The Benefits of Being a Writer

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Every job has its perks, like free food, a nice view, or the opportunity to drive nice cars.  Being a writer is generally a lonely and hard job, but there are numerous benefits that are often overlooked.  Here are some of them:

1) Staring out the window is part of the job description.

There might be some people who would object to this, but it’s true in the strictest sense.

2) If you zone out during a conversation, you have a valid excuse.

“Are you listening to me?”

“Oh, uh, sorry, I was working.”

3) You’re a good liar.

Maybe not always a benefit, but studies have shown that creative people lie more often and much better.

4) Verbal battles are easily won.

You have a bigger vocabulary and a way with words.  Who can really beat you?  You’re basically bringing a bazooka to a twig fight in most cases.

“That’s story’s about as likely as Twinkie-trees blowing with the artic wind in Kentucky.”

5) If there’s someone you don’t like, you can make him a redshirt in your story.

There are actual legal repercussions for basing characters on people though, so make it recognisable only to you.

6) If the real world gets too much, you can just think up another one.

Hamlet said, “To be, or not to be.”  But he forgot to add, “or to be somewhere else”.

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Quotation of the Week

Every week, I’ll put up a quotation related to writing or creation and tell you a little bit about the person who said it.  I’ll try to vary the speakers as much as possible.

‎"I blame myself for not often enough seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. Somewhere in his journals, Dostoyevsky remarks that a writer can begin anywhere, at the most commonplace thing, scratch around in it long enough, pry and dig away long enough, and lo!, soon he will hit upon the marvellous." - Saul Bellow

Bellow, a Canadian-born Jewish American, was awarded the Pulitzer, Nobel Prize for Literature and the National Medal of Arts for his literature.  His best-known works include Henderson the Rain King, Seize the Day, and Ravelstein.  He often quoted and referenced to Marcel Proust and Henry James in his work.

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The If Sentence

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If you have done any programming whatsoever, you should have the basic knowledge of the if sentence, possibly the single most important command that a computer possesses.  If you don’t know it, fear not, for I am here to enlighten you.

First, some theory.  The basis of AI is essentially if sentences (okay, it’s not nearly that simple, but it’s an important building block).  If this situation happens, react in this manner.  Therefore, knowing the if sentence will enable basic AI.

The basic syntax for an if sentence is : if <the condition> = <the result> then <command>

Now, an example.  Say you’re writing in Quick Basic (the only language I know deeply).  You are told to write a program in which a name and password is checked, a basic version would be this (everything after //s is comments by me and would not be read by the program):

Print “Please input your name and then your password:” //this puts the text in the quotes on the screen

input name$  //This is simply a command that prompts the user to type something and then records the letters in the variable name$

input password$ //same as above

if name$ = “Jake” and password$ = “ender” then print “You gave the correct name and password!”  // this checks whether the variable name$ contains the text “Jake” and if at the same time password$ contains “ender”.  When both these are true, the command print “…” is performed.

And that’s that!

There are more advanced things like “else” and nested ifs, but that’s for later.

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