This is a quick and easy one, but it’s been bothering me slightly recently that the two are getting mixed up when they are distinct things.

A blog is a whole entity, like Libroediting or Libro Full Time (why not plug my own two!) or, now I come to think of it, my book review blog (I’m just shameless, aren’t I!). It’s a collection of blog posts, or articles, like a book is a collection of chapters or a magazine or newspaper is a collection of articles. The container, if you like.

A blog post is one of those individual articles or chapters. It’s a piece of content that’s contained in the container of the blog. This is a blog post, and part of a blog.

I’m not sure where the confusion has crept in, but it has … so people say “I’ve written a new blog today” or “I’m writing one blog a week this week”, when of course they don’t mean that they’re starting up a whole new set of articles, a new container; they mean they’re writing a blog post. I thought for a while that it was all about getting things written in as short a space as possible – Twitter syndrome – but “I  have written a post about discrete vs. discreet” takes up the same room as “I have written a blog about discrete vs. discreet”, so it can’t  be that.

The act of writing and publishing blog posts is, of course, blogging. But you’re still writing blog posts in particular, or a blog in general.

Thank you for your attention to this matter! You’ll have to excuse me the odd, small rant: just trying to keep things accurate and descriptive and doing my bit to preserve the finer grain of our language.

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

I’m going to talk today about setting goals, primarily in business, but of course this can be used in the rest of your life, too. Why set goals? It gives us something to aim for, and, if done properly, should give us a way of measuring our progress towards our goal, too.  Goals and the progress towards them can help you make big life changes; it was through measuring my progress against a specific set of goals that I was able to leave my part-time job and start running Libro full time (I’ll write about exactly how I did that on the Libro Full Time blog soon), and I’m not the only person to achieve a big life change like that.

Setting sensible goals

There’s lots of talk, especially in a business context, of setting SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely). But actually, I think you can get away with just setting sensible goals.

• The end target should be something you actually want, whether it’s working at your business full time, growing your hair for your wedding or running a marathon.  This will probably be inspired by what motivates you, something that I’m going to be talking about in a later blog post. In my case, I wanted to work full time because I wanted the flexibility to run my life how I wanted to, and the free time to spend reading and spending time with my friends. These motivators meant I really wanted to do it. You can’t set goals half-heartedly, because you will not work towards them if you do. And they can’t be other people’s goals, either. Think how much more fun and easier it is to learn a language so you can order a beer on holiday, rather than toiling away for a GCSE at school.
• The method to achieve this target should involve a specific set of activities that are measurable along the way. For me, I had to be earning a certain amount per month in order to be able to support myself. If you’re training for a marathon, you need to be able to run a certain distance by a certain time. If you want a particular wedding hairstyle, you need to go to the hairdresser for a trim to keep it looking good and know how long your hair needs to be for the special style.
• Ideally, you should be able to chart how you’re doing and measure it against how you should be doing. So you might take photographs of your hair, I had spreadsheets and graphs to tell me how I was doing against my financial targets, and a runner will tick off training sessions and achievements as they go.

Measuring your progress

It is vital to measure your progress as you go along.  In my case, last year I knew how much I needed to be earning per month to support myself. I keep a list of incoming and outgoing money, so I copied my income over onto a new sheet of my spreadsheet, so I knew what had come in that month. I then compared that to what I needed to be earning per month to support myself. At first, I compared it to how much money I needed to replace the money lost by going part time, so I had a set of columns and a graph – a graph does a good job of showing you where you stand – that told me where I was against a monthly target and also a cumulative target (that meant that if I earned less one month and more the next, they averaged out and meant I was still hitting my annual target).

Although it sounds complicated, it was easy to do in practice, and it showed me that I hit the targets for replacing my lost income quite quickly, and began to hit and beat the target income for supporting myself. That’s when I knew it was time to leave and strike out on my own.

Set challenging targets

I like to have an easy, middling and hard target. I’ll always achieve something, but I strongly believe that having something challenging to go for has meant that I have achieved more. Last year I measured my income against replacing my lost income from 2 and 3 days a week and against the lowest amount I needed to support myself. Building up through the year, I only missed that top target by £100 – and I really wasn’t expecting that. So this year I have that as my lowest target, my old full-time wages as my middling one, and an amount I haven’t earned since I lived in London as my hard target. Don’t get excited: it’s not a fortune and I’m not going to turn into a millionaire. But by setting that high target, I’m giving myself something to aim for.

