The Glad Game - Conflicting Advice

Regular readers may be aware of the fact that I've been interested in journalism since the age of fifteen. Occasionally I branch off in other directions, drawing pictures and writing fiction and whatnot, but I always come back to journalism as a core career aspiration.

I didn't study journalism at university because I thought it would make more sense to go and learn about a whole host of stuff and things, and write for the student press at the same time. I could learn technical or administrative things like writing /ENDS at the end of a submission later on.

I did however get into the habit of writing for whatever I could whenever I could to build up a portfolio of work. A couple of things paid (arts reviews in Perthshire local press), and a lot of things were done for love (The Vine, The Chihuahua, Odd Socks, and various society newsletters).

In my first job after graduating, I volunteered to write copy for in-house publications, the website, and community newsletters published in our area. This was done in addition to my normal duties and didn't involve so much as a byline, but it was experience nonetheless.

Currently I write for a number of hyperlocal sites and a couple of comical ones, all for free because nobody has worked out how to make money from them yet. I figure this is a good way of building up contacts and experience, but having been volunteering for over a year now on top of working in unrelated jobs to pay my rent, I have started to think that I ought to cut back on unpaid work a little.

There is an ongoing Q&A on The Guardian website with a chap called Chris Wheal which aims at helping answer the questions of unpaid journalists, and I thought it might be a good place to ask how to make the transition from often unpaid volunteer to paid journalist. I perhaps assumed a level of hyperlocal knowledge that Chris didn't have, because here is what went down.

Me:

I am starting out as a freelance journo, and I have a pretty good portfolio of work online - I write for a lot of hyperlocal sites in Edinburgh including The Guardian, STV and other independent news sites, and I think I'm gradually getting my name known. I do not have an official journalism qualification and I have mostly been volunteering my services for free to gain experience, but I am slightly concerned that I do this indefinitely I will remain a citizen journalist / blogger forever, and never make the transition to making a living from my writing.

Do you have any thoughts about the point at which you should stop volunteering and start charging? I would also appreciate any advice you have on working out the best people to pitch to, and ensuring you have the correct contact details - sometimes it's hard to tell whether you're being ignored, or you've contacted the wrong person.

Chris:

Sounds like asking directions from south-east London to south-west London. The only real answers is "I wouldn't start from here".

Oh. Well. I have, so…

How, having worked for free, do you start charging? You have already set the value of your work at zero. How can you justify charging for something you have not value before?

I know that is not helpful but that is the potential barrier you need to overcome.

Under what agreement did you write for these organisations for free? How much editing did they do on your work?

It was always voluntary, as they have no money to give me. I wrote for these sites to gain experience and build a portfolio because I don’t have the official qualification almost every journo job vacancy wants, so I felt I would need a very strong CV to overcome that. In terms of editing my work – not that much, by and large.

Have you tried approaching the people you worked for?

No, I haven’t, because they’d look at me like I’d gone wrong. “Oh hai Edinburgh Reporter / Broughton Spurtle / STV Local, you look nice today… Anyway, I know you don’t make any money and that you rely on voluntary contributions to keep your sites going, but I need to become your only paid contributor now yeah? Cause volunteering is like, exploitation? Kthxbai.”

I'd probably start by making contact and seeing if you can meet for a coffee/drink. Find out what they liked about your work and what they might like you to do in the future and then bring up the issue of being paid. You may need to accept a lower payment to start with but make clear that if they like your work they should be paying you full rates, so only agree to a small number of pieces at a lower rate or a rising scale over the next few pieces.

Well, I could ask my assorted editors what they like about my work, yes. But that still wouldn’t give them the resources to pay me for it. What I need is advice on working out the best people to pitch to, and how to ensure I have up to date contact details – you know, like I asked?

At the end of the day you may have to refuse to supply any more unless they agree to pay you.

At which point they will presumably say OK, bye, best of luck.

Each commissioning editor will be different. They will have different drivers. What motivates them will be different and you need to stress the skill you have or the way you will work that will help. So one may be impressed by a cracking intro, another by a high profile subject, another by perfect English and few corrections. Whatever it is that motivates the buyer is what you, the seller, needs to provide.

