stupid mistakes on the next round. (read more here)

• Read it out loud: You may feel stupid, but you’ve gotta do it. You won’t believe how wonky something can sound out loud that read just fine in your head.

• Use your tools: Programs like Grammarly and ProWritingAid can give an extra helping hand in pointing out questionable wording, grammar faux-pas, and misspellings.

• Spell-check last: Don’t run your spell/grammar checker until the very end. Otherwise you might miss a your/you’re fiasco that happens in further edits.

Self-editing can be a real bummer, but it can also be fun to watch a dumpster fire of an article take shape into something well-formatted and easy to read.

TRIVIA-PALOOZA

Moby what?

Your trivia question for the week is…

💡 Who wrote the novel Moby-Dick? 💡

(The answer’s at the bottom!)

FREELANCER CORNER

Get organized (and stay there!)

Even if you don’t have a lot of work on the horizon, you still need to have your systems in place. That way, when the assignments pour in, you won’t lose any in the chaos.

To keep my brain sane, I use these tools to track projects:

• ClickUp: My ClickUp calendar helps me track my projects and daily tasks. Plenty of other writers love other programs like Trello and Asana, but my brain needs to see all my work on one screen. (I’ll go into more detail next week!)

• Clockify: This time-tracker tells me how much time I spent on each project. (Including this newsletter!)

• Google Sheets: Here, I keep a spreadsheet for open projects, current clients, invoices, expert sources, and allll the things.

• Apple Notes: Simple but effective, Apple notes keep track of my templates, pitches, general meeting notes, and bio samples.

I’ve yet to find two writers with the exact same toolbox and process. But I hope mine have inspired an idea that will work for you!

IT’S PERSONAL

A birthday and a castle

My (now) 12-year-old Ewan wanted to take his mama on a date in the city for his birthday, so we got to walk all over Old Town, pop back into the National Museum of Scotland (yes, again), and top it all off with some gelato before catching the bus home.

The next day, we revisited Stirling Castle with our youngest. After a five-minute spiel from a talented and convincing actor in Queen Mary’s bed chamber, she asked my four-year-old if he had any questions. He did. “Do you know I can run 100 fast?” he asked the lady in medieval costume… 😂 Then he stood on a rock and screamed, “I’m the queen of the world!”

So, all in all, great weekend. 🤩

‘Til next time

Thanks for reading and see you next week!

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You can view all my work on Authory and also feel free to check out my website!

💡 Find the trivia answer HERE 💡