… and how to put them right! Advice and opportunities for new, aspiring and upcoming journalists and writers of non-fiction
If we pitch an idea to an editor and no commission results then clearly it was a rubbish idea and we should give up on it. If we do get the commission, then once we’ve gloated over seeing our name in print and spent the fee, that’s the end of that. I made both of …
I read a tweet last week, on the day of the Wikipedia blackout, by a writer pointing out that journalists might have to actually spend the day doing some proper in-depth research – for a change! – rather than click into the collaborative online people’s encyclopedia and trusting the information they found there. It was …
I was asked this when my book on coeliac disease (or gluten intolerance) came out, by a potential reader who had the condition. She seemed offended, almost, that someone who wasn’t a coeliac sufferer, or a nutritionist, or a gastroenterologist, or a doctor or medic of any kind, and not even, say, a caterer with …
Disclaimers to start: I don’t much like to travel, I don’t much like to hear about people’s travels, I don’t write about travel (two published travel articles in a fifteen-year career, if you want the figures), and, although I do enjoy a beautifully crafted and fascinating travel article when I stumble across one, I’m fairly …
There are a lot of perfectly competent but otherwise fairly unremarkable writers earning a decent living from words. There are a few poor writers getting by as well. If you’re scratching your head, unconvinced, thinking that you rarely see average or poor writing in print, I have to declare a possible unfair advantage over you …
Writing Magazine is a bloody good read these days, and with the 2-in-1 merge with Writers’ News, editor Jonathan Telfer has done a terrific job in freshening up the formula. There are lots of new writers with new ideas and I really like it. I advise all my students to read it, as well as …
I’m guilty of this. I’ll know it’s time for another mistake-writers-make, but I’ll dither about which one to cover. There are dozens in my ideas file, so you’d think it would be easy. But no, that one’s not quite right yet, that one’s a bit advanced, I’m saving that one for the 100th… there’s always …
Namely, one of these: * The Origins of Halloween / Valentine’s Day / Guy Fawkes’ etc; * The History of Tea / Coffee; * My Intelligent Dog (and why he is the best); * My Dead Cat (and why he was hilarious); * Why I’ve Decided to Become a Writer; * My Interesting Family Tree; …
If one more new writer tells me he has twenty hours a week to spare to write but “I don’t have the time to read!” I may ask to be shut away somewhere dark for a bit to wail until rescued. Any naughty middle-aged ladies out there want to stroke me, pick me up – …
Over time I’ve come to realise that when new writers study a market, and its regular slots and sections, with a view to perhaps coming up with an idea to propose or writing a piece speculatively, they are naturally drawn to potential openings which look, well, a bit ‘easy’ to fill. There’s nothing wrong with …
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