Yeah alright, I’ve got The Freelance Writer’s Handbook as well. I get that different editors go for different pitches on different days. But that doesn't help with the fact that I don't know any of them personally, so I don't know who specifically to pitch to or on which day. And it doesn’t get me past the fact that because I'm a total stranger and they presumably get pitches all the time from people they already know and trust, that by and large they ignore my emails.

Understand what will make them buy and offer that. And remember, charge them for your work. They are publishing it. You're worth it.

‘Understand what will make them buy'? HOW? I am going in completely blind, pitching to total strangers, half the time not being 100% sure that I'm even targeting the correct person. I know what I am trying to sell and the audience I'm trying to sell it to, of course I've researched that - but which editor am I meant to speak to about it? Switchboard don't bloody know. Systematically emailing all the editors whose names you can find generally meets with no response. Other journos tend to go ‘sorry, not a scooby, that's not my area.’ I know I'm worth it, but no other sod does…

So, what have I learned from this?

Well, it seems I need to be a damn sight more specific when asking for career help. And apparently I need to cut back on volunteering significantly to avoid de-valuing my work any further in the eyes of editors, who hate it when people try to build up their experience by any means necessary. So much for that to-do list I had put together to try and maintain a high profile.

In fairness, I have been spreading myself too thin, and I probably would benefit from concentrating more attention on fewer things rather than trying to be everywhere at once. But I find that the more I have to multi-task, the more productive and creative I am. It's a difficult balance to strike.

And what is there to be glad about here? Well, it annoyed me enough to buy a new book. Maybe this one will actually answer my questions.

The Glad Game - Local News

Local news is crap, isn't it.

Back in February, I wrote a post about The Blairgowrie Advertiser and their coverage of Eric the Ericht Beaver, who was kidnapped and forced into slavery at Edinburgh Zoo. You may remember that at that time, they were about to launch protesting T-Shirts emblazoned with the slogan HANDS OFF OUR BEAVERS. These T-Shirts were produced, and you can purchase them from the Blairgowrie Farm Shop.

Apparently it didn't do a lot of good though, because The Blairie has since reported that on arriving at the zoo, the beaver promptly died of shock.

And that it was a girl, not a boy. They've done the decent thing and posthumously changed its name to Erica, but that feels like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted, so to speak.

To add insult to injury, they're still banging on about beavers. It's like nothing else ever bloody happens.



Which brings me to the problem I have with local news - it's a one track record.

Not a vast amount happens in Blairgowrie, but there have been some pretty gruesome assaults and the odd murder over the years. But if you relied on the Blairie for information, chances are you'd never find out about anything other than jumble sales and now apparently beavers.

Despite all this, I still have a certain amount of affection for them. They were the first publication to ever print anything by me, which was an amazing feeling... or at least it was til I read the headline they'd attached to the article.

'Live Show Is A Hit For Korn' didn't really capture the spirit of rock and roll, somehow.

And they're a bit better than the Edinburgh Evening News, which tries very hard to do proper journalism but lets itself down by being peppered with disproportionate levels of scaremongering and repetitive council bashing.

You only need to take a cursory glance over Guardian Edinburgh, The Broughton Spurtle or The Edinburgh Reporter to get a broad view of the range of stuff going on in the city that doesn't correlate to OAPs being savaged or the local authority getting it wrong - some of these sites even allude to the sense of humour and community that make Edinburgh a great place to live. But in the EEN you have to really search for anything positive.

No wonder old people think the young are out to get them.

Still, I'm glad we have local news, for the following reasons:

1) Its total lack of self awareness can make me laugh out loud.
2) Its inaccuracy - generally spotted when I know the other side of the story - is a constant reminder to try to err on the side of balanced reporting rather than rhetoric.
3) The many, many local news stories it leaves out or fails to follow up on, give me things to write about for hyperlocal websites.

Probably won't do anything on beavers, though.

Stuff To Do

I have agreed to dedicate a couple of hours a week to doing regular blog posts and other admin type stuff for Ten Tracks, which is a music site where you can download lots of shiny local music for low low prices. And having just gone back to work 4 days a week, the slightly ad hoc approach to writing that I adopted over the last couple of months is not going to cut the mustard. So I made a list of the minimum amount of stuff I want to be doing on a monthly basis, at least until I finish the temp job in July. At which point I might take on more...

