Tag: Writing

Copywriting, Feature Writing, freelance life, Writing

ChatGPT and me: a commitment to my clients

DorkyMum

 

I’m in a lot of writer groups online, and there’s one topic that seems to come up almost daily at the moment: ChatGPT.

The conversations around it are wide-ranging and often passionate. Some writers won’t go anywhere near it for ethical, environmental, or creative reasons. Others have fully embraced it, and are open about how they have incorporated it into their workflow. Some use it quietly, without disclosing it to clients. And some are using it against their better judgment, simply because clients expect or require them to.

It’s clear we’re still in the early stages of figuring out how AI fits into creative and professional writing. There are strong opinions and no settled norms – and as freelancers, it’s up to each of us to take an individual position that we are comfortable with.

For me, that decision is clear: I don’t use ChatGPT for client work.

Continue reading “ChatGPT and me: a commitment to my clients” →

Copywriting, Feature Writing

October 2023: Some recent work

DorkyMum

This is a bit of a fly-by blog post!

I’m just back from a wonderful three weeks visiting family and friends in the UK, and my inbox needs more than a little attention… but the list of articles I’ve had published recently has also been growing steadily. I thought I’d better pop some links up here before I start delving into new work.

It has been an especially busy spell for my work with CSIRO. The pieces I’ve worked on for them recently include:

I have a couple of other CSIRO articles in the publication pipeline, which I’ll share in my next post.

It has also been quite a busy time with Brand Tasmania. Not all of those articles have made it onto the website yet, but the two that have are about Archie Matteo from Westhaven Dairy, and Royce Smith from Granville Harbour Wind Farm.

Finally, I was really pleased to help out the team at Swansea Beach Chalets with content for their revamped website. Swansea Beach Chalets is our favourite place to stay on Tasmania’s East Coast, and it was an honour to help them showcase some of what they have to offer!

Thanks for taking the time to check out some of my recent work. Now, back to that inbox… and let’s see what I’m going to be working on next!

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Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

 

Copywriting, Feature Writing

February 2023: some recent writing work

DorkyMum

Black text that reads 2023 on a great background

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful, restful break over the festive period, and you’ve started 2023 feeling enthusiastic and energised!

Here in Tasmania, schools only went back a couple of days ago. While I did manage a few bits and pieces of work over the holidays, it’s nice to be getting those longer stretches of uninterrupted and focused time again.

I thought I would share links a few recent pieces of work. It’s great fun having this blog to look back on and remind myself of what a variety of projects I do each year.

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Copywriting, Writing

Celebrating World Water Day

DorkyMum

A screenshot from the Hydro Tasmania website showing a blog post titled 'It takes a village'

 

Monday 22nd March was World Water Day – a valuable opportunity to reflect on how lucky we are here in Tasmania to enjoy an abundance of water, and also a time to acknowledge that not everyone in the world is so fortunate. Continue reading “Celebrating World Water Day” →

Copywriting, Feature Writing, freelance life

A New Year: Open for Business

DorkyMum

Decorative flat lay with the text 'Happy New Year' in the centre

You know you’ve been busy when you don’t get a chance to write a ‘Happy New Year’ blog post until the first week of March.

It feels a bit late to be posting a detailed roundup of the projects I worked on during 2020, so I think I will skip that annual tradition other than to say thank you so much to all the clients and editors who chose to work with me. Continue reading “A New Year: Open for Business” →

Reading

Women’s Nature Writing

DorkyMum

flatlay image of autumn leaves, glasses and a notebook on a wooden table, with the text 'Women's Nature Writing'

Kathleen Jamie’s new book Surfacing landed in my mailbox last week, and I can’t wait to read it. Kathleen is a Scottish poet and essayist, and Surfacing is her third collection – following Findings and Sightlines – of what you’d probably call nature writing, although that term does little justice to her delightful touch.

I was interested to read an interview with Kathleen in the Guardian last week, which dealt with the question of whether contemporary nature writing is overly dominated by white men. (Spoiler – it is.)

That’s not to say that there aren’t some wonderful men out there, producing great work – there are, and you’ve probably read at least some of them. (Hi, Robert MacFarlane…) But the natural world is too beautiful for us to only read about it through that one narrow lens.

Unfortunately, what the Guardian piece didn’t do was highlight any of the alternatives, of which there are many. So I thought I’d take sometime to pull together a non-exhaustive list of writers, books, essays and sites that you might like to explore if this subject interests you. It really is just a way of dipping your toe in the water – there’s so much out there and if you’re anything like me you’ll discover that following one interesting link leads you to a dozen more.

Have fun getting lost in nature! And feel free to leave a comment below with your own recommendations.

Continue reading “Women’s Nature Writing” →

Feature Writing

Guardian feature on Aurora Australis

DorkyMum

Screenshot of a Guardian Australia Feature on the Aurora Australis by Ruth Dawkins

I have a piece up at Guardian Australia today about the final season of the icebreaker Aurora Australis, which has spent the last thirty years transporting cargo and crew to Antarctica.

This was a lot of fun to write, and I’m very grateful to the researchers and writers who took time to speak with me.

One cool fact that didn’t make it into the article – the ship is painted the same colour as San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge!

Copywriting, Feature Writing, freelance life

How to get out of a writing slump

DorkyMum

Image of crumpled paper in a bin and wording 'How to get out of a writing slump' by Ruth Dawkins

Write a content calendar, they said!

Plan a year’s worth of blog posts in advance, they said!

So, I did, and yet somehow it’s May 7th and I’m only now publishing the post that I’d planned for early April… I’ve had two big copywriting projects on the go, both of which required me to work through the school holidays, so when I did have spare time it felt much more important to spend that with my family rather than tinkering away in the back of my website.

However, school is now back, my diary is a little more under control, and I’ve got a chance to share this post that has been sitting in note form in my drafts folder for several weeks.

Somewhat ironically, given how busy I’ve been, I decided that in April I would write about how to get yourself out of a writing slump. Continue reading “How to get out of a writing slump” →

Copywriting, Feature Writing, freelance life

Should you ever write for free?

DorkyMum

Caption 'Should you ever write for free' above dollar bill

The question of whether a professional writer – or an aspiring professional writer – should ever write for free is one that comes up regularly in online groups and discussion forums, and it always provokes healthy debate.

One camp says no, never, absolutely not. A writer should never write for free: we should value our time and expertise; by completing work without payment we’re undercutting other writers; and besides, no-one can pay the rent with ‘exposure’.

The opposing camp would say that writers – especially those who are new to the business – need to build their experience and portfolio and writing for free is often a good way to do that.

Ever keen to find a compromise, I find myself sitting somewhat awkwardly between the two camps. Continue reading “Should you ever write for free?” →

Reading

Reading makes me a better writer: here’s why

DorkyMum

Stack of books and caption 'Being a reader makes me a better writer... here's why.'

It’s no great secret that I’m a big reader. I’ve published several posts on this blog about my favourite books, and over on Instagram I run an account called @ruthreadsbooks which functions as a visual reading diary.

You can imagine then how pleased I was to find this recent study, which concluded that reading makes you a more empathetic person.

I’ve long-believed that being a keen reader makes me a better writer, and developing empathy is a key part of that. Whether you’re writing creatively and trying to put yourself in the position of a reader who wants to be engaged and entertained, or whether you’re writing copy and trying to make sure what you deliver keeps your client happy, the ability to see other perspectives and viewpoints is crucial. Continue reading “Reading makes me a better writer: here’s why” →