If you're planning to take the web design industry by storm with your first book, or to hit the ezine headlines by writing for web design magazines, let me just inform you of something you've perhaps underestimated as I did. Professional writing is hard, hard work.
Sadly I cannot speak to you as a book author because I'm not one. However I've written for magazines, and if you're like me (and if you're seriously considering writing then you probably are) be warned; it's not worth the cash they give you.
You pretty much live the job for the months you're writing, mostly because you want to get it not just right, but perfect. However no matter how hard you try there's always one little mistake that slips the net. Here's my blooper of the month to enjoy as I speak of object detection in JavaScript:
You can also test to see if certain elements exist within the flow of a document. Say you wish to write a script to interact with rows in a table - you'd want to see if such elements exist before attempting to interact with them:
if(!document.getElementById('tr')) { return false; }Steve Tucker in .net Magazine, May 07
Of course this is totally wrong. The final example should use 'getElementsByTagName'. However you find yourself chopping and changing your own article so much throughout the writing process that you end up with old bits here and there that you fail to spot, no matter how many times you proof read.
I will however finish on this positive note; if you do finally do take the leap it is definitely worth it, not for the cash but just to think 'I've done it', and for the knowledge that you've done your bit helping people like yourself to learn new things. Despite the mistakes I wouldn't have traded these experiences for the world.
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- On 26th April 2007 Owen said:
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Asking a friend or colleague with a good knowledge of grammar is always worth while, but as you have pointed out here Steve, you would need to find one who also has a knowledge of JavaScript.
Perhaps over time you'll be writing articles with ease and the money will become worth it with experience (if you get me).
Hey, at least they're good articles mate :) - On 26th April 2007 J Phill said:
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One thing that is extremely important for writers, is know the different between writing for the web, and writing for print.
It's a big difference. I can't speak on writing for print because I'm not trained in that sense, but I do know how to write for the web. I <a href="http://www.jwphill3.com/2006/06/18/writing-for-our-web/">wrote about it</a> awhile back. - On 26th April 2007 Steve Tucker said:
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@Owen; this is the problem; I don't have anyone to proof read them technically, and I can't really release them on the net else there'd be no point in printing them!
@John: You're very right. There are advantages of both really, and they're both hard work!
Incidentally thanks for sparking the idea. I've now allowed links in comments. Seeing as I'm no longer victim to spam all the time I figured it wouldn't hurt :) - On 29th April 2007 Dustin said:
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I just started my blog afresh and this time around, now that i have some blogging experience, I'm writing for myself. Instead of focusing on gaming alone, I'm gonna focus on life and that should hopefully provide enough entertaining material :)
- On 8th May 2007 P.J. Onori said:
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Yeah, great article Steve. Basically, you have to just be prepared to get nailed on something for every article you write. This happened to me constantly when I first began writing - now it happens much less often because everyone stopped reading. ;)
- On 20th May 2007 Steve Tucker said:
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@PJ: Ha! :D Never thought of doing that...
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