3 posts a week here on Daddy Long Legs
3 posts a week on 12 Books in 12 Months
1 proper article a week on Jobless Graduate
1 post a week for Ten Tracks
1 post a fortnight for Mslexia
Minimum 1 article a fortnight (the opposite fortnight!) for The Edinburgh Reporter
Minimum 1 article a month for IWeTwoThree
1 article a month for Broughton Spurtle (Oot)
1/2 a month for the Guardian / STV local

All of which is in addition to a daily 2000 words or so of my 12 Books in 12 Months. And hopefully the odd pitch for paid writing work. And I'm the marketing person for Dandy Highwaymen, which is a traveling theatre company being set up by my very talented sister over the next few months.

At what point does the adage 'spreading yourself too thin' apply?!

Spam

Dear internet,

Any of you guys know why this post on my other blog would be attracting lots of spam? Because it's had 30 or 40 spam comments since I posted it.

Here are some favourites:

- You truly have a gift for reasoning and communicating a thurough understanding of the world of sugar /body dynamics… Thank you… Your videos will help me to hopefully get healthier!

'Thurough' you say? Thanks. Recent videos I posted included this one on how not to dance, and the one for Amanda Palmer's new single.

- I love your transitions and lucidity. I have been writing for Ghost Writers for a while now, and they pay me good to write blog posts like this, or content articles. I clear $100-$200 on a awful morning. Judging by your skill with the english language, you may enjoy doing the same.

You may have noticed that the post in question is a short paragraph telling people to click on a link to an article I wrote for The Edinburgh Reporter. It's lucid enough, I suppose, but hardly the greatest literary feat ever accomplished. I wouldn't cite it on a CV as an example of my command of English, anyway.

The other one I enjoyed today had no text, but was posted by the Secret horses club on the subject of a Horse Genetics Calculator. You might be better off visiting horsetesting.com if that's your bag, though. I'm not re-posting the link they left me.

So, any thoughts on what I did there?!

Do You Take This Pie...

Those of you who use Facebook will probably be aware of its obsession with targetted advertising, which surely only has limited success. Basically all girls I know are so used to being told about various wedding services (tick tock ladies, if you don't marry soon it might never happen and then where'll you be?) that it doesn't really bother them anymore.

Today, though, FB caught my attention by insisting I have a look at Rubenesque Bridal, "Scotland's only dedicated bridal boutique for the curvaceous woman."

How does it know I'm a size 16+? (Which I'm not, of course, I'm like size... zero. Ahem.)

And, why did it decide as soon as I graduated from university that I'd be desperate to get married ASAP? For a supposedly modern means of communication it takes a very 1950s approach to gender roles.

Actually in fairness, that one might be because I've been 'engaged' to one of my mates on there for about five years, and the bots can't tell the difference between real and fake relationships. Yet. But still, when, where and if I tie the knot is not going to be determined by social networking.

There again, the other thing they keep throwing at me is a free screening of Trainspotting at the Royal Scottish Academy, so maybe they do know me quite well after all. *starts sketching centrepieces*

For other items written by me today, see here for chat about the poetical genius of Sisqo, and here for a mild response to an hysterical article about the British government's gay agenda. I've also conducted a couple of interviews for the Edinburgh Reporter which I am in the process of writing up, and tonight I'll do some more Caligula for 12 Books in 12 Months. Productive.

No Use Crying Over Split Infinitives

New Year's Resolutions are rubbish, aren't they.

Mostly everyone has a vague notion that they'll eat less crap and exercise more. Maybe they'll also be a bit tidier. This falls apart either:
a) instantly, when you awake at 1pm on New Year's Day and realise it is the time for a Doctor Who marathon and piles of crisps, or:
b) more gradually over the first few weeks of the year as you remember that January is horrible and exercise makes you feel sad.

But we do it anyway, because it's nice to aspire to something less obese and poor-skinned than we are currently.

My New Year's Resolution, aside from the whole writing 12 books thing, is to get paid for my words.

