All Recent Posts

I Can’t Help Myself – It’s Too Funny

So, if you checked out my recent post in which there’s a video of Stephen King cracking wise with Late Night host Conan O’Brien, then you may have noticed they talked a fair amount about King’s contribution to a still-growing wave of paranoia regarding clowns. If you didn’t watch the video clip but know anything about the book/movie It, then you’ll still have enough context to understand why what I’m about to share is relevant. Anyway, that whole part of the conversation kept reminding me of a hilarious story that one of my favorite comedians (Dan Cummins) tells about the origin of his own fear of clowns. ... [Read More...]

Weird

For some reason, the version of today’s post that went up wasn’t the final version I wrote. If you’d like to read a really, really short dialog that you can use to avoid talking to your kids about sex, you might want to scroll down and reread it.  Read More →

Stephen King and Conan O’Brien

I recently took a Facebook test (which are rivaled in accuracy only by those found in Cosmo, btw), and it told me that my writing style is closest to that of Stephen King.  I don’t suppose I’m all that surprised, as he was the first adult author I ever read (Cujo in the fourth grade). This led to a rather awkward and very brief sex-related conversation with my mother while on a cross-country Amtrack adventure. 10-Year-Old Me: Mom, what’ this word mean? (Pointing to the slang term used.) Panicked Mother: What do you think it means? 10-Year-Old Me: Never mind. I worked my way through most of his then-existing cannon by the... [Read More...]

Working for Yourself: Failures in Efficiency

Ooh, “failures in efficiency” sounds just like “failure’s inefficiency.” How cool is that, fellow Word-Nerds? I used to read a lot of blogs, but I just don’t seem to have the time, energy, or attention span to keep up with any of them lately. In my defense, I am running a business, sustaining a marriage, keeping a house, raising a child, and growing an entire human being in my body, so if anyone is personally offended that I don’t keep up on his or her blog…he or she is totally a selfish loser. I do find myself with the occasional lull, however, and at those times, I like to take a quick peek at... [Read More...]

Not Tonight, Crazy Client…I Have a Headache

Warning: What follows is basically a personal rant about a particular client. I’ve chosen to share it here because I think many of you will identify all too well. This blog is supposed to be funny, though, so please feel totally free to laugh at me for being such a door mat. Have you ever noticed how the absolutely bat-spit crazy clients seem to come out of the woodwork just when you need it the least? These are the folks who don’t actually know what they want until you happen to hit the magic combination and they say, “Yes! That’s it!” They’re the ones who talk you into putting aside a few hours on your... [Read More...]

Sassy Gay Friend Hits Two Literary Genres with One Peach Scarf

Way back in March, I posted a couple of videos from Second City that featured the Sassy Gay Friend.  In them he talked the women of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Othello out of doing whatever particularly stupid thing they were about to do in the name of love.  (A lot of suicide, now that I think about it.)  Anyway, the Sassy Gay Friend is back, and this time he’s taking on a non-human lady who needs to take a different perspective on her relationship. Check out The Sassy Gay Friend and The Giving Tree, with BONUS literary allusion to To Kill a Mockingbird.  Read More →

Plagiarizing about Plagiarism

Oh.  My.  Gosh. So, I think I mentioned that I’ve been doing articles on a lot of crazy topics lately.  One of them was plagiarism.  As I was looking around the web, I found this:  Want to Buy an Essay about Plagiarism? Seriously.  It’s a web site where you can buy essays to turn in to your teacher and pass off as your own.  And you can buy essays about why plagiarism is wrong.  The absolutely, totally, 100% best part?  They’re horribly written.  Like, you’d pay your money and still flunk your essay for not being able to write.  Here’s a great little gem so you can see what I mean: I know plagiarism is... [Read More...]

