Carping Contemplation or Money, Money, Money

Big gap since the last post - I've found it hard to write, to have ideas, as it's been a gloomy month.  I wish I had something insightful to share with you but if you read on, this is more of a personal post than usual by way of explaining why I haven't written here in the last few weeks.  It's a lot to do with the writing too though.

The operation I had on my leg on 16th September coincided with a particularly bad patch in my relationship.  Convalescing at my parents house seemed like a good idea, both because my partner wouldn't have to run around after someone she wasn't particularly liking very much at the time and because we thought a break might do us good.  It seemed to - we missed each other and it was good when we were reconciled.   A month without work meant no money though and the double whammy was getting hit for a lot of charges to do with a freehold purchase.  Though my partner has supported me in this experiment to see if I could write for a living, enough was eventually enough.  We're at the tail end of our thirties, this city is expensive and if we're to have all those things that normal people have, like more than one bedroom, a garden and a car, I was going to have to earn some money.  The lack of it and my lack of appearing to want to take care of my partner caused some problems to say the least.

I've been moaning and bitching to everyone I know about money in the last month or so - it's become my number one preoccupation.  It feels like without money in this town, you're no one.  Comparison with everyone around is inevitable but foolish, especially where I live in Notting Hill.  The constant parade of expensive cars, the free magazines that come through the door filled with property porn, the restaurants that surround us that are full of people drinking endless cocktails - it's all a little hard to take when you haven't even got enough for a pint of Guinness.  The stupid thing is I have never believed that money will make you happy.  It's just that I've got someone else to think about now.  To be selfish or selfless?  Some thoughts on that might have made for a better blog.

When I got given a shit load of money last year after being made redundant from the Mail, with hindsight, maybe I should have done things differently.  Writing the first draft of a book while living off the redundancy now seems like a massive indulgence - I enjoyed the summer, free of being trapped in an office for a change, I lunched with friends, I started this blog and I started hitting up everyone I could for writing advice.  I was pretty happy, because, essentially I was free to do what I liked.  I bought us a holiday and an engagement ring.  Maybe what I should have done is a proper journalism course.  Maybe I should have done as much picture research freelancing as I could and used that money as a deposit on a place for us.  Instead of which I'm still in a one bedroom flat and contemplating going back to a place I didn't like because I need the money.  On the positive side, writing has bought a lot of magical things this year: writing for national newspapers and magazines (including a cover-line), opportunities to travel (including an amazing 5 star trip to Texas), plenty of encouragement from peers and exposure to many interesting, funny and engaging people.

But what I've learnt is that I don't need to be resentful of a job.  There are lots of fine examples of people doing their 40 hours a week and doing the thing that they love outside of that.  James Mullinger, Picture Editor of GQ by day, is a gigging stand up comedian by night.  On top of all that he writes for GQ online and I believe, has just recently become a new Dad.  How does he fit it all in?  The point is that he's doing something that he's passionate about.  So, the place I've arrived at is, get the job if I can (it's by no means a foregone conclusion), write as much as I can outside of that, save some money, try to get ahead.  After all, that's what everyone else is doing isn't it?

Platform for a Good Mood

I've been feeling a bit down recently and when that happens its a godsend when you find something to cheer you up.  The feature that put a smile on my bleeding miserable fizzog was some sage advice on how to have a long term relationship.  It's very wise, honest and funny.  By the time you get to the end you almost envy the understanding he has with his other half.  There's loads of good features to read on Platform and it'll definitely be my first port of call next time I get the blues.  The reason for my gloomy demeanor?  Money or rather lack of it.  I haven't worked for a month - partly because there was none of the bread and butter work that I usually do being offered (picture research), partly because of my bastard knee, which as been slow to heal and bloody painful at times and partly because I haven't been able to flog the feature that I think is really good (see last post for details).