I write a lot, about a variety of things, and some of it's not half bad. I do local news, fiction, humour, film and music reviews, comics, comment pieces and of course I blog. I've had stuff published in lots of places this year, working full time in unrelated jobs as I went. I've written for Outlook (City of Edinburgh Council newspaper), The Link (South Edinburgh newsletter), Tales of One City (the library services blog), The Edinburgh Reporter (hyperlocal news), The Broughton Spurtle (hyper-hyperlocal news), The Chutney Exhibition (comedy), Brikolage (arts), Hecklerspray (gossip), Billygean (blog) and have secured a blogging job with The Skinny's new website - although nobody knows when that's actually going to go live. That's not bad going.

There again it occurred to me this year that I've been working away on a generic concept of 'getting as much experience as possible' for ten years now. This isn't as bad as it sounds; I started writing for the local paper at the age of 15. Over that period I have made an eye-watering forty-five of your Scottish pounds.

I don't do this because I have some kind of martyr complex. Offering my services for free is the only way I know of gaining that all important yet ill defined 'experience' craved by prospective employers. It's also the only way I know I'm going to see my name in print, which is narcissism, if anything.

There is an argument that citizen journalism and young folk like me trying to get an 'in' are destroying the profession, as if the advent of the internet hadn't already given print media in its entirety a severe bollocking. The argument goes along the lines that seasoned professionals are being made redundant all the time in favour of younger, cheaper hacks who will do the same job for half the price, and the quality of the output suffers as a result.

Frankly - naively, perhaps? - I think good writing shines through. I am more likely to read - and pay for - an article on something that doesn't interest me if it's well written. Given the choice, an editor is surely going to use something that has been properly researched and written to industry standard? Isn't it in their best interest to print readable content?

Yes, being made redundant is beyond crap, but in a profession like journalism it's hardly the end. There's a living to be made in freelancing, and you've already got the contacts, years of experience and knowledge. Do you know what young freelancers like me have? Enthusiasm, and Twitter. I can't pitch an article to an editor who I know likes me, or an old mate I used to work with on such and such a paper, because I only just finished university, and I didn't do a journalism course when I was there. Instead, I have to try and second guess total strangers who universally ignore me. (Being ignored is far more irritating than being rejected and for all you know it might be your own fault - you could be writing to the wrong person because people change jobs and email addresses all the time.)

But so what. That's how things go. And for every older hack made redundant, and every bright young thing who did the MA at Napier and is now on the Evening News for a starting salary of 16k, there are hundreds of people who never make it at all. Some of them are undoubtedly very good writers. Better than the ones who make it, probably. I can only surmise that they aren't tenacious enough, however tenacious that may be.

Perhaps 2011 is the year I will find out.

A Missive Of The Brief Kind

It being Christmas, I have lots on, as I'm sure you do too. As a result this site may experience a lack of blogging for a few days. However, you can read a guest post by me on gossip site Hecklerspray HERE to while away the time instead. Or perhaps you'd prefer to read an interview I did with a local writer for The Edinburgh Reporter? That's here. Knock yourselves out. But in a festive way.

Multimeeja Mad Skillz

Nevermind snowpocalypse, here's a piece of multimedia journalism about NaNoWriMo which I did for The Edinburgh Reporter.

However, I must apologise profusely to one of the contributors because I originally credited her as Kath when her name is in fact Cathy! Very sorry for that journofail, which has now been rectified.



If you're interested, you can download the tracks featured in this video for free, here. I recommend getting Mid Life Crisis Man too.

Chapter Twenty Nine

I was name checked on Guardian Edinburgh this morning thanks to this nonsense. Here is the penultimate chapter, as promised! And here is a list of previous ones in order. This brings the word count to 51971... but is it any good? I talked about that briefly in an article on The Edinburgh Reporter here.

“You know,” Nicky said thoughtfully, “that actually makes a lot of sense. I had wondered why my downstairs mix-up didn’t look quite right.”

“Surely someone’s mentioned it to you before,” Tim said, “maybe in a urinal? It’s the type of thing that would get commented on!”

“I always use the cubicle,” Nicky said, “never knew why before, was just my gut reaction to head for cover.”

“Have you never had a girlfriend?”

“Well no. I’m too eccentric, girls round our way aren’t looking for that. They want guys like that one Nigella’s always going after.”

