Category Archives: Writing

“Send” Fear

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I’ve typed an email. I’ve proof-read it. Attachments are attached. I have made doubly and triply sure that I don’t look like an arse in some way. Here we go: I’m about to click SEND.

Then something happens; a momentary hesitation. And in the pause, two little words pop into my head. What if…?

Oh god. It’s the Send Fear. The unspecified dread. Once that email is gone, there’s No Getting It Back, no matter what the consequences. Not even if – gasp! – it contains a grammatical error.

I check it again and again, convinced that I’ve missed something, or that I’ve accidentally typed the word “PENIS” fifty times in the middle paragraph without noticing. Eventually, I tell myself I’m being ridiculous, grit my teeth, shut my eyes and click SEND. The moment it’s gone, I’m okay again.

I’m not crazy.

Guest Blogging: Spec Work for Writers & Content Creators?

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I’ve always advocated guest blogging, but lately it’s leaving a bad taste in my mouth

Guest blogging - spec work for writers?

As a freelancer, married to another freelancer (a web designer), I’ve been a staunch supporter of the NoSpec campaign. The recent tendency of successful, lucrative companies to crowdsource cheap or free labour from the web is a worrying one – and one that, I am certain, results in three things: an exploitation of new talent that deserves ample payment for its input, an overall decline in the quality of work that should be top-drawer, and a devaluation of truly excellent creative work.

A lot has been said on both sides of the debate about design spec work (just do a Google search for “spec work” if you want some entertaining reading) but, this week, I’ve been pondering on the implication of this phenomenon for writers and content creators. I willingly offer free content to a handful of small, local businesses and, up until a few months ago, I merrily recommended that all our clients used guest blogging as a means to increase their readership and diversify their content. Lately, though, I’m starting to question the value of certain types of guest blogging.

A familiar shout goes out on Twitter: “Any bloggers want to share their experiences and guest on our blog?” When questioned, it transpires there’s no payment being offered here; just a chance for some exposure to a different audience and a new set of followers. The problem is, this isn’t just another amateur blog site. It’s a commercial site that happens to include a blog, and they’re asking for talented writers to offer their work for free. While the company argues that it’s a fair deal because they’ll guest blog in return for no payment, the phrase “Don’t do me no favours,” springs to mind. It’s not a fair exchange if you’re using free labour for financial gain, unless you’re offering a portion of that financial gain in return, surely?

This is just one example of a growing trend. It stems from this idea that, in a creative discipline – whether that’s writing, music, art, design, acting, whatever – you have to give your best work for free in order to gain the exposure you need to become successful. But I simply don’t believe that’s true and, even if it is, there are plenty of ways to showcase your talents to the wider world without selling yourself short and letting someone else pick up the monetary benefit. With the rise-and-rise of self publishing, blogging, home recording, social media marketing and other affordable, easy ways to circumvent the traditional success routes, I think it’s more important than ever for writers and other creative people to be savvy about exploitation and say no to spec work, no matter how its couched.

In future, I’ll be talking much more explicitly with our clients about when guest blogging is and isn’t appropriate, when it should be paid for, and what constitutes a fair deal for the people generating your content. After all, they’re the people making you money.

What NaNoWriMo Did For Me…

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…even though I didn’t actually do it.

I bet you thought I wouldn’t write my novel. I bet you thought I’d give up after five thousand words and throw my laptop out of the window, accidentally killing a passing squirrel and spending the rest of my life in therapy, dealing with the guilt; thus proving that NaNoWriMo did, in fact, drive me even more crazy than I was in the first place.

Well HA. You were wrong.

I didn’t throw my laptop out of the window. No squirrels were harmed in the making of my…um…Novella?

Anyway, five thousand words is quite a lot, really. It’s more than all the words in the local curry house’s takeaway menu. It’s more than all the words my cat has ever said. Dare I say, it’s five thousand words more of a novel than you’ve ever written (unless you’ve just completed NaNoWriMo, in which case, WOOT! (And, y’know, enjoy the next ten years of editing).

On the subject of editing, it seems that NaNoWriMo sneakily taught me rather a lot about myself¹, even though I never even came close to the fifty thousand word target. Here are some things I learned:

  1. I am an edit-as-I-go kind of person. I always thought I hated this about myself, but now I have tasted the alternative (bang out a load of bollocks, edit it later if you can be arsed), I’ve decided that…
  2. …I just hate editing. Whatever method I use, I hate it equally. It gets in the way of the creative process and makes me want to punch myself repeatedly in the face. If it’s got to be done (which it has, if you’ve got any self respect at all), then I’d rather do it as I go and know that everything I’ve produced so far is basically done. While the NaNo method might produce a skeleton novel in a month and a publishable one (maybe) in a year, my method isn’t likely to produce anything except a couple of black eyes in the first thirty days. This is one possible reason that I’ve never been particularly drawn to the idea of writing a novel, except when I’m depressed.
  3. I like being a perfectionist. Don’t get me wrong, when my therapist taught me ways to leave my house looking like a hellhole and not feel freaked out by it, I was all for that. But when it comes to some things, perfectionism is a Good Thing. I make a living from my writing: it’s in my interest to be pernickety about it. While I absolutely love the idea of NaNo – where the emphasis is on quantity, not quality – as a self respecting writer, I just can’t love a body of work I know to be virtually unreadable. I’d rather produce five thousand words that I’m happy with than fifty thousand I want to flush down the toilet.