I'm up to five rejections for the thing now, which may not seem a lot, but when you're lying there with your leg up just hoping for a little ray of sunshine, another 'thanks but no thanks' can feel like a real kick in the teeth.  Of course just because I think its brilliant, doesn't mean to say anyone else will but the rejections are making me really determined to place the thing.  Maybe its true that pitching is a bit like gambling - some you win and some you lose.  You're probably as sick of hearing me bitching that people won't take my story (how very dare they?!) as I am so here's the bit that's like the feelgood story they do at the end of the news about a really cute kitten or something.  Actually that's the story that usually makes me want to gag but anyway, I had an email last week ACTUALLY ASKING ME IF I WOULD WRITE SOMETHING FOR THEM IN RETURN FOR PAYMENT.  I got a commission and after a year of banging on doors asking for a chance, someone has actually come to bang on mine.  All I need is a couple of those a week for 48 weeks of the year and I'm laughing.

The fact that I tagged Lisa Edelstein as one of the people in the story from the last post prompted Daphne to get in touch from Virginia in the US.  So I know who she is and where she's from.  I also now know that if you tag your blog with celebrities, you'll get a lot of hits.   Daphne was a mad Lisa Edelstein fan who, reading between the lines, likes her so much because she's an actor herself (how come no-one is an 'actress' anymore - is that sexist too?) and admires her work.  Anyway, it was cool to hear from someone in a different country who read the blog and know why they were reading it.  I've no idea how the rest of you got to this blog though.  Yeah I'm talking about you in Russia and you in Denmark.  Come on people, get in touch.  I've got a lot of questions about, ooh I don't know, why Vladimir Putin was always showing his muscles while fishing and how come Helena Christensen is still so damn hot.

Who are you (and where are you from)?

Blogger has a tab that I've only recently discovered called Stats - I'll admit to being a bit slow on the uptake.  I was relying on Google Analytics for a while but for some reason its stopped recording traffic and I'm not enough of a nerd to work out how I can fix it.  Initially that was depressing as I thought absolutely everyone (even mates) had deserted the blog but then I was getting reactions to posts via Twitter, Facebook and the rest.  I'll get to the point - in the last few days theres been a real upsurge in hits and from countries where I dont know anyone.  This is both heartening and intriguing and, if you're reading this from a country outside the UK, please get in touch on the email address above.  I'm curious as to what you're reading and if you're finding it interesting. In particular I'd like to hear from anyone from UAE, Canada, Germany, China or Belize but wherever you're from, write.

The numbers going up has been a real boost as otherwise, its been a bit of a crappy week.  I wanted to write truthfully on here so if that's the case, I should write about the times when you're not getting anywhere with your pitches to magazines.  I have a really good story about Ben, who was the in-house photographer at a New York club in the mid 80s - his photos are choc full of celebrities, most of whom are at the beginning of their career.  Lisa Edelstein is there, 20 years before 'House', Russell Simmons, hanging out with Scorpio from Grandmaster Flash, young artists Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rick Rubin and the Beastie Boys, BB Buell (Liv Tyler's mum)...the list goes on.  Specifically, I was hoping the Saturday Telegraph magazine would take it, just because they are great at giving space to both words and pictures for photo-stories.  They've turned it down though, as 'there isn't enough narrative'.  Frustrating, as I think the narrative would come from a finished piece once commissioned.  Also, to 'fess up, there were a couple of typos in the pitch - who's going to commission a sloppy writer?  Very embarrassing.  I'm going to push on with this one to other magazines and papers and if no one bites, you'll see it on here.  I also pitched something to Short Cuts in G2, but no joy with that one either.

On top of that my leg is fecking killing me but I'm determined not to whinge as it was my own bloody fault!  To leave you with something good to read, here are a couple of links to features on Rachel Johnson, sister of Boris and editor of The Lady.  I wouldn't pretend to know her very well though I've worked for her in the office and she ran one of my pieces of course, but my feeling is The Guardian feature gets her spot on and to my mind, is a great interview by Zoe Williams.  A great phrase Zoe uses is 'superior conversation-management' - its something I wish I had.  First read Rachel's boss saying 'You can't get her away from a penis' here and then the Grauniad one here

Perfect Pitch and Porno Post

I thought I'd start this week by bigging up a couple of other good writers out there.  Of particular interest to all you magazine people should be Pitching the World.  He's strayed off the subject a bit, but the original idea was to pitch ideas to all 642 magazines in the Writers and Artists Yearbook.  Along the way there has been alcoholism and the breakdown of his relationship, none of which sounds very funny, but his latest post 'Journalists I'd like to kick fuck out of' should, if we share a sense of humour, make you laugh out loud.