“Do you fancy girls?”

“I dunno. Never really thought about it too much, to be honest.”

“Which did Nicky like before you mucked about with her brain,” Bracken asked, “girls or boys?”

“How should I know,” Magenta said irritably, adding, “I’d have to look it up in the file.”

“Can you reverse it so she can go back to the way she was?”

“Does she want to go back to the way she was?”

“Hoi,” Nicky said indignantly, “does she take sugar? I’m right here, why don’t you ask me what I want?”

“Well,” Bracken said reasonably, “do you know?”

“Not a Scooby,” Nicky admitted, “I feel as though I’m not in full possession of the facts which makes it something of a tough call.”

“Are you getting all this,” Tim asked one of the camera crew bitterly, “I’d hate for you to miss out on a good telly opportunity, just because your boss has hired a mercenary to manipulate several people’s lives, which is probably against the human rights act and might see his BAFTA nomination revoked.”

“Actually,” Brian told Tim in his head, “the whole thing has been going out live since the beginning.”

“Totally uncut?”

“Totally uncut. Using the telepathic powers the amulet has afforded, I’ve been able to blow this thing wiiiide open.”

“You know,” Tim thought back to him, “I’m actually not sure how useful that is. People will watch, be outraged on Twitter for half an hour, then forget all about it. Such is the fickle nature of our modern society.”

The fire exit door clanged open with an almighty ruckus. Bert and the scarred guard appeared through it in a flurry of dry ice, he with his hair blowing dramatically in tht wind and she cradling the wean protectively. They looked like some kind of unusual crime fighting duo.

“Stop everything,” Bert bellowed boisterously, “we have important information to impart!”

“Really, though?” Bracken was unimpressed. “I bet you a fiver that most of it has already come up.”

“The woman who calls herself Esmeralda is in fact Esmeralda’s identical twin, Magenta?”

“Yep, we know.”

“Esmeralda has been dead for years, killed by her sister’s own hand?”

“Aye.”

“Posing as Esmeralda because her rogue methods have so incensed the global science community, Magenta has been conducting invasive brain experiments on unknowing people, with the full knowledge and financial backing of The Jeremy Kyle Show?”

“Tell us something we don’t know!”

“This little boy isn’t yours, Bracken.”

Her lip wobbled ferociously.

“I know that too,” she whispered, bravely biting back the tears.

“We have all the documentation to prove what’s been going on, so we can send these two down for a long time,” Bert informed them.

“Now that we did not know.”

Bert smiled victoriously.

“Here’s one for you then, Dad,” said Nicky. “Assuming that’s not a memory trick as well?”

“No,” Magenta drawled, “he is your father. The memory work there was mostly done by your mother, to be honest I just had to tweak it a little.”

“Right well, in that case… Dad, it turns out that I’m actually a woman.”

Bert looked surprised for a moment, then shrugged. “Now that you say that,” he meandered, “it sort of rings a bell.”

He pondered.

“I want to build up our relationship either way, assuming you still do.”

“Oh aye, definitely,” Nicky nodded. “I feel like I probably need to be supported through this traumatic time.”

“You’ll readjust surprisingly quickly,” said Esmeralda, “or at least, I think you will. Assuming you let me reverse the procedure.”

“Why does that not inspire me with full blown confidence?” Nicky asked scathingly. “Think I’ll just take it from here if you don’t mind.”

“Did you do anything to Nigella,” Bracken said suddenly.

“Who?”

“My cousin, Nigella. Well, I thought she was my cousin. Maybe she isn’t. She doesn’t know who the wean’s dad is, but she definitely thought he was mine.”

“Lanky girl, ginger, nasal?”

“That’s her,” grinned Nicky.

“Yeah, did some work on her,” Esmeralda confessed.

“Aaaaand here she is now,” said Kyle, “please welcome to the stage, Nigella!”

Nige appeared at the door, looking flushed and confused.

“How did I get here?” she asked Jeremy. “I was at home in the kitchen peeling a leek and then suddenly BAM, I was here!”

“Teleportation device,” Jez told her dismissively, “but that’s not important right now.”

“I disagree,” Nige disagreed, rather emphatically.

