About Pico Triano

My freelance writing began more than a decade ago and at this point I'm looking to transition into independent self-employment. I have a regular job right now that pays the bills, but it is a means to an end.

So who am I as a writer?

My writing is in some ways an outgrowth of my public speaking training and natural storytelling ability. Much of my writing is casual conversational in style and reflects the way I speak. Several readers who know me personally have commented that they read my work in my voice. A good look at my work to date will demonstrate that I am able to write beyond any limits that might imply.

I started out writing for sites like myLot, Bubblews, and Chatabout and made a little money with discussion, short stories and articles. I made a lot of writing friends and connections which I value a lot. I still visit myLot as I have time.

From there I worked a real online job with Kickstart Your Forums for two years. It provided some fun money on the side and was enjoyable work. Better yet, I was really good at it. I would do it again in a minute. The only part I didn't like was the mad scramble for job slots. Watching for job posting alerts 24/7 and being able to respond within minutes is not something I can manage within my other obligations. The end result of that is that most of the prime work passed me by. Someone always seemed to grab the job slots before I even saw the posting. Very frustrating when I had plenty of time to perform the actual work. Working for clients directly would avoid that altogether.

An important event in my writing career was being introduced to writing.com (WDC). The peer review has been invaluable. Becoming active on that site has led to a great deal of growth as a writer. First of all the help, I got from other writers led almost directly to the publishing of my first novel. I am a resident author with Inknbeans Press. On the site, I earned a long list of mentions on their former reviewer hall of fame. As a result, I have a great deal of experience writing reviews for the work of other authors, products, and websites.

Toward the end of 2013, I founded an online cycling magazine called Pico's Cycling – Tales of the Road. It was built on the free blogger account and published monthly. Most of the writing on the site is my own. There were regular contributions from one other writer and a few articles submitted by others. The site was shut down temporarily last year. I am currently working toward relaunching the site sometime this spring. The biggest issue for me was a lack of personal material. I will be writing more interview articles there in the future. The format worked well and even with my minimal promotional skill, the site peaked at better than two thousand page views per month. I'm confident that after relaunch it will do considerably better than that.

I post regularly on two of my own blogs: From Pico's Pen (my author's blog) and Pico's Writing Practice where I write whatever I feel like.

Francine's Brushes & Pencils is a regular client of mine. She is an artist and is bilingual French/English. While she speaks English very well, she has difficulty writing. I ghostwrite all the material on her site. We discuss what she wants to add to her site and I do any of the writing that needs to be done. This is a good example of the type of work I'm prepared to do for clients on a regular basis.

Additional Writing Experience

As an HR assistant with Autoglobale, I wrote regular memos and reports as needed.
Also with Autoglobale, I put together the monthly company newsletter.
As the media relations coordinator with the Ontario Heart and Stroke Foundation I also wrote memos and reports as well as press packages and releases.
At Sims Cabdepot, I wrote all the promotional material for their Universal Cab back then. This material was distributed to virtually all the tractor and equipment dealers in North America.

Outside of Writing

I've spent significant time living in different parts of Canada. I grew up in Ontario, married a French-Canadian girl, moved to Quebec and currently live in New Brunswick. Along the way, I've worked a lot of different jobs. I earned my Liberal Arts Bachelor's degree in Southern California working my way through school as a landscaper. These experiences allow me a great deal of versatility as a writer. I do have experience/expertise in a number of areas. I have more than a decade of professional experience as a woodworker as well as a customer service representative in various call centres. A disparate collection of skills to be sure but as a writer, I consider everything valuable.

Right now I live with my family of seven in a hunt camp I built on the edge of civilization. We are literally the last stop on the electrical grid and nine spans short of the land line phone system. The snowplow only comes within half a kilometer and the mailbox is three kilometers away. I think it gives me a unique perspective.