Word Processing Software?

Yeah, most PC's these days come bundled with Word, so most people will inherently write in word, and for those few who prefer long hand, god bless you, and putting it all into a word processor after you're done. But while we know that Word isn't the only thing out there, most of us don't even bother to look for substitutes or programmes that are better, more user friendly, and suit our own needs.

For me. I use a combination of two word processors, one is Apple's iWork Suite Pages. I find it just as good as MS Word, if not superior to it in almost every way. I like it's intuitiveness and ease, however the one thing that it really does do for me is the right click speech function. When I write something I like to hear it read back to me, for some reason it makes it more real. In fact I would say that the only thing which MS Word does better is the thesaurus function, which in MS Word is built into the Word Processor. In Pages, you right click the work and then chose "Writing Tools" and then "Look up in Dictionary and Thesaurus" which is a bit mundane; but if you're verbose enough not to require the need of a Thesaurus, or use it sporadically I can't really see any reason to use MS Word over Pages (Lack of Mac ownership and Compatibility issues aside)

And speaking of compatibility Pages, does save in .doc format, so no biggy, but expect the borders to be shifted a bit here and there, but MS does the same with conversion from .docx to .doc anyway.

Now as for the post - enough of my plugging the Malus domestica products, let's get to the nit and grit here. If you have an Apple, stick with pages, and use MS Word on occasion for formatting to .doc if you need to. If you have a PC and are writing on Word, step out of the cave that is a MSFT product and look around at some of the alternatives.

A comprehensive Word Processor Reviews and a lot of them - Full Word Processor Review

Personally I found this to be the best review that I found on the net. There were a few others comparing MS Office, Open Office, and Word Perfect, but they just weren't so in depth and didn't cover the additional products. Another thing that I found interesting was a program for journalists and newspaper editors which can be found here - Newspaper Word Processor. I'd recommend trying it out if you're in that field as it really looks to be geared towards that market, and hey, there's a free trial.

In any case, hope it helps and more stuff should be coming soon. Been busy with the rest of it all.

Cheerios,

How do I become a writer?

By taking a piece of paper, a pen, and writing. That by itself makes you a writer. Or as it may be in today’s day and age, sitting down at a computer, opening up a word processing program and blurting out whatever it is that you want to blurt out. If you’ve done either of these, congratulations, you are a (drumroll) writer. Whether your writing is any good, that is still left to interpretation, but at least you’ve passed the first step.

While being a writer is for the most part an easy endeavor, there are some thing that you can do to improve your skills and abilities. Writing, like anything requires practice. Unless you’re one of the select few who can simply sit down and blurt out the literary equivalent to “Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man” you will most likely need to keep at it. My strategy with this is to write on a daily basis. Whether I’m feeling inspired or not. One day what I put down could be good, the other nonsensical rubbish, nonetheless, this daily activity has helped me drastically improve not only my writing style, but has also allowed me to isolate my weaknesses and work on improving them.

Consider, this to be like going to the gym. On day one, you wont be able bench press the biggest largest weight available, but with time and training, those weights, while static, will seem relatively lighter to you. For the basis of this here website / blog what have you, let’s call it your writing muscle.

Next up. Start simple. Whether you want to be an author, a playwright, or a journalist, taking on a book, a play, or a feature as a first project is probably more than you can handle at the moment. Start out with shorts, simple pieces and when you think you’ve mastered them, move on to larger projects. It’s also quite all right to go back to shorter pieces while you’re working on a larger project. For example, I am working on my first book, and at times, I just don’t feel like continuing the story, in these instances, I’ll write a short, or a small piece, or start a website like this one to clear my head. When I sit down to work on the larger project again, I find myself rejuvenated and the words flow clearly onto the page.

Finally, don’t rush it. Career aside, write at your own pace, you’re supposed to get as much enjoyment out of this possible. You’ll see that the quality of your work is much better, and people will find your work much more pleasurable to read. And when you finish a short story, or a piece, be proud of yourself, one way or another it is an accomplishment.

I want to be a writer?

Assuming that you are here reading this, I can only take it that somewhere the thought of writing for a living crossed your mind. If it did, welcome, if not read on anyway, what’s written here may help you anyway.

As a somewhat of a start up writer myself, I thought I’d document my process here from simple unemployed fool, albeit well educated fool, to what hopefully will be a career as a ‘paid writer’. That being said, on to the grit.

Why writing? Well, it’s passion, it’s enjoyment, its a way to express oneself, create worlds, pass on information, come up with theory what have you. Writing, is I believe to be one of humanity’s greatest achievements, the transfer of idea or thought by putting it down on a piece of paper and allowing someone else to read that idea or thought and perceive it in their own way. But more so than anything else, I would say it’s just plain ‘ol fun.