“You’re here today because you’ve got something to tell someone,” he bulldozed on in a vague sort of way.

“Erm, OK?”

“Well on you go then sweetheart,” he said, gesturing in the direction of the characters assembled before her, “spit it out.”

“Who am I meant to be talking to?” she enquired.

“That can be up to you,” he replied, “because at this point I don’t think it really matters.”

“Bracken,” she started, walking up to her cousin, “I’m sorry.”

This was the first time Bracken had ever heard her cousin apologise, and she was flabbersmacked. That’s a mixture of flabbergasted and gobsmacked – Peter Andre taught me it.

“That’s alright,” she said, unsure what it is that she was apologizing for.

“Me and Al never done anyhin,” she continued, “I was trying to make you jealous so I wanted to make you think we spent the night together, sexwise. But we never.”

“That’s alright, even if you had done,” Bracken said magnanimously. “It’s not as if we’re going out.”

Nige smiled, and gave her a hug. Meanwhile it dawned on Al that maybe Bracken did like him after all.

“Nicky,” Nige continued reproachfully, “where the hell have you been? You had us worried. Thought the aliens had got you at last.”

“I’ve been in this place,” Nicky filled her in, “living in a tiny cell against my will for an as yet unexplained reason.”

“It’s because Esmeralda – sorry, Magenta – ” Bracken rolled her eyes, “thought that if she asked people whether she could experiment on them they’d say no. So she took them without asking.”

“Be fair though,” Magenta countered, “as soon as I gave her the option, she did refuse.”

“She?” Nige said, bemused.

“Oh, Nicky’s a girl,” Bracken explained.

“Oh right. Cool.”

“Really?” Nicky said, “why is nobody even remotely surprised by this news?”

“It’s because they knew you before,” Magenta yawned. “The residual memories cushion the blow of the shock.”

“Course they do.”

“So this woman here – what did you call her? Magenta? Locked you in a cell for two weeks?”

“Pretty much.”

“Was the wean with you?”

“Not physically with me, no,” Nicky said, “although he was in the building, as it turns out.”

“I was keeping an eye on him,” said the scarred guard.

“And who are you?” Nigella enquired.

“I am his surrogate mother.”

“That’s a bit over the top, its only been a couple of weeks. He won’t remember that in later life.”

“She means she was the surrogate womb for him,” Bracken said sadly.

“Come again?”

“The wean isn’t mine, Nige. That’s why I couldn’t answer your questions about the dad. I didn’t know, because I never had sex with anyone, because I’m not his mum.”

“So who is the mum, then?” Nige asked in a state of understandable confusion. “If you’re not, and this lady was just a womb for hire?”

“I am,” Nicky informed her.

“Oh. That’s odd. But I guess you two have always got on pretty well.”

Just as the conversation seemed to be in danger of getting awkward, there was a clap of thunder, and Dennis appeared.

“Oh, Christy,” said Tim.

The noise was high pitched enough to break Brian’s concentration, and he did a big amulet shaped poo.

“Yoink,” said Dennis, grabbing it.

“Did that guy just steal a turd fae under the dug?” Nigella asked.

“Yup,” Bracken confirmed.

“Is that a common Scottish phrase?” Jeremy asked with interest.

“It will be soon,” Nicky commented, “as soon as she puts it on her Bebo.”

“Dennis,” Tim said, “don’t be an idiot. Give me that.”

“Why does that guy want the poo?” Nige asked.

“He doesn’t want the poo,” Al explained, “there’s a magical amulet inside the poo, and that’s what he wants.”

“What for?”

“So that I can destroy it.”

“But if you don’t even like it, why not let the other guy have it?”

“Because it’s evil,” Tim told her, “and it needs to be got rid of before the evil spreads.”

He advanced upon Dennis and tried to forcibly remove the poo. Dennis flew up into the air and levitated just out of reach, which is one of the perks of being a ghost.

“Ha,” he gloated triumphantly, “now what are you going to do?”

“What are you going to do?” Tim asked, “if you can use the amulet to resurrect yourself?”

“I’m going to have a bowl of frosties,” Dennis replied. “Then I’m going to go to sleep in a comfy bed.”

Tim shook his head.

