The Demise of a Magazine title - Could this signal the end for all Magazines?

 The subject for this blog came quickly to me this week. Despite the Covid virus making a little visit to our household, happily, I have managed to maintain most of my writing productivity.

You might have seen a post I made on my Facebook pages earlier this week.

Writers Forum is a magazine I found on the shelves of W.H. Smith's in Exeter a few years ago. It drew my attention straight away. Containing excellent features, writing tips and competitions, I took the advantage to subscribe immediately.

It is always a delight for the magazine to arrive in our letterbox each month. I often read it from cover to cover in a day or two and keep it handy throughout the month to have a go at the daily Kickstarter calendar published in each edition.

I had several letters published and even had the Star Letter one month. Several short stories entered their competitions, and I only recently contemplated submitting part of my novel for critiquing on their pages.

Strangely, this month was the first time I had yet to read the editor's column. It is the first column in the magazine, after all. If I had done so, I probably wouldn't have been so shocked at the email I received from the magazine the following day advising that this latest publication would be its last.

I'm genuinely shocked and, to be honest, a little bemused. During the pandemic lockdowns, I completely understood why they paused publication for several months. Advertising revenue must have gone through the floor, and shop sales disappeared. It was great to have it drop through the letterbox again later in 2020 as things struggled to get back to some sort of normal, despite the government's best efforts at the time. I guess the distribution and advertising revenues haven't returned significantly to make it viable to continue. 

Having never thrown away an edition, much to my wife's disgust, I have a fair old collection of back copies stashed away. I shall treasure them, and I'm sure I will often look back on them for further guidance and inspiration. My thoughts are with the editor and staff, who have probably lost a significant part of their writing income—sad times.

Are we starting to see the end of the printed magazine market? It was mooted a few years ago that this may happen. When I go into W.H. Smiths in East Devon, they will still have an extensive range of magazines for sale. My personal view is that there are a lot of titles covering the same subject, titles that are just a one-off publication for an online game or similar. Rest assured, there will be a plethora of 'celebrity' magazines detailing the everyday lives of multi-millionaires that most of us have never heard of. Country sports have several publications, as do gun and rifle pursuits. There is a dog and cat market too. And, of course, there will be magazines about the upcoming coronation of King Charles III.

That's all a bit of a waffle, but I will say that those publications don't offer opportunities for freelance writers. 

Many writers would beg to differ with me. But from what I can see on the shelves, money is made from the odd ribald joke and funny stories written here or there, and maybe a 'Jeremy Kyle' style of personal story to sell. The market is more restrictive than ever for the independent writer. There are magazines that I have studied in depth to pitch to the editor, only to conclude that it is not worth the effort as their copy is almost written 100% in-house. After studying one magazine, I found it almost exclusively to be a vanity project for the 'editor', which I still see today across their social media output.

That is not to say that the online market has died away. Up until recently, I subscribed to the 'Readly' app. From that, I could access global markets of newspapers, magazines, and markets in this country. I ceased my subscription as I wasn't using it very much, and I could use that expenditure on another writing project. I'm sure that I will go back to it soon.

I have succeeded with magazines, Devon Life, to name one. However, things changed there a while back. Archant Publications sold it and other publications to Newsquest, who quickly closed down Cornwall Life and made significant editorial changes elsewhere. I have yet to pitch to them since those changes, but I'm always looking for something to pitch.

For now, my focus will be on completing my debut novel and building an audience for it before publication. As ever, I enjoy just writing, and I'm enjoying the ways I have found to encourage my productivity. I am well ahead of the plan, and all being well, that will continue.

I encourage any keen writer to write and then write more.

Dark Skies and Street Lamps

I decided to take a Daily Kickstarter from last month's Writers Forum magazine for this week's Blog.

The sky at night - not the well-known programme, the dark sky above us each night. But how much of it are we seeing?

As Yorkshire's National parks and other wild places celebrate their Dark Skies, would you like to see fewer or no street lamps where you live?

Those that know me will remember that I have been a keen astronomer. My love of our Solar System and the Universe started in Primary School in the late 1960s. When Kathy and I moved out to Stoke Fleming in South Devon, I got my first telescope and started viewing the cosmos.

The rear garden of our bungalow faced south over Start Bay. It was and probably is still a

very dark sky. From Spring onwards, the Milky Way appeared from over Start Point in a beautiful display. We are looking at the third spiral arm of our galaxy, The Milky Way.

My first steps with a telescope brought an incredible view of the great planet Jupiter with its four main moons. When we lived in Stoke Fleming, I was fortunate to view nearly all of the planets in our Solar System, including Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn. I was lucky to view the blue planet Neptune. It is truly amazing to understand that by looking through a telescope, you are not only witnessing worlds many millions of light years distance but are looking back in time. My Maths teacher, Mr Simmons, always told us that travelling back in time would be easier than going forward.

We have Exmoor National Park in Devon, which has Dark Sky status. In Cornwall, Bodmin Moor and West Penwith have the same accolade.

When we moved to East Devon, we eventually settled for a few years in a lovely bungalow with huge gardens front and back. Unfortunately, the back garden was west facing, and the orange glow tainting the sky was Exeter. I was able to see a few sights. Kathy even bought me a star for Christmas which flirts around the western horizon. To see the southern sky, I had to use the front garden. The view was spoilt by…yes, you guessed it, street lamps.

