Writing Articles

Earning a living as a writer means accepting that you will be a failure every day. I must send out 20 ideas a week to magazine editors and if I’m lucky, one will bite back with a ‘sounds interesting, let me have a look and I’ll see’.

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However, the one lesson I have learnt, is that once I’ve sent out an idea to an editor, I don’t release my lockjaw grip on them until I get a response. If that takes years, then so be it.

I’ve just been commissioned by a magazine to write an article about a popular tourist attraction. I first approached the editor on 13th July 2006 with the idea, and then filed it in my pending file for a month. I always give editors a month to ‘ponder’ upon my truly inspiring suggestions.

Four weeks later, using the email address in the magazine, I’d sent a brief email enquiring whether my wonderful idea had graced her office, and if not, could I supply another copy by electronic means? However, it appeared that my email failed to find the right pigeonhole. So, two weeks later, I plucked up the courage and telephoned, gripping the receiver in trepidation, waiting for the roar-like refusal that becomes a Tyrannosaurus Rex, only to be told that the editor was away on holiday. Relieved at having escaped the need to actually speak to her, I cajoled myself that she was relaxing on a hot sunny beach somewhere, in her small bikini, tanning her size 8 body (all editor’s are a size 8 you know) whilst reading my original letter sent some six weeks ago. Did I get a postcard? Did I buffalo!

It was whilst browsing my local WHSmith’s a few weeks later that I noticed the latest copy of the magazine on the shelves and bought it. Only when I got home and began flicking through to see which lucky b*?

We were now in the late months of summer when I sent another (polite – of course – I am trying to impress) email enquiring if I could interest her in my idea. Again, I put it to one side for a couple of weeks, to give her time to mull the idea around in her mind.

Alas, it did not seem to be. The weeks passed by, I plucked up the courage again, grabbed the phone, and was overjoyed to hear that she was out of the office again that day. I left a message asking her to return my call.

As the autumnal leaves dropped to block my drains, and the wind gained that biting chill that editors seem to exude at all times, the stony silence of a non-reply echoed around my email system. It is times like this when the job can be demoralising. After making all that effort, and still no reply. How much effort does it take for an editor to scrawl ‘**** off!’ across my beautifully crafted letter, and whack it back to me in the enclosed stamped addressed envelope? I really wouldn’t mind the foul language. At least I would know where I stood.

Just before Christmas, I had another go, this time typing out another letter, explaining my idea once again, and I even enclosed a Christmas card. Perhaps the season of goodwill would illicit a response? No. At the start of the New Year, I sent my usual two-week chaser letter, and still there was no reply. (Cue Lionel Richie’s “Hello – is it me you’re looking for?”)

It’s times like this that the frustration kicks in again. I know it is a good idea. I know my topical hook will work. I am a writer. I am a bloody good writer (I have prizes you know, so if I can fool some people, I must be able to fool others). Double clicking on my Microsoft Word shortcut, my letter template popped up and I tried again. Half an hour later, another beautifully crafted letter was ready to be posted. Sealed with a loving kiss, (it can have my babies too if it’ll increase the chances of the editor actually reading and responding to it) I took it down to the village post office and sent it on its way.

Then it happened. Two hours ago, the email popped up in my inbox. It was a message from the editor. She had my letter, she liked my idea and could she have it by the middle of March? Of course she could! Success at last! I could almost feel the tension in my jaws dissipate as I released my grip on her. For those of you who weren’t counting, this response was received after my seventh attempt. Polite doggedness can produce dividends.

I had a similar situation with a non-fiction book. I sent several letters during an 18 month period enquiring whether my proposal had been safely received in their offices (I knew it had, I’d sent it Special Delivery). Yet the editor couldn’t find it, and asked me to resubmit the whole thing by email. Twenty-four hours later, I had a book contract.

At the end of 2006, I sold an article to an editor at a magazine who’d rejected it ten years previously. Does that make me ten years ahead of my time? I can live with that. But the only way to succeed in this life is to believe in yourself and your work, and never let go. Little do editors who receive work from me realise, that they been pit-bulled!