The Qwertyrash Blogs

Last night I had the pleasure of hearing an author, the excellent Archie Fusillo, speak. Afterwards while chatting, someone was discussing the dominance of women in the writing and publishing industry. The question was asked why?

I suggested because “Writer is not a real job.”

Men still are focussed on being the main provider. Whether instinctively, out of habit or simply sexism, it is still the case. Making a career in writing - or any of the arts - is pushing the proverbial uphill. It’s much easier and more profitable to go become a doctor, lawyer, engineer, electrician, mechanic, businessman etc.

Writer is a real job of course, but it is a long, long road for most to the point where you can do it exclusively. Until that time, you or your partner will need a “real job”.

But if you’re a guy - or a girl - and you want to be a writer, don’t give up on it just because it can’t yet meet your financial responsibilities. It can take years. Stephen King and JK Rowling were not overnight successes. There were many years of writing behind their first success.

And by the way, blogging is writing. It can take a while to become profitable too.
(more…)

I’m back from a few days holiday at the beach and I’ve got to tell you about my new watch. It’s magical.

I haven’t worked out how to harness its magical powers, but when I do, look out!

Peter Wright, an accomplished author who has been writing about Microsoft technologies since Visual Basic 3 (including some best selling Visual Basic books), recently decided to drop Microsoft completely and switch to Macintosh and Ruby on Rails. In this blog posts he details the circumstances that led to his decision.
This is one of the best […]

One user gives a nice run down of the value of using a Mac for making music.
“After years of putting it off, I finally succumbed to the world of Apple and bought myself a new MacBook. Two months after buying it I feel it is time to give my fellow musicians the heads up on […]

Computers are distraction devices. I don’t know about you, but at any one time, I can have more than 20 applications running. These include: two email programs; an RSS newsreader; one or two browsers; Word; an image editor; and a slew of other apps.

What this means is not that my computer runs slow - I have 1GB of memory so most times it’s fine - but that each of those programs is a potential distraction - especially the ones that talk to the internet.

For any writers out there, you’ve probably grappled with this one. I mean, unless you can type at about 60 words a minute, writing longhand is the quickest way to get your thoughts down on paper.Only problem is…

A provocative thought for you: Good writers aren’t necessarily good story tellers.

A key copmponent of the writing course I am studying is grammar.At the start of the year I was happy. I knew what I knew and didn’t know what I didn’t know.Now I’m confused because now I still know what I know, I know more than I used to know but the big problem is now I know what I don’t know.

Just read this excellent quote by Kate Grenville in her book for aspiring writers, The Writing Book:The world has enough books and writers already, so unless you find writing satisfying you might as well do something else.The same applies to blogging.

Was reading this report on the days proceedings in the cricket between Sri LanThat is stumps on day 3…. A world record partnership of 624 runs between Jayawardene and Sangakkara, they broke the record when they reached 577.