Affirmations and speaking out loud

Apart from the hard target that pushed me forward, I am convinced that what helped me achieve was vocalising and affirming. Otherwise known as telling people what I was doing. Part way through 2011 – and remembering that I didn’t actually decide to leave my part-time job until November – I started telling people, “I am aiming to go full time with the business some time in early 2012.”, or “by a year from now I will be full time with Libro.” These weren’t affirmations in the traditional, chanting in front of the mirror or writing them on a bit of paper sense, but speaking my targets out loud did help me to achieve them.

I hope this has been helpful. I try to talk about specific examples of what I’ve done, to show that it is possible – no high-faluting promises of millions! Maybe you’d like to share the goals you’ve set and how you set them. What helped you – or is helping you – to achieve them? And do let me know if this has inspired you to set some sensible goals yourself. That’s the first step to speaking it out loud!

Either or neither: a pair that many people seem to be confused about. So let’s sort this one out.

The main rule for this is quite simple, and there are some stylistic points, too.

The basic idea is that either is followed by or, and neither is followed by nor.

So, “Either we’ll go to the cafe or we’ll go to the pub”, “They went to neither the cafe nor the pub, but had a walk in the park, instead.”

It is incorrect to write: “They didn’t go to either the cafe nor the pub”, or “They went to neither the cafe or the pub”.  Quite simple: either … or and neither … nor.

Stylistically, both kinds of sentence need to be balanced: so you wouldn’t say “either we’ll go to the cafe or the pub” or “He neither saw himself as farmer or politician”.

Confusion also sometimes arises with the use of or/nor with no and any. “No people or pets were harmed during the filming”; “we did not harm any people or pets”, not “No people nor pets”; “any people nor pets”.

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

Let’s meet Charles and find out about his interesting background and widening portfolio …

What’s your business called? When did you set it up?
My business is Professional Photography, and although I have produced professional quality photography for friends and family all my life, it was formally set up in 2010.

What made you decide to set up your own business?

After successfully growing both responsibilities, my Post as Fundraising & Communications Director for a large Charity was split into two roles for Fundraising & Communications.  I therefore decided to take the redundancy package offered instead of taking one of either of the roles. However, as I felt I had successfully completed my work with the organization and I’m always looking for opportunities, I saw this as a perfect time to start my own business and do something I love.

What made you decide to go into this particular business area?

My father ensured I had a camera in my hands at a very early age and since then I’ve never stopped trying to improve my skills as a photographer.  This, together with my love of beautiful images and state-of-the-art technology, makes for an exciting combination as a 21st century photographer.

Had you run your own business before?

My first career was in the Police Service, where I specialised in the protection of Royalty and VIPs as part of the Special Escort Group, and I further went on to become a Tactical Advisor & Team Leader in Firearms Operations, although the only thing I shoot nowadays is a camera!  Yes, I’ve run a number of different operations, training and consultancy, advanced motorcycling and testing, a national association plus multi-million pound fundraising and communications teams for two high profile charities.

How did you do it? Did you launch full-time, start off with a part-time or full-time job to keep you going … ?

Full-time.  The decision had to be full-time to be able to give the commitment, time and effort to give the business a good chance of succeeding.  Building a client base is a slow but sure process and, as they say in sales, “you’re only as good as your last sale.”  Well, in photography you’re only as good as your last few shoots.

What do you wish someone had told you before you started?

My previous experience prepared me for many challenges in business although I was surprised how many prospect clients are prepared to put up with a low quality or average quality of service from their existing provider and sometimes appear to be too lazy to want to make the effort to change to a new supplier.  Essentially you need to make it as quick and simple for them as possible to make the change, whilst of course providing excellent images.

What would you go back and tell your newly entrepreneurial self?

“I should have done this years ago!”  It’s the truth: I’m totally enjoying myself, doing something that I love with no one pulling you in different directions in terms of objectives, and essentially I don’t have to play the politics that are so often there in large organizations.

What do you wish you’d done differently?

The success of our new website, launched in October 2011, has exceeded my expectations, and looking back, when I started the business in 2010, I should have built a much better website from the start.

What are you glad you did?

Made the decision to do something I love and for myself!  The satisfaction and lovely, lovely comments you receive from clients on completion of an assignment are a great reward as photographer.  It’s not often in life you get to do something you love!

