Father’s Day, resurrections, targets, Roger Ebert and freelance jobs you won’t get

This is a picture of my father when he was an EM2 in the Navy. He eventually retired as a Chief Petty Officer in 1967, the year I was born.

Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day, especially to my Father, Jeruel Hewitt. He celebrated his 80th birthday this year, which was an event I will always remember. My father barely survived a botched delivery by a drunk doctor in the rural south, but has now outlived all three of his brothers by many years. He spent twenty years in the Navy defending our country and has always provided for his family through thick and thin. He has my eternal gratitude.

Targets and tasks

My latest Writing Success Series offering discussed task management, so I thought I would note an interesting approach the Chris Brogan uses for task management.  Brogan uses mind mapping software to keep his task lists on target. I am a fan of mind mapping, but for me the downfall is that the maps quickly become too big to view on a single screen. I can see the value of using the software for a “big picture” overview of where you are heading, but with my projects I am often breaking items into steps and sub-steps (it’s the technical writer in me) and mind mapping just doesn’t allow me to quickly parse through what I have to do.

Writing like Roger Ebert

As a longtime fan of the film critic, I enjoyed reading Mark Dykeman’s article at CopyBlogger, What All Content Creators Need to Learn From Roger Ebert. His advice is excellent:

• Keep a sense of humor
• Focus on what you can do well
• Be honest
• Let your passion save and sustain you

I have always enjoyed Roger Ebert’s reviews even when I disagreed with him because I enjoyed his passion for movies. I also love his tweets, which run the gamut from film observation to politics to just plain random thoughts. Check him out @ebertchicago.

Freelance jobs you won’t get and why you won’t get them

Over at Menwithpens, James Chartrand recently ran an advertisement for new writers. As is typical, the site got a ton of responses. Even more typically, most of those responses were terrible. I’ve had my fair share of really bad queries sent to me and I’ve posted do and don’t articles before. James does a excellent job of driving home the key points.

• Do read the job ad
• Don’t show you’re lazy
• Do follow instructions
• Don’t point to a really bad website
• Do be sane
• Don’t squee (if you don’t know what squee is, read the article)
• Do make sure you can do the job
• Don’t have low self-esteem
• Do take a chance
• Don’t use “I”