Month: January 2008

Jargon watch: Banned words

Lake Superior State University has published its 33rd annual list of words and phrases that ought to be banned because of “misuse, overuse and general uselessness.” Here they are:

  • perfect storm
  • Webinar
  • waterboarding
  • organic
  • wordsmith/wordsmithing
  • author/authored
  • post 9/11
  • surge
  • give back
  • ‘blank’ is the new ‘blank’
  • Black Friday
  • back in the day
  • random
  • sweet
  • decimate
  • emotional
  • pop
  • It is what it is
  • under the bus

What I want to know is: How could they possibly have missed “green?” Please don’t tell me the laundry detergent, someone’s political views, or your office supplies are “green.” Kermit is green.

I do, however, love it that the list makers nailed the cloying adjective “sweet.” I recently read a blog post by a particularly smarmy blowhard and damned if he didn’t use the adjective “sweet” four times—while describing his own artistic endeavors, no less!

End-of-year accounting

How many of us in the writing biz have the guts to do a year-end assessment of our work as frank (and as useful) as this one by science fiction author David Levine?

Taking a deep breath and attempting to follow David’s example…

Writer Way blog entries written in 2007: 100
Writer Way blog entries with illustrations: 5
Writer Way videocasts: 1
By-lined articles written for on-line publication: 4
By-lined articles (chapters) written for book publication: 1 (accepted, not yet published)
Articles, news releases, and blog entries written for clients’ sites: 48
Book manuscripts (by other authors) edited: 1 (not yet published)
Presentations given: 1 (Ignite Seattle)
Panel participation: 1 (Macworld 2007)
Interviews: 1 (The Writing Show)
Professional meetings and conferences attended: 12 (Ignite Seattle, Macworld, WebTrends, Seattle Weblogger meetups, plus events hosted by Biznik members and Lunch 2.0.

New proposals sent out: 14
New projects resulting from new proposals: 2
New projects received from existing clients: 4
New projects received via professional organizations: 2 (National Book Critics Circle; Biznik)
Projects that collapsed (no payment): 1
Projects completed: 3
Projects ongoing or underway: 4

Professional writing goals for 2008
1. Make better use of illustrations and photos in the Writer Way blog.
2. Do more videocasting (when appropriate to the topic); it’s the way of the future.
3. Send out more proposals for web content writing work; 14 are simply not enough to yield meaningful results.
4. Attend conferences that focus on writing; I’ve registered for Potlatch (speculative fiction) and the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop.

Lessons learned from 2007
Over and over again, I have been impressed by the work I’ve gotten from professional organizations and from former clients. My job at Apple came via a want ad posted with Women in Digital Journalism; my best blogging work comes from a fellow member of the Fremont Noodle House lunch group. This year the National Book Critics Circle had a particularly good gig available to interested members (more about that later). As Crosby, Stills & Nash observed, “love the ones you’re with.”