Tag: freelancing

  • Freelance Perks: Serious Time Off

    Here is what it is like to be a mid-career freelance editor and writer. After building up subject expertise and reliable contacts and great clients, I get to take a month off. Like, a whole month. This month, to be exact. How I Planned It In the spring, Mr. KHG and I discussed taking time…

  • The Nouveau Commonplace

    I learned a few months ago that the word “commonplace” has an older meaning than the current definition of something being so common it’s no longer interesting. It’s the kind of word you’d think hipsters would use more often than they do. But a commonplace is also a notebook where you write down quotes and…

  • What I Learned from HowStuffWorks.com: Research and Documentation

    I do lots of work for lots of different outlets, but there are a few publications (online and print) that I work with regularly. One of those is HowStuffWorks.com, which is part of the Discovery network. I’ve been writing for their Autos channel since 2008 — nearly three years — and the most important thing…

  • Automotive Art at the Museum

    Sometimes I get to write articles with fascinating story lines, long-ish word counts, and fantastic pictures. Like this one for the New York Times Autos section, on the Allure of the Automobile at Portland Art Museum. The cars themselves were great, beautiful, worthy of art museum treatment. But the really interesting part came in talking…

  • To Holiday or Not to Holiday

    I am writing this at my desk, in my office, on Memorial Day, an official holiday in the United States. Yet here I am at my desk. Most people are camping this weekend — or as a friend of a friend on Facebook called camping, “drinking near trees.” I did not leave town for the…