Writing for trade publications

I'm still feeling pretty wonky, but at least I'm finally getting a little work done.

I found an interesting thread on writing for trade publications. There have been other threads over at the Absolute Write Water Cooler that have been discussing how hard it is to make good money writing articles. One problem is that there is a lot of competition for consumer magazines. Trade publications have less (much less!) competition and pay very well. You don't necessarily need to be an expert in the field; the thread gives some good examples of non-expert articles. It's definitely something I'll have to look in to.

My best long-term bet is to get the technical writing part of my career going. Right now I'm focussing on getting my website going. I'm getting bogged down in design, which is not what I should be focussing on. I should get a simple design from some place like Open Source Web Design or Open Web Design and focus on the copy rather than the appearance. I can always tweak it later. It's a classic writer problem: anything to avoid the blank page.