Entries from March 2008

Monday, March 17th, 2008

Subbing tip #2: just deserts

“Just deserts” are the justice that someone richly deserves. “Just desserts” is a restaurant that someone should open that only serves pudding. Only one “s”, people!

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

Subbing tip #1: wrack vs rack

A “wrack” is a very old-fashioned shipwreck. A “rack” is an old-fashioned torture device. If you are “racked with pain” you are in pain as if you were being tortured on a rack. Remember – no “w”!

Saturday, March 15th, 2008

Writing won’t make you rich – get over it

Jane Shilling in the Times yesterday [UPDATE 11/11/2009: the link is broken because the Times seems to have lost some of its content] did what a lot of columnists do, particularly in what we might describe as the more upmarket broadsheets. She spent a thousand words or so moaning about how tough life is financially […]

Saturday, March 15th, 2008

Money, sex and power

That’s what we all want – and basically that’s what you won’t get as a freelance writer/journalist or sub-editor. Not directly, anyway. And in the case of money, not promptly. So why bother? Why put in the hours of creative fervour and spend all that time parsing sentences correctly in order to turn in polished […]