LeeCash.net Will write for food

Shall we begin?By Lee

Quite understandably, the first post on a new blog often takes the form of an introduction. This blog will be no different.

My name is Lee Cash. That’s me over to the right there looking a bit ridiculous and a few years younger than I am now. When I find a more recent photo that doesn’t portray me as either half-crazed or suspiciously portly I’ll be sure to add it to the site.

This is my new blog where I will chronicle my goal of becoming a paid writer. A bold claim you might think but, as I’m sure you’ve heard, writing online is the next big thing with publishers falling over themselves to give inexperienced new authors as much money as possible for their ramblings. If only it was that easy.

The Meta-Blog

In short: I am a writer. Or at least I’d like to think myself as one. I’ve been writing online consistently for over a year now with my work reaching a modest yet ever growing audience. The fact is, writers are a dime a dozen these days with new blogs sprouting up faster than most people can read them. I am hence under no illusion that this first post (maybe even this whole venture) could easily go unnoticed in the grand scale of Internet obscurity.

So, this is a meta-blog of sorts considering its primary goal is to unlock the conundrum of how someone who likes to write, has some knowledge to impart and also knows the difference between possessive “its” and the contraction “it’s” can break into a very exclusive club: the society of paid writers.

Why am I doing this and how did it come about? Some background. I graduated in 1999 with a degree in computers, a direction I admit is not necessarily the path most eminent writers take. Why I decided to complete a degree in this field and not a more literary qualification is a long story but, in short, it involves an encounter with an unnamed journalist when I was at a young and impressionable age. Unnamed I should add not because of some clandestine agreement we entered, never to reveal his identity. Unnamed as I simply can’t remember it.

“Journalism is very hard.”

I have always wanted to be involved with writing. But writing short stories and starting novels that I knew I had no chance of completing was all well and good. I knew my best chance was to go into journalism. Through my school it was arranged for me to meet with a very nice man from a national newspaper who I expected would pull back the curtain and decipher the mysteries of what it was like to be a writer. Looking back, I realise now that I actually recall exceptionally little from that important meeting other than the fact that the wizened and learned literary maven was friendly, informed and, unfortunately, starkly honest.

“Journalism is very hard,” he said solemnly, “What else do you like?”

I told him I liked computers which, in my precocious mind, was better than saying “I’m addicted to Sega.” He nodded, smiled and may have even given me a wink.

“Some good money in computers,” he stated, “I’d follow that dream if I was you.”

If I’m being honest, I didn’t exactly abandon my aspirations of going into journalism purely due to one possibly burnt-out journo strong-armed into meeting some 12 year old who wanted to write. There were other mitigating factors at play of which I might go into at a later date.

Fast-forward roughly ten years and I was living the “dream”, writing code and enjoying the trappings of being part of a burgeoning IT industry. To put things in context, when I was in university there was no Google. I didn’t have a cell phone. The whole social media explosion was far off in the distant future and the concept of writing online for a living was as abstract as telling someone that, in the future, you’d tell people you were about to make a cup of coffee or maybe watch some TV in 140 characters or less — and they’d follow you for the privilege.

Despite being decades old, the IT industry was going through a renaissance of sorts when I started college in 1995; a re-awakening brought on by the emergence of the Internet. Don’t get me wrong, IT is still very much challenging, interesting and captivating as we speed towards 2010. But there was just something about the 1990s that captured the imagination of droves of people as they rushed into the business head-first. And it was the nascent Internet phenomenon that fuelled this quest for knowledge, fortune and fun.

Out with the old, in with the new

My journey in IT has been a long and eventful one, a career not without its fair share of up and downs. I’ve worked with both big and small companies (including the one mentioned above, no – not Sega) and in numerous roles and diverse areas. Ultimately I ended up in Project Management, a discipline whole books have been written about in a vain attempt of unlock its esoteric concepts and practices. In truth I’ve always found it hard to explain what makes good project management as it’s somewhat of a Black Art. I’m sure I’ll mention this area again going forward.

By the summer of 2009, and with a new crossroads looming, it was apparent that I would be leaving the IT industry; at least for the short-term. After applying for a sabbatical to go travelling with my girlfriend (only for such request to be denied), I decided to partake of Plan B and applied for redundancy. With Ireland currently at the nadir of one of the worst recessions in the history of the State, my request was both begrudgingly, yet readily, accepted.

And here I am, still trying to be a writer. Still looking back at the last decade after building a life and squirrelling away some savings and thinking: is it possible to make the switch from IT professional to earning a living from blogging? And, if so, how the hell do I go about it?

Hence, this blog.

Unlike other blogs that promise to tell you how to get into writing and earn a living from the bountiful teats of the Internet, I’m not going to do that. Simply because I’ve not done it myself. I’m going to tell you what endeavours I’m partaking in to realise my dream and if it’s actually working. I’ll discuss sites like Problogger, news aggregation services like Triond and Examiner and the pitfalls of setting up AdSense accounts and registering a domain (more on that later). I’ll even engage with these services and see what works and what doesn’t. This is a learning blog and I am your eager guinea pig. If you are also trying to break into writing online I’d hazzard a guess that following me as I both make inroads and fall on my face might be helpful. If anything as a cautionary tale.

Turning Japanese

I should note that the topics on this site will be heavily influenced by what I want to write about. Sure, I might talk about Facebook acquiring FriendFeed and the implications to Twitter but, in general, this site will focus on areas that I know a lot about. For instance, I know a great deal about the gaming industry and writing for it but I won’t be posting gaming news stories here as my work elsewhere will take care of that niche.

I’ll write about what I’m passionate about. Topics such as the Japanese language and how to keep fit as you enter your thirties and when your body starts to rebel against your better judgment. It’s my firm belief that people who spend endless hours at a desk should counter such behaviour by being active and getting their asses to the gym/engaging in equally energetic endeavours. The stereotype of geeks being unfit is just that – a stereotype, and something we should not be perpetuating.

Finally, and I’m well aware I’ve already broken the primary rule of blogging and making this far too long, this venture has been inspired in part by the following from relatively new blogger Josh Hanagarne who, in a guest post over at Problogger, mentioned something that really connected with me. Josh comments that one of his readers has stated that he or she enjoys Josh’s work, not necessarily because of the topics he writes on, but because Josh wrote them.

It’s my goal to have readers just like that.

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