What’s your top business tip?

Network, Network, Network!  As a big fan of social media and face-to-face networking groups, it’s essential to get you and your business out there!  Time-consuming, I would agree, but with relatively no costs but your time, you need to meet new people on a regular basis and have state-of-the-art joined-up social networks.

Also try to give something back: it doesn’t have immediate benefits but long-term you will be surprised at the opportunities that arise.  I’m part of a number of membership based associations, and in particular MIPAA, the Motor Industry Public Affairs Association.  When I started my business, I also put myself forward to join the Operating Committee of MIPAA and its Executive Team.  Since that time, numerous opportunities have arisen from my voluntary work.  This also applies to local charities and new start-up businesses, where I offer to do the occasional photo-shoot to help them with an event or to get their marketing campaigns started.

How has it gone since you started? Have you grown, diversified or stayed the same?
My portfolio of work is broad, and strategically so.  I’m just as happy shooting a Cherish the Dress, Wedding or fashion shoot as I am on a commercial shoot for a product.  Producing the best images possible, with a little editing, can really exceed a client’s expectations, and is so, so rewarding.

Where do you see yourself and your business in a year’s time?

I’ve recently been lucky enough to pick up interest from a number of up-and-coming fashion designers and been asked to become their official photographer, which is flattering to say the least.  Whether reportage, still life, or traditional, using a variety of photographic styles is still key for me when telling the story. My photographic work  offers a visual representation of my unique perspective, exploring the depths of beauty and style, whilst hopefully still portraying elements of the classical. I feel my work retains relevance to 21st century client, and I plan to keep it that way!

It’s amazing that you can meet someone a number of times, have in-depth conversations with them, and never know they have guarded royalty and VIPs! I wish Charles the best of luck with his new and expanding work areas, and look forward to hearing how he gets on over the next year.

Find Charles at his website www.professionalphotography.me.uk, email him, or phone him on 07824 444 487.

If you’ve enjoyed this interview, please click here for more freelancer chat, or here for information on how you can have your business featured.

Definite means clearly stated, decided – not doubtful or vague. It means clearly true or real, and as well as these more intangible meanings, it also means having exact and discernible physical limits. The definite article is “The”. “There is definite evidence that this pipe was not sealed properly”.

When something is definitive, it is done or reached with authority and decisively – and in extension, it refers to the most authoritative of its kind: usually a document or book. “We have found the definitive answer to the meaning of life”, “This is the definitive edition of Ms Broomfield’s great work”.

Oddly, a definitive stamp is one for general use, not commemorative or special. I did not know that.

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

I want to show you how to do things in a more formal way which will  make things easier for you in the long run, particularly when you’re dealing with long and complex documents.

Today we’re going to follow up on my previous post on Tabs. Now we know how to use the tab button, we’re going to go a step further and set tabs using the ruler at the top of the screen. Exciting, eh? It’s called “setting tab stops” – the “stops” idea coming from when you added physical barriers to your typewriter. I actually learned to type on an elecronic typewriter, back in the olden days, by the way …

First of all, we need to check we can actually see the rulers at the top and side of the page.  Can you see a ruler at the top? If not, click on the view tab at the top of the page. See where it says ruler? Click on the box next to that so a tick appears:

Once you’ve ticked the box, the two rulers should appear, like this:

And we’re all ready to go. So, say we’ve got a little table of bird prices we want to lay out:

We can use the tab key to space across, but another way is to use the tab stops in the margin. Note that we need to highlight the text we want to apply tab stops to, or set up the tab stops before we type anything. Now, move the mouse pointer up to the top margin and click, just once, with the left mouse button, on the 1.5, 6 and 13 on the ruler. Just where the arrows are on the picture below. You’ll see a little L appear where you click. That’s L for left tab. Well, actually it shows which way the tab is facing, but we’ll come on to that later.

Now, when we type our text, using the tab key (remember, the one with 2 arrows on) will take us across to each of these tab positions that we have set up ourselves, rather than just going across by a set amount. The grey lines show how the text lines up with the tab stops we marked in the top ruler area.

