Academic writing is one of the most demanding tasks that all academics and researchers face. In some disciplines there is guidance on what is needed to be productive, successful writers; but in other disciplines there is no training, support or mentoring of any kind. This book helps those in both groups not only to improve their writing skills and strategies, but, equally importantly, to find satisfaction in engaging in regular and productive writing.

This exciting book takes you through all aspects of what it takes to be a professional writer in the publishing and media industries today.
Like all jobs, the role of the writer has evolved over recent years. Technology has made things quicker and easier, royalty payments have changed (mostly downwards) and the potential markets in which writers in every genre can sell their work have exploded exponentially in number. Now is a good time to be a writer and the professionals who are already out there are reaping the benefits of the new opportunities. It's a highly competitive industry to break into, but that's no reason not to give it a try. There will always be a hunger for new literary voices, new ideas and new talents.

In an unnamed city in an unnamed country, a man sitting in his car waiting for a traffic light to change is suddenly struck blind. But instead of being plunged into darkness, this man sees everything white, as if he "were caught in a mist or had fallen into a milky sea." A Good Samaritan offers to drive him home (and later steals his car); his wife takes him by taxi to a nearby eye clinic where they are ushered past other patients into the doctor's office. Within a day the man's wife, the taxi driver, the doctor and his patients, and the car thief have all succumbed to blindness. As the epidemic spreads, the government panics and begins quarantining victims in an abandoned mental asylum--guarded by soldiers with orders to shoot anyone who tries to escape. So begins Portuguese author Josй Saramago's gripping story of humanity under siege, written with a dearth of paragraphs, limited punctuation, and embedded dialogue minus either quotation marks or attribution. At first this may seem challenging, but the style actually contributes to the narrative's building tension, and to the reader's involvement.

In this community of blind people there is still one set of functioning eyes: the doctor's wife has affected blindness in order to accompany her husband to the asylum. As the number of victims grows and the asylum becomes overcrowded, systems begin to break down: toilets back up, food deliveries become sporadic; there is no medical treatment for the sick and no proper way to bury the dead. Inevitably, social conventions begin to crumble as well, with one group of blind inmates taking control of the dwindling food supply and using it to exploit the others. Through it all, the doctor's wife does her best to protect her little band of blind charges, eventually leading them out of the hospital and back into the horribly changed landscape of the city.