Have you seen Ready Player One? In a not-too-distant future, the film depicts humanity spending most of its time in a virtual world called the Oasis. Built by fictional software genius James Halliday, the Oasis becomes a refuge for the world’s population in the face of grim living conditions in the real world due to a breakdown in geopolitics and overpopulation. In this VR world, you can be anyone or anything you want, go anywhere you like, and live out your fantasies. It’s like Second Life on steroids.

Modern smartphones have a host of software tricks to make photos look better, plus cameras in some models that are as good as dedicated digital cameras. Almost everybody has a good quality camera in their pocket at all times now. But, as the saying goes, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The technology takes care of a lot of things, like exposure, colour and effects processing, but it does not (yet) point the camera in the right place and compose a scene for you.

The current record for fastest rapper is held by Spanish rapper Chojin, who rapped 921 syllables in one minute on December 23, 2008. It’s an impressive feat, but the only trouble is that at that speed he is totally unintelligible. Good rap isn’t about speed but about rhythm and good enunciation. It’s a shame to write or improvise lots of words and garble them out so that nobody knows what you’ve said. When you’re a professional wordsmith, it’s best not to waste your words.

Many of us have dreamed about a simple and wholesome life making something at home with our own hands and selling it to make a living.

That’s cool when you’re selling samples of your handiwork to friends and family, but how will you fare on the open market with real customers making real buying decisions? They have the power to buy whatever they need from Amazon with a few clicks, and will generally only buy things with lots of five star reviews.

The world always needs new songs. They put a spring in our step as we hear them on the radio, help us reflect on painful experience and offer new angles on love, sex and death. As an important part of what makes us human, songs are always going to be valid cultural currency. And there will always be a need for people who write good ones.

Writing is lonely and bad for your back, but it’s also a thrilling adventure of self-discovery and a potential money spinner. Those who feel driven to write will write regardless of what anyone says – but many a desk drawer is full of manuscripts that never see the light of day. Furthermore, writing can be a very slow process if most of the time is spent staring out of the window waiting for inspiration to strike.