  4. Writing can cure my PND. Now listen, before you think I’ve gone completely daft, I use the word “cure” somewhat loosely (and possibly ill-advisedly). I am not yet Better (whatever that turns out to be), but I would describe myself as “in recovery”. That roughly translates as: I’ve had more good days than bad, I don’t want to crawl under a rock and literally die and I quite often think I look alright in the mornings. After a cup of tea. Or some gin. Anyway. What happened was, I wrote 3,500 words in one sitting, discovered that I had blurted out (a) a complete, self-contained short story and (b) a complete metaphor for my own experience of postnatal depression. Delighted, I flounced off to my therapist to tell him the good news and spent fifty minutes and £65 congratulating myself (I omitted the fact that it was crap, obviously; it would’ve ruined the mood). Then I came home, realised I had nothing else to say, did some tweeting, sorted out my wardrobe, scrubbed the fridge, hoovered the cat, rearranged my hairclips and eventually squeezed out, through clenched jaw and unwilling fingers, another 1,500 words of utter drivel, before slamming the laptop shut in disgust. I knew I wouldn’t open it again for NaNo. I was spent.

    The effect of the short story, meanwhile, was this: I read it, and then thought, “Everything is going to be okay.“

  5. Never force yourself to do the thing you love. Or you won’t love it anymore. I’m pretty sure I learnt this when I tried knitting baby hats for a living, but I needed reminding.
  6. I really am getting the hang of acceptance. Lookee here, at me being all nonchalant about failure and not hating myself. BOOYAH!

    7. ¹ No, not: I’m shit at organising my time. I knew that already, thanks.

National Novel Writing Month 2011 ~ NaNoWriMo

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Welcome to Camp NaNoWriMo. Please check your sanity at the door.

Camp NaNoWriMo

I must be actually, certifiably mental.

As if I don’t already march around shouting up the place, claiming there aren’t enough hours in the day and that I’ll give myself a heart attack if I don’t start Doing More Yoga, I’ve decided to write a novel. Yes, a proper one. With fifty thousand words and everything. And I’m going to do it in one month.

This November, I’ll be joining over 200,000 people worldwide who embark on the batty idea of writing a whole novel in just thirty days. I mean it doesn’t have to be good or anything, but even so, we’re talking about a pretty epic project. I’m clearing the decks as we speak, cancelling everything I had planned for November except my birthday (hell, I wouldn’t be a proper writer if I didn’t have any gin). As it stands, I’m filled with a mixture of excitement and good old fashioned, brown-trousers trepidation.

The premise is quite simple. Sit down on 1st November 2011 and start writing. Keep writing until you’ve got a fictional story that’s 50,000 words long – or more, if you’re a show off – then submit it to the NaNoWriMo website for a word count and verification. If you submit it before the thirty days are up, you win. You are epic. That’s it.

So why am I doing this? I guess there are a few reasons…

  1. Brevity (and you may have noticed this) is not my forte. Nor is speed. When writing anything at all, from client emails to blog posts to copy for websites, I constantly edit, re-edit, backtrack, sidetrack and mess about. I can never just sit and write. Perhaps, with the focus of NaNoWriMo on speed and quantity rather than quality, I can learn something about perfectionism. My keyboard and I need relationship counselling; perhaps NaNoWriMo can help.
  2. I have Post Natal Depression. Thinking about PND all the time only leads to more thinking about PND. In my ongoing quest to make it Just Bugger Off, I’m going to try not thinking about PND for a whole month, just to see what happens. And anyway, even if it still won’t go away, at least I’ll have something to write about.

  3. I want to write a novel but I can’t quite be arsed. This is a brilliant fix for people who are otherwise unmotivated to pull their finger out and Achieve. I will apply myself with gusto for one month, and then spend the rest of my life carping on about how “I wrote a novel, yah.” Run for the hills. No, seriously, run.

    4. I’ve got no idea what I’m going to write about; no idea how to plan and outline a novel; not a clue how to develop characters or come up with an engaging plot. I don’t know how to write without re-editing and re-editing until I want to beat my brains out with my keyboard. I’m terrible at balancing my life and work and I’m absolutely shocking at time management. But watch this space, because I’m going to do it.

    *

    Should you happen to be a few sandwiches short of a picnic basket yourself, you can join me by signing up as an official participant over at the NaNoWriMo website. Drop me a comment below if you decide to take part, as I’m planning some local meet ups during November where you’ll find encouragement and gin in equal measures.