All well and good, but the prices don’t line up very neatly, do they. We can get around this, and mess around with the tab positions by highlighting the text we want to affect (remember to do this! And for this stage we want to highlight all the text so we move the column heading and the prices) and double clicking on any of the Ls we placed in the ruler. This brings up the tab dialogue box. Note: although you can click on any tab marker to bring this up, it automatically moves to working on the leftmost tab setting first, not the one you clicked on. So you can see one tab stop highlighted, and the other ones listed underneath. You can see that there are options to Clear or Set tabs. Set will set a new one at whatever position you want: if you add a third one between 6 and 13, all your text in the third column will jump across to match that. Clear will delete the tab position you have highlighted in the top box.

In order to line up those prices, we need to make the third tab a Right-handed one. This means the tab marker is at the right margin or, effectively, the end of the text you want to affect. So, click on the 13 in the box to bring that up as the active tab, click on the Right alignment radio button (circle).

This will make the right hand side of the column line up: lovely tidy figures and heading! Look at the tab stop at 13. It’s now a backwards L, showing that it’s keeping everything tidy to the right, not the left.

But I think the bird names want to move over a bit. Simply highlight the text, bring up the dialogue box, highlight 6 and Clear, and click Set and add a tab stop at 3.5.

Now I fancy having a line of dots going from the name to the price. A bit odd in a list of bird prices, guaranteed, but if you want to do a quick table or a contents page (although I’ll be teaching you the proper way to do that automatically in a few weeks’ time) it works nicely and looks great. Highlight just the part that you want the dots to appear in and then double click on any of the tab stops. This time, select the 13 and choose the leader you require:

And there you go: lovely leaders between each bird name and its price. That looks tidier than scrappy columns made up of spaces and dots, now, doesn’t it!

Find my first introduction to tabs and using them to make your text nice and tidy and easy to navigate here.

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word 2010, all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

Find all the short cuts here …

Rebut something is to claim or prove to be false. It comes from an archaic sense of driving back or repelling, which gives it a subtle difference from refute.  When you rebut something, it’s a rebuttal. I prefer that word to refutation, for some reason.  Rebut comes from Anglo-Norman …

… whereas refute comes direct from the Latin. To refute is to prove a statement or the person advancing it to be wrong.  So it’s more a discussion than a direct refusal and shoving back, which is what rebut feels like to me. Refute is often used nowadays in the sense of denying a statement or accusation. However, this use is not accepted by traditionalists – it’s marked as being “disp.” (disputed) in my New Hart’s Rules, so we won’t go there!

So, two similar words, two similar concepts, two slightly different emphases or shades of meaning. This is what keeps English rich and creative and keep these pairs alive!

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

I often talk about the importance of having experience in the line of work you want to go in to before you start, and Bob’s gone one further than that, using his writing and publishing expertise to set up a service for writers like himself. I should think it would be reassuring for writers to know there’s some fellow-feeling and empathy there – I do get concerned about some of the self-publishing companies which aren’t perhaps so understanding.

So let’s say hello to Bob!

What’s your business called? When did you set it up?

My business is called YouCaxton, after William Caxton, the first English publisher (and self-publisher). The company was launched in May/June 2011.

What made you decide to set up your own business?
I’ve been interested in self-publishing for several years. Between writing for Hodder Headline, I self-published a series of short history books, Amazingly Short Histories (of Spain, France, Turkey and Greece). Spain in particular has sold very well, through Carrefour Supermarkets. I’ve also packaged (designed, edited, produced) a large number of titles for various UK national publishers so I know quite a bit about book production as well as about writing. It was while I was publishing the short histories that I became aware that there are companies out there which sell self-publishing services which are not entirely scrupulous and, as a writer myself, I know how vulnerable you are when your own work is in question. By combining my own expertise with that of my partner, Steve Edwards, I can offer expert, trustworthy help to writers wishing to self-publish their work. Our motto is: ‘by writers, for writers’.

What made you decide to go into this particular business area?

Books are unique. I have yet to come across a writer with a piece of work which they want to publish which has not been a labour of love and deeply felt. Books have been my life ever since I was a horror/fantasy commercial artist back in the 70s and 80s when I specialised in paperback covers.

Had you run your own business before?

I ran a company together with two friends called Lazy Summer Books Ltd. which was based in Oxford. This was the company which did the book packaging.

What do you wish someone had told you before you started?

Make sure you are fully up to speed with the technology. We have to learn as we go.

What would you go back and tell your newly entrepreneurial self?

Be prepared to enjoy yourself – I never expected to feel so warmly towards the writers.

What do you wish you’d done differently?