Literary Symbolism

I’ve been working on this interesting project lately where I had to write researched articles on a ton of very random subjects. One of them happened to be literary symbolism. During my travels around the Internet, I came across this really cool quiz called “The American Novel” on PBS.org.  You get to match the symbolism with the book.  Never one to miss out on a chance to be all word-nerdy (you may recall that I’ve linked you to quizzes before), I was tickled pink and immediately thought of you.   There are also some pretty nice graphics.  Have fun! The American Novel symbolism quiz.  Read More →

Freelance Life vs. Real Life

I think it’s kind of funny how we tend to refer to our life outside of work as our “real life.” Like the job we do doesn’t have any consequences on the things we do away from the office/factory/sweatshop. “Yeah, I’m a builder, but in my real life, I like to go out on the boat with my family.” Why does real life only happen on the weekends and for one or two unpaid weeks a year? I feel like my freelance life really is a part of my real life. The choices I make in one absolutely affect the realities of the other. I moved to a smaller office, and it gave me more take-home money. I decided to have another... [Read More...]

Freelancing Lifestyle = A Different Kind of Stress

Here are just a few reminders of why we freelancers don’t much miss working for The Man.  Read More →

Ridiculous Client Requests

Oh lord.  While I was hanging out on Facebook the other day, I happened to follow a link posted by a friend.  I mean, with the ever-so-descriptive phrase “Hehehehehe,” a cute kitty picture, and the title “yeah that’s not what I was looking for at all.” (all punctuation original) to go along with it, I couldn’t resist clicking, right? It took me a second to figure out exactly what I was looking at, but once it sunk in, I had to laugh.  To be honest, it probably sounded something very much like “Hehehehehe,” as I sat at my desk and felt this graphic artist’s pain.  OK, I don’t really feel the pain, or it wouldn’t be nearly... [Read More...]

Found a New Blog…Oh, Dear

So, I just accidentally found a new blog that I think you all are going to like.  I’m a little loathe to send you over there, because I think that Kiersten White is approximately five thousand times funnier than I am.  But I’m a generous soul.  And I can’t keep a secret.  (That’s totally not true, by the way.  I’m a great secret-keeper.)  See, I told you she was funnier.  I can’t even fake my own shortcomings for a joke. Anyway, you should check out Kiersten Writes.  I was going to tell you to start with this post detailing the pros and cons of getting an MFA, and then I realized that apparently that... [Read More...]

What Is Outsourcing, and Does It Embarrass You?

I remember when we first started our writing business (www.berrybrewer.com), we were dead-set against the idea of doing “outsourced” work. Somehow, it seemed less legit to us to do work that someone else went out and found. Like, we weren’t pulling our own weight or being professional enough or something. When we did accept our first outsourced gig, it was actually with a bit of embarrassment and shame. We definitely didn’t tell other writers that someone else was handing off their “overflow” work to us because we had so much free time on our schedules that we were desperate to fill. I think another part of the stigma is the term... [Read More...]

Knock, Knock

Hey, do you know any good jokes for writers? I’ve been looking around, kind of trying to compile some good ones. So far, this is my favorite (found on so many sites that I don’t know who to credit): A screenwriter comes home to a burned down house. His sobbing and slightly-singed wife is standing outside. “What happened, honey?” the man asks. “Oh, John, it was terrible,” she weeps. “I was cooking, the phone rang. It was your agent. Because I was on the phone, I didn’t notice the stove was on fire. It went up in second. Everything is gone. I nearly didn’t make it out of the house. Poor Fluffy is…” “Wait, wait.... [Read More...]

Why Hast Thou Failed Me, Personal Sense of Responsibility?

I’ve been having a really hard time with motivation lately. I’d like to blame the weeks and weeks of dreary weather (seriously, this is EASTERN Washington, not Seattle), or the move to the new office (still nothing on the walls), or the bun in the oven (did I mention yet that it’s a girl?), but I don’t know that any of those things gets full blame. So, this week has been about avoiding procrastination and just getting things done. You know what’s a great/terrible way to procrastinate/not procrastinate? Write a poem about procrastinating for your blog. It’s kind of like you’re doing something writing... [Read More...]