I talked about jobs and J has mentioned that he is looking. Here are some resources for writers who need jobs. You can get some good documentation specialist, copy editor, or even full time jobs from these sources.
A great list of freelance jobs sites is at: Monster list of Freelance Jobs
The classic job boards at McMurry.com have moved around and I couldn’t find them right away. I finally found the list of boards at http://www.mcmurry.com/ right on the home page. McMurray.com is one of those well kept secrets in finding writing jobs. I can even remember finding a Science Fiction editorial assistant job on McMurry when I was helping a friend a few years ago.
Of course there is always Craigslist.org, but around here the jobs are snatched up before they appear on the list. I check Guru.com and elance.com regularly and they have lots of writing style jobs, but most of the jobs I look at on these sites are low pay.
When anyone asks me how to get a job, I tell them take a course at the local community college or educational extension in Macromedia Flash. Flash is easy to learn, requires some artistic sensibility and is very hot right now. Traditional programmers, like me, don’t have time for flash, because it is not really a programming language, but many new jobs, especially local jobs, are flash jobs. Flash is not so much a programming tool as a graphics package. It feels like using a paint program in the beginning and then you learn how to animate things. Then you learn how to make menus and create actions based on clicks. Eventually, you can get sucked into controlling the display with a simple script language, darn near programming. Flash is addictive. Best of all, flash programmers often work at home.
I am of the opinion that many writing jobs in the future will really be human interface design jobs. Writing is turning into a web publishing job where you design not only the words, but the way the words appear. I think flash is one of the great new human interface tools. It goes beyond html and adds motion, sound, and other new methods for interacting with content.
2 Comments
I heard that flash also eats up hoards of web space. Is this true?
Flash is media based. It embeds images,sound and video, so if you have a big flash file with lots of sound and video, yes it takes up bandwidth.
On the other hand, flash does a great job at compressing things. I am always surprised at how small a flash file is, even with all sorts of stuff crammed into it. Also in flash, you can load up part of it in the background while another part is displayed, so it runs smoothly without waiting.
Flash is like anything else. If you know what you are doing, it works. A bad flash developer will create memory hogs that take forever to load. A good flash developer will make lean mean flash apps that load and run like lightning.