We’ve begun to specialise in memoirs and local and family histories – although we still tackle all the genres when asked to. I suspect that as a small company it might have been wise to do this straight away.

What are you glad you did?

I’m glad I met Steve. It’s a really fruitful relationship because we bring such different strengths to the business.

What’s your top business tip?

You think you’re working hard – work harder!

How has it gone since you started? Have you grown, diversified or stayed the same?

We’re taking on business steadily, which is for the best. If we grow too fast our standards will fall and we want to avoid that at all costs.

Where do you see yourself and your business in a year’s time?

I hope that we will be starting to become an established, reputable name. I’m much more concerned with quality than quantity, although we have no intention of turning business away.

This all sounds exciting and I hope we’ll see a growing business when we come back to Bob next year to see how he’s doing.

The YouCaxton website is at http://www.youcaxton.co.uk/ and you can find all the requisite contact details there.

Note: I should say that I am set up to receive a referral fee upon referral of a writer who ends up being published by YouCaxton. This hasn’t happened yet, and this is not the reason I am publishing this interview.

If you’ve enjoyed this interview, please click here for more freelancer chat, or here for information on how you can have your business featured.

But we are seeing more and more usage of they and them as a singular, to avoid clumsy uses of  he/she or him/her followed by himself/herself. Then, by extension from the him – himself or he – himself formation of the reflexive, people are starting to use themself as the reflexive. “If a child is confident, they may be able to help themself to water”.

This does seem to be sensible, and it’s something I think I’ve used myself (there’s another one!) in the past. However: no more! Because, having been asked about this via Twitter, I looked it up and found that actually themself is not regarded as “good English”. And we like good English on this blog, don’t we?

So the reflexive of singular they and them is themselves, and my above example should read: “If a child is confident, they may be able to help themselves to water”.

An easier one, I suppose, in that one is correct and one is incorrect – you don’t have to remember different usages, just not to use themself. Make that we don’t have to remember …

You can find more troublesome pairs here and the index to them all so far is here.

The idea of this series isn’t to criticise people, just to show you how to do things in a more formal way which will actually make things easier for you in the long run, particularly when you’re dealing with longer or more complicated documents.

Today we’re going to talk about using Tabs. Tabs seem to be something of a mystery, but there are easy ways to use both the tab button and tabs set in the top margin which will tidy up your document, make it easier to enter neat text in lovely columns, and reduce tension when you’re trying to line everything up.

Please note: these examples can look rather wide. I want them to be as near full-size as possible, so you can see exactly what I’m doing. If you’re looking at this post on a monitor, you should be able to scroll across to see the full image. If you’re viewing on a tablet, some of the screenshot may be cut off: hopefully you can see enough to get an idea of it, or you should be able to select the image to view it separately.

Let’s start off with using the Tab button. This is a button on your keyboard which should have two arrows on it, one facing one way and one the other. Got that? Good.

Here’s your common short cut, to start off with. You’ve got a menu you want to put on a document, with items in one column and prices in another. So you type it out, using the space bar to move along to the next column. And it looks like this:

But now you want to add another item and oh dear – it’s longer than all your other ones and puts it all out of alignment (because you’ve used the space bar to make the space between one column and the next):

How do I know you’ve used the space bar? Because I’ve used that little paragraph button on Word again which shows us all the formatting, tabs, line returns, etc.

So the way you’ve achieved this spacing is by doing this (where dots are spaces and the things like a backward P are returns):

What you should have done (my short cut) instead of using space (your short cut) was to use the tab key (remember, the one with the two arrows) to space across to a set point along the horizontal ruler at the top of the screen. These tabs are represented by arrows when you’re viewing the markup:

Now, when you want to move the prices over for all the shorter items, you just need to insert one press of the tab key at the end of each item, to get them to line up perfectly.

And here’s a last example. It’s very common to find people wanting to indent the first line of a paragraph, but using spaces to do so. This has its own issues – for example, you have to remember how many spaces you’ve put in and it’s likely that you’ll insert a different number each time, which will lead to indentations that don’t match. Instead, a simple press of the tab key at the beginning of your paragraph will leave everything nice and tidy

That’s enough for this session, I think. Of course, there are other ways you can format paragraphs and other indents, and you can set tab stops to wherever you want them to be across the page (and do all sorts of fancy kinds, too). But I’ll leave them for another post … (and I’ll link to them in this one when I publish them).

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word 2010, all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

Find all the short cuts here …