A really good journalist (and a thoroughly nice bloke to boot) is Jon Wilde.  I first saw Jon's name up on a framed magazine cover in the old IPC building - he'd interviewed Paul McCartney for a music magazine.  Later I got to meet him in my former incarnation as a Photo Editor when I was at a shoot with John Thomson (Fat Bob, Jazz Club on the Fast Show).  He's got a great dog too. Jon, not John.  Anyway, brilliantly bonkers interview that Jon did with Keith Floyd is here.

I'm laid up in Sussex convalescing after having my cruciate ligament in my left knee reconstructed. Before I went in last week my mind delighted in torturing me with the possibility that I might wake up mid-operation to see a couple of surgeons yanking stringy ligaments out of bloody holes in my leg.   Hardly the discovery of the century but I'm happy to report, however, that anesthetic is extremely effective.  Although they told me that it should take me about 20 seconds to go down, I don't remember anything after they put the mask over my face.  Next thing I knew I was waking up in the recovery room with Lucozade in my right hand. 

It's a funny thing, being back at your parents.  I'm in the same room as I was when I left, except now there's a flat screen TV instead of a Commodore 64.  It's a bit like a writers retreat.  The routine of my semi-retired parents consists mostly of afternoon naps, doing crosswords, watching the telly and in the case of my Dad, getting pissed.  None of which holds much interest for me, so I've just been doing loads of writing.  Or telling myself that I have.  In actual fact I've been clearing out my inbox and trying to get the Telegraph to take a photostory that I think would be great for their Saturday magazine.  If you haven't seen the photographs of dogs they published last weekend, they are, seriously, worth a look here.

Two more things to share with you and they're both in the section on the right hand side (Stuff I've Written).  The commission that I got for the Lake District got printed in The Lady and Sabotage Times took a piece that I wrote about threesomes (sort of).  If you read it, you can see if you agree with James Brown, who thinks it reads like a letter to a porn mag.  The Lady, Sabotage Times and Razzle; come to this blog for diversity and you shouldn't be disappointed.

Knocked Up

 

It was impossible to relax until this thing was done. In Ghana, there's a lot of hanging around and time weighs heavy on your mind. To make our engagement official in the eyes of her family, my fiance Karen had arranged for us to have a traditional 'knocking' ceremony, in which the groom (me) formally asks for the bride's hand in marriage in front of her family, friends and well wishers. For some reason, I hadn't done the thing that I normally do with anything I have no knowledge of: Google it. Karen had asked her Auntie Gladys if we could do something to mark the occasion as we were travelling to Ghana to celebrate her Grandmother's 100^th birthday. Given that was a such a momentous landmark, I think I didn't expect our little ritual to be anything other than a small token gesture.

In any case, it had been underplayed. The information I'd received was that I had to imitate the sound of knocking on a wooden door ('ko-koh-ko'), state that I had seen 'a beautiful flower' and that I had come to pluck that flower, offering whisky and schnapps as compensation for the loss of the bloom. With all the knocking and plucking, my biggest worry was fluffing my lines. Since we'd arrived in Accra, it soon became evident that a couple of bottles of booze wasn't going to cut it. Each day, Auntie Gladys would ask us if we had brought another thing, 'Have you bought the cloth?', 'How much money are you putting in?', 'Have you got the engagement bible?' We had spoken to her before we travelled and she hadn't mentioned any of this - I began to suspect that the old girl was testing me. The goods were to be gathered in a suitcase and presented on the day of the 'knocking'.

Heathrow is a big airport right? Bound to have schnapps there. Uh uh. Have you ever tried getting schnapps in Accra? Even a savvy friend of the family that agreed to try and help us out had to squeeze his 4WD through several teeming streets while chickens and children disappeared scarily beneath the horizon of his bonnet before mercifully appearing unscathed grinning (the kids, not the chooks) on the other side. The third shop eventually unearthed a bottle housed in a box that looked like it had mildew, but it would do. Getting hold of an 'engagement' bible (who knew they existed?) proved similarly elusive. Our driver scratched his head as he headed up and down Oxford Street as the shops were putting up their shutters, stopping at a party shop (which turned out to be a supermarket) and a chemist before we realised he didnt have a clue where to find one either. In the end a cousin who'd grown up in the city and was getting married a couple of weeks later came through for us when we'd arrived in Abetifi, 3 hours drive North of Accra in the mountains. The village had a church at its highest point, a few tarmac roads dotted with potholes and shops in shacks. Best of all were the cool breezes that made the climate more comfortable than in Accra.

