A good memory, P.F. Yes, I auditioned a dozen potentials for the food columnist gig, and found one posting intelligible English and remarkable thinking on a food blog generally full of hot air and unsubstantiated opinion. Psssst, I says. Wanna tax-deduct your MAC knives and Robot Coupe? Your every meal? Have I got a deal for you.
He’s been at it a year, now. And keeps getting better. Six 1500-word columns a year, for what he’d make working half-time at McDonalds, before taxes.
Sorry Michael old sport. Didn’t see your response when I posted earlier.
Well, this whole ‘inevitability of death’ things is not actually scientifically proven.
You know, sometimes I think you people don’t get when I’m being flippant.
Must be rewarding when you can help an emerging talent develop like that! Good for you!
They’re pretty good for photo editing. Get a DSLR, shoot in RAW, and install Adobe Lightroom.
It’s an editor’s job description. Anne Frank and Julia Child are both icons today, for very different reasons, thanks to Judith Jones at Knopf. Every working writer today is a working writer because some editor plucked her from the slush pile or saw his writing in some obscure outlet and encouraged them to stretch.
If writing satisfies you and you enjoy it then what price do you put on that?
A week vacation that you may enjoy could cost thousands of dollars yet people do it all the time.
You might have a vice or a hobby that you could invest tens of thousands in over time yet people do it all the time.
What I am saying is do not look at this as an investment for profit. (Will anyone buy?).
Instead look at this as an enjoyment that may eventually pay for itself. After all most people write for the enjoyment, the money for selling that work is just added bonus.
Artists are artists. If you buy a laptop to write with and you enjoy writing then the value is already obtained, even before you print off your first piece of work.
“I would rather regret something I have done than regret never having the courage to try it.”
Right on, Wock!
What fun things can you do with a Mac Pro?
Well, the entire Internet is laid out before you, for better or worse.
Write, make visual art, make music, make video.
Program anything from a short checklist application for your own use to a robot. (Or, say, Scrivener.)
Attack any technological problem that catches your eye, from central African crop yields to the heritability of intelligence.
Play games, of your own or someone else’s creation.
A Mac Pro, like any powerful tool, is limited only by your imagination.
OTOH, the same is true of a PC. There are many things that one or the other platform does better, but very few things that either platform can’t do at all.
Katherine
PS They probably won’t buy. Or at least not soon enough or in large enough numbers to repay the cost of the computer before it’s obsolete. if knowing that deters you from writing, you probably weren’t cut out for it anyway.
You know, I ask myself that same question from time to time. I’ve just begun writing after my creative career has probably come to an end and I wonder. To a certain point. That manner of thinking clouds the issue, being, I have to be creative; otherwise I’m going to go nutso. Technical term. But so what if I don’t sell anything? Sure, I’d like to be raking in heaps of money while I’m still in a position to benefit from it, and maybe the stuff that I’ve been cranking out will be worth something after I’m dead and gone. Maybe my widow can do something with it, be able to afford an old age home where the attendants don’t let her stew in her juices for days. That would be nice.
Or, maybe it won’t be of interest to anyone but kinsmen; who knows. I’ll give it a whirl anyway.
Cheers!
The issue here is - is this really why you bought it ? Is earning money the only reason for buying it ? If so then it a very high risk investment. And I mean very very high.
If however you actually enjoy the process of writing, and making stuff up in your head and weaving a story … then you have to ask yourself how much you value that pleasure ? This is my own personal view. I am writing my first book and I enjoy the process. It’s hard … it’s hard to stay at it. And it’s quite complex. But for the money, and the hours I get from it … it is exceptional value.
And when you’re done, don’t go to the ghastly old legacy publishers to ask them to publish you. Go and publish yourself via an eBook, like thousands of others nowadays including many established writers.