Writer's Advantage No. 4: Writing for Self-Interest or Fun

With Easter safely behind us, it's time for another writer's advantage blog, which should be no. 4. One major advantage of being a writer is that you get to write about topics that are fun, feed a personal interest, or both. This happens more often if a writer has established him- or herself and can pick and choose the topics.

Or, for writers just starting out, if they combine blogs and commercial writing, they'll get to write about what they like while also keeping economic interests in mind. Down the road, the quantitiy and quality of fun posts should lead to more that are also commercially attractive.

That's not to say that commercial writing cannot be fun, it often is, yet follows more stringent guidelines.

Recently, I've researched a few environmental topics that were fun and educational:

1. Rice terraces in South Asia and China - amazing, millenia old landscape art (see picture)

2. Ice diving - a popular extreme sport that's gaining ground

3. Lava lakes - bubbling cauldrons of hot lava at the top of volcanoes

4. The Russian Antarctic station - stunning picture of an amazing landscape

Happy reading!

P.S. There is a drawback when writing purely for one - it is very easy to get carried away and stray from the topic.