When we arrived for the 100^th birthday celebrations, no one seemed to exactly know when the knocking would be. After two days of celebrations on the Friday and Saturday of the weekend, no more mention was made of it. We were asked to turn up to church on Sunday but it was so full we headed back to the guest-house and lolled around for another hour. This was when my butterflies started fluttering. Each successive person would say something like 'Today's the day eh?' with a sharp intake of breath and a pitying grin. After numerous photo-calls with all of the 148 attending relatives of Mama (as the grandmother was known), I was taken aside by Aunty Ophelia, who said, 'Dont worry; I'm on your side.' It was on. Another car scooped me up and onto a life changing moment.

Arriving to a forecourt filled with a couple of hundred people on either side, I was shepherded past them into a wood panelled room with family portraits on the walls, as family members filed in behind me. 'They're going to hide Karen. You have to convince the brothers to help you find her', somebody said to me as we went in. Mischief was evidently big in Ghana. It had been a hot day anyway, but suddenly it felt like there was no air in this room My palms secreted a glaze of sweat. At the front of the room sat Uncle Alex, the eldest son, with Aunty Gladys and Aunty Joanna alongside him, all of them resplendent in kente robes of bright orange. To my right sat Karen's Mum, Cecilia. As the service was mostly conducted in the Twe, a Ghanian language I didnt speak, Aunty Ophelia was to represent me. A call from outside the room came of 'A-yeh!' (basically, 'Get out of the way!') and she marched in, accompanied by other female members of the family. Barbara, Karen's sister, was put in front of the trio and asked if she was free to marry me. 'No Uncle, I'm not free. I'm not Karen!', she answered to hoots of laughter and whatever the Ghanian version of 'wa-hey' is. After the chuckling had died down, Karen was brought forward and asked the same question; when it was determined that she was free to marry, Uncle Alex wanted to see the goods. A hitherto unseen bottle of wine was presented, then the schnapps, followed by the whisky. The crowd heckled – it wasn't enough. They wanted to see the cash. The larger denomination notes we'd included in our suitcase were absent, in their place Ophelia held up a fistful of 2 Cedi notes (just less than a £1 each). A bunch were proferred to my future brother in law, Mike. Up to that point in the trip, we'd been getting on great. His face suddenly took on that of a mechanic about to fleece you. Aunty Ophelia offered a few more notes with a brow like thunder and mindful of that brow, Mike consented, at which point a rowdy cheer went up. My nerves had all gone by this point: this was pure theatre.

As the brothers had consented, so the family was happy. Uncle Alex then related a story of a man that was looking for a plantain. He went into the field and turned the plantains this way and that, inspecting them in turn until he found one that met with his satisfaction. Once he had found the perfect plantain, related Uncle Alex with a wag of his finger, there was no need to keep checking out the other plantains. 'You are now accepted into our family' he said, with a broad grin as the applause and wolf whistles exploded. I'd been waiting for my turn. Assuming it was expected of me to say something and with reference to the flower I had now plucked, I thanked him for his words of advice and assured him that I would do my best to take care of this 'rare and exquisite flower'. More hoots and clapping. After being told who everyone in the room was and greeting them with a handshake or a kiss, we were lead into the courtyard and presented to the crowd with Uncle Alex at the microphone. It's probably the closest I'm going to get to feeling like a celebrity.

After that the music kicked in and the caterers removed the metal covers from the food, letting spicy smells quickly mesmerise the people into forming a queue . Seated at the front of the dancefloor like Charles and Camilla when they visit a foreign country, we were congratulated by person after person, the most memorable one being the MC, complete with a triple size bottle of Scotch and shot glasses. Though I'd come to mark our engagement, I'd ended up a married man (in Ghana at least). My new wife and I took to the dusty courtyard floor and fell in with the rhythm of everyone else, our smiles never fading as the party continued into the night.

