Beating writer's block

Many years ago, when I was writing freelance articles for several magazines, including the old Modern Motor, Modern Boating and others in the same stable, I used to hammer away on an old typewriter.

Writers block? I had it frequently. So I developed the habit of just typing anything about the subject in hand. I simply typed a single paragraph on an A5 sheet of copy paper. Then another . . . and another . . . and so on!

When all my ideas were exhausted I would stop, read the pages through, put them in the right order, fill in the gaps [it was easy at this stage], write an intro paragraph and any others necessary, add photos and captions, shove the whole lot in an envelope and send them off. Another deadline met!

Then I read that Olivetti had brought out a computerized gizmo called a word processor. I read how it was simple to rearrange words, or even whole paragraphs, on a small screen and then print everything out when it was finished to your satisfaction. I was enthralled. Couldn't get one though - they were, from memory, about $16,000 each.

At that stage, PCs had not been invented, but as far back as 1983, word processors were taking the office world by storm. I ended up getting a monster called a Jacquard J500. Would you believe it took two people to lift it, and four people struggled to move its 20 megabyte (yes, megabyte!) hard drive unit. Yet word processing was everything I anticipated. I thought all my Christmases had come at once

After that, personal computers appeared and started to re-invent the world. Since then I have been through the whole range, from 8086 processors to 286, 386, 486 and today’s Pentiums, with the software getting more and more sophisticated. It has been an exciting trip.

Software like Word, Excel, Publisher, PowerPoint, better, lighter and faster computers and, of course, the internet are all a huge advantage in today's office environment. They are all excellent, necessary business aids, all capable of doing much more than we usually need, solving production problems that we often don't know exist until we see the answer to them.

Yet from a writer's viewpoint - and I stress, a writer's viewpoint, the latest word processors don't offer any more advantages than some of the originals. If all you want to do is write, you really only need an old 486 notebook and one of the original versions of Microsoft Word.

I guess my concept of word processing is pretty basic. It helps me beat the dreaded writer's block by putting anything down, in any order, then moving paragraphs around with ease and without paper. The latest version of Word does that admirably - but so did the first version, as did the software on my old, original chugger - the Jacquard J500 in 1983.

Increasing your skills with ease

The thirst for knowledge is insatiable, with e-learning now in the forefront. With the proliferation of notebook PCs and wireless, high speed broadband, online access has never been easier.

But as in any burgeoning industry and following the history of the introduction of PCs around about 20 years ago, prices are still in an establishment phase, with some course providers over-valuing their products and many suppliers of mainstream software failing to recognise just how much their clients need to be taught about the best way to get top results from their products.

With this in mind, you need to know about our latest Web site. It's called SkillsBuilders and it's all about passing on to you an opportunity I came across over a year ago.

Needing at that time to upgrade my skills in MySQL and PHP, I searched the web thoroughly for an e-learning course that would get me up to speed. I signed up for the MindLeaders course on these subjects.

The course so impressed me with the results I gained and its ease of use that I decided to tell everyone I could about MindLeaders. I figured that if I could get such great results with such little effort, then everyone else in my locality - that's Australia and New Zealand - should be made aware of its existence so they too could benefit. In fact, why just those in my patch? Something as good as this is for the whole world. So SkillsBuilders was born.

With over 28 years experience MindLeaders is an established leader in training and employee development. Its catalogue of over 4,000 courses has been used to effectively train nearly 20 million people worldwide! That's no small record, but let's look at the smaller picture. After all, my decision to link with MindLeaders was influenced partially by those impressive figures, but even more by personal experience in using its courses, finding them easy to use and understand and undeniable value for money!

If you work in an office - or want to work in an office - and feel the need to better yourself in any way, take a look at SkillsBuilders . For very little money (and I mean very little) you can start building your skills and improving your life, right now!