“I know that’s what you want to do now,” he said, “but honestly, all that will go out the window if you use that thing. Just look at it, for goodnessake.”

Dennis obliged, staring into the mottled glass surface. The piece of tentacle within seemed to pulsate ominously, and Dennis thought he could hear an insidious whispering noise. “Kill,” it said, “rip, tear, slash, inflate.”

“Inflate?” Dennis said aloud.

“Sorry,” said the whispering, “I got confused. Maim and hurt, destroy, poke out their eyes…”

“That’s not very nice,” he chided, inadvertently floating back down towards the ground.

“GOTCHA!” Tim shouted, grabbing his ankle with one hand and maintaining contact for just long enough to yank Dennis earthward and grab the amulet.

Dennis instantly vanished in a huff.

“Right,” Tim said, “now all we need to do is destroy it.”

“I wouldn’t be so hasty if I were you,” said a robotic voice from a fire exit which nobody had noticed until now.

Everyone turned.

It came from the mink caped, hooded figure. The boss, the man, the big cheese.

He or she had Adric in a vice like grip, with a flick knife tight against his neck, blade just millimeters from piercing the skin.

“Give me the amulet,” the figure said, “or your boy toy gets it.”

MGEITF

So, the reason I finished at the library in the middle of the week was to give me time to cover the Media Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival (MGEITF) for The Edinburgh Reporter. Naturally this is on a voluntary basis, ie for no money. In all honesty I just wanted the thrill of being around loads of buzz word spouting TV industry people, who are all very trendy and mostly made out of iProducts. HOWEVER, I feel that the delegate goody (goodie?) bag thing has actually been payment in itself. Check that bad boy out. Highlights which you should be able to locate in the photograph include:

- The Radio Times! Normally costs more than one of your GBP. (Arj Barker reference there for two of you)
- The Doctor Who Adventure games, the main review of which seems to be 'OK but a bit slow'
- A YouGov memory stick! (no idea, they must be a sponsor)
- A tiny bottle of water!
- Mints from ITV!
- Chocolate coins!
- Chocolate in bar format for the less piratically inclined amongst the delegates!
- And a DVD extolling the virtues of the Clyde Waterfront. At an event which has, since its inception, always been held in Edinburgh.

This is loads better than the Film Festival press pack, which just had, like, film related stuff in it. And a notebook so that you could write about the films. Whatever dudes. There are kids* at this event, and we will give them sugar.

Anyway, I will link to stuff as and when it goes up on the reporter, but until then you'll just have to watch telly or something.

*I don't really mean kids as such, just young persons - part of the point of this festival is to help young people gain knowledge and experience of the industry, which is quite a nice thing. Course nobody ever fuckin' told me about it as a young(er) person, but still. It's all good.

Update

Hello!

I am not going to backdate to fill in the gaps since last week on the grounds that I have actually been blogging, just not here.

You can see some of this on my other blog here, and some more on The Edinburgh Reporter mainsite / their new blog. I've also been doing this site for work, and wrote this article on the libraries blog which was in turn referenced on the Guardian Edinburgh beatblog here.

And hopefully soon I will also be able to link you to a blog I am going to do on The Skinny.

Free Music

The Winning Sperm Party is a delightfully named website that releases music by independent artists in Scotland, both in free download format and paid-for physical manifestation format. Have a look.

I came across it as part of blog research. The reasons for said research are twofold and follow, now.

1) I am trying to get an online magazine project off the ground at work, which will take the form of a blog. Sites I found when looking for ways to engage young persons with this included Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber, and the prolific campaign to stop Zac Efron self tanning. I probably won't be using them as examples.

2) I am doing a course with CTJT so that I can sit NCTJ exams. Part of the course blurb was about having a professional writing blog with a target audience and an angle. Daddy Long Legs is not such a site, it's more of a scrapbook of things that catch my interest. So I was having a think about what my niche could be, and I wondered about local music. Turns out there are about 8 million Edinburgh music blogs, some of which are very good and are now linked to at the side of the page.

I know what I'm going to do instead, and will post about it when it's up and running.

In the meantime, what do you think of The Edinburgh Reporter, the news site I contribute to? The editor would like some constructive feedback!