Coverlines and Moral Dilemmas

I inadvertently got married since I last posted.  My partner and I has asked to do something to mark our engagement with her family before we travelled to Ghana a couple of weeks back.  We were going out there to join in the celebrations for her grandmother's 100th birthday.  Bit of an eye-opener for me in a couple of ways - I'd never been to West Africa before and I got to meet more members of the family I was going to marry into than a person usually does.   Mama Ntim (the grandmother) had 11 kids, all of whom have since spawned their own.  I lost count of the amount of cousins I was introduced to but, when you meet your in-laws, you don't expect to meet around 150 of them in the same sitting.  Nor did I expect to have offer compensation for their loss of Karen to me in the form of whisky, schnapps, money, cloth and an 'engagement' bible.  That's another story (one I'll post here another time), but suffice to say there were lots of firsts.

Arriving back to Heathrow, I spotted my first coverline, on Marie Claire's September issue.   A PR who had helped me out with the Company story I wrote (thanks Sade) told me of a case study she had.  Jasmia Robinson had been on Britain's Next Top Model and her career was on the up until her neighbour stabbed her boyfriend in the stairwell of the building where Jasmia lived.  Her boyfriend survived, thankfully.  It was a challenging interview given the sensitivity of the tale - would it be awful for Jasmia to live through the story again as she related it to me for example?  Her PR assured me that she wanted to tell it as an example to others that you can live through terrible experiences and come out the other side to carry on with your life.  She's brave - the story is on p133 of the September issue of Marie Claire. 

The interviews with Jasmia went well and for the most part, she was very strong.  The copy got submitted and I felt like I'd fulfilled the brief.  As I read the magazine in Heathrow, the story bore only a passing resemblance to what I'd written though.  It had been sensationalised - there were words in the story that are not on the tape.    I've asked for feedback from Marie Claire but haven't had anything yet.  It made me feel firstly that I'd let Jasmia (and Sade, the PR) down, that I'd misrepresented them, although I got a mail today saying they were happy with it.   Less importantly, it made me feel like the writing must have been a load of shit for them to change it so much.  My conclusion was that I'm still young in my writing career and I have to experience a lot of different things before I know the kind of writing I want to concentrate on.  The truth was that I needed the money (and the byline) for that story, but perhaps I should have put my morals first.  It can be a grubby business sometimes.

Commissions, Connections and Canine Affection

Haweswater Lake.  And some sheep and rain.

July has been busy.  First the good stuff.  I got another commission out of the Express after the Peak District travel piece I wrote for them - this time I had to write about the Olympics and it should be appearing tomorrow as it will be two years until the Games begin.  Hedge magazine commissioned me to write a feature about crowd funding, for which I had to interview Charles Taylor, who decided to crowd fund his business after Patrick Wolf did it.  On the back of that commission something very cool happened that involves me doing something at the end of August but I'm not sharing until I'm actually on the plane.  Lastly I've just written a travel piece for The Lady about the Lake District.  It absolutely pissed down with rain most of the time I was there but it was still beautiful.

So how did these come about?  It's who you know.   I'd been following Martin Deeson on Twitter as I'd liked his writing ever since he did a feature about begging.  It was at the time when all the papers were full of stories about beggars making a small fortune and in my hazy memory he tried it for eight hours in the freezing cold and made about £1.57.   Since then someone else I know has suggested that he may not actually have been there all that time but whatever; I thought it was a breath of fresh air against all the outraged bile filled rubbish that the papers were printing at the time.  Where was I?  Oh yeah - I found out that an ex-colleague of mine was working with him, got Martin's email address, did the pitch, added a couple of Twitter nudges and then he got back to me saying go do it.  Hats off to my ex-colleague Eugene Costello, who I think supported my cause by mentioning my email to Martin, probably one of several hundred he gets every day.

The Lady (you have to say it like Walliams don't you?) thing came about because I've done some freelance picture research in there.  Amazing building to work in.  A member of the family that owns it lives in the top part of the building and there are gilt framed portraits on some of walls.  Rachel Johnson's dog, Coco, wanders around whilst you're working and I think every working environment could benefit from a canine presence.  A quick head rub makes everyone feel better.

Three commissions earned me £690 so the answer to the question at the top of the page is, currently, no.  Unless any of you lot can survive for a month on that.  The only answer is more commissions.  Must work harder.  Until next time...