Councils have been trying hard to lower light facing upwards by investing in LED, Light Emitting Diode, Smart Street and Intelligent Street lighting. However, in these days of ever-increasing costs, these have taken a step backwards.

Not too far from where you are, even in towns and cities, there is a little place that can be your own personal dark sky. Take a look upwards. You'll be amazed at what you can see.

My first effort at Jupiter and its Moons

Links:

https://www.darksky.org/

Successes, no failures and getting busy once more

 

This week, a former Royal Marine colleague and fellow Blogger inspired me. I received an email from James Pilates with his latest blog, apologising that he hadn't blogged for nearly three years! He has been a very busy chap during that time, and at least my blog is only three months adrift!

These last three months have been a less productive time for my writing, but the tiny bit I have done has been at least successful. My Flash Fiction story 'Trapped' received Highly Commended in the Ottery Literary Festival, which was very pleasing.

During the festival, I attended a workshop, Introduction to Short Story Writing. Our lead was author Jenny Kane. Jenny passed on her knowledge wonderfully and was a true inspiration to us all. I've joined her mailing list for future online courses. In the meantime, I have been searching for more short story competitions.

Having found a few competitions, I have been fervently writing and editing a few more stories. I started one at the workshop, which has since turned into a rather good story with a twist. Having edited it over the last couple of evenings, I had a colleague at work have a read, and it went down quite well. I will leave it again for a few weeks before a final edit.

Another story that I am working on comes from the opening of my novel. When I first came up with this opening many years ago, I did wonder if it was a short story. I am doubtful at the moment. 

The question being is, it is a story or a scene from a bigger story. I want to get it to work in 300 words. Other than that, I might look at it working it up into a longer story of 1000 to 2000 words.

With all these stories potentially written, It got me thinking about what to do with them. If one were to win a competition, it would appear in a competition anthology; however, I have thought about compiling a collection of my own. It's a thought.

Writing work does come in fits and starts for me, and at the moment, I've again got a few things that will keep me busy for the rest of this month. I will keep updating this blog, and there is another project that I must briefly mention.

You may realise that this blog is on the Microsofts Blogger platform. With the greatest respect, Blogger has been an excellent platform for many years, but now it's time to move on to a newer platform. Blogger is proving to be rather difficult with formatting. I should be able to do much more on a unique platform. I've got my eye on one, so it is up to me to find the time to set it up.

There we are, then, the latest update. I have thought about posting my 'Trapped' short story. I must be careful as I might use it in another competition sometimes, and I would like it to be protected.

I'll blog again in a couple of weeks. I won't let it be three months this time!

Being a Writer

Being a Writer

I am a writer.

There, I’ve said it and it was a bit scary, but yes, I am a writer.

Therefore, what makes me a writer?

I am 57 years old; I have been writing for probably for 55 of those years. In my later years at school, I was fortunate, and it is with grateful thanks to my mother and two school teachers, who were also unsung World War Two heroes and published authors, that I managed to leave school with  GCE ‘O‘ Levels in English language and literature.

To be honest 2019 hasn’t been the best and I’m on my third job of the year (don’t ask); my wife’s father passed away after a brief illness and to top it all she has been made redundant as well.  However, five months ago I embarked on a comprehensive creative writing course. A long-held dream is starting to come to fruition.

I have been published several times over the years; letters in national daily papers, cricket reports in local papers and articles for in-house journals. Earlier this year The Rugby Paper published one of my letters and I had very pleasing personal triumph when Writing Magazine, this country’s biggest selling monthly writing publication, published a letter from one of my assignments.

The Comprehensive Creative Writing Course which I have embarked on covers all aspects of writing. It has been divided into Fiction and Non-Fiction. I have chosen to start with Non-Fiction. As recommended by the bureau and also because my interest is in writing articles for magazines. The early modules are aimed at getting into that market. Writing letters is the first and possibly the easiest way to see yourself in print, with the added bonus that there are lots of publications which offer prizes to the star letter. Getting into the habit of writing a letter to a publication 3 or 4 times a week can prove quite profitable. Filler articles are another way to get into print and they are exactly what they sound like. They are small pieces that an editor uses to fill any gaps they may have after the articles and advertisements are added to the page. Identifying those opportunities is an important first lesson to be learnt and as the modules continue, this early lesson is further evolved into a detailed analysis of magazines. I now have a spreadsheet with which I can input information gleaned from magazines to compare it with others, easily identifying freelance opportunities, size and types of articles, apparent readership and more importantly the correct editor to send the pitch to. On another, I have set up a formula to calculate word counts of articles without having to laboriously count each word. Alongside this is my submissions and financial workbook where I track my submissions by date sent, to which editor and whether I have had an answer back or not.

My smartphone has proved a useful tool for me as a writer as well. I have a very useful app from which I can view and research magazines from markets all across the globe and I can access the writing folder on my laptop through cloud services. I have a couple of apps where I can collate notes, another where I can ‘mind map’ any ideas and one that will capture any clip from any websites I visit. There are not many articles that don’t contain photographs and with nearly every phone having a powerful camera fitted, high-resolution photographs can be easily edited and uploaded to cloud services for use later.  Cloud services are essential for any writer. Who knows when you may drop your cup of tea or pot noodle all over your laptop and it breathes its last. Using the cloud you can log on from anywhere and from any computer and then be able to see all your files to work on.

My latest piece of work is an article entitled ‘Dog Toys and Why They Play’ aimed at the leading dog magazine in this country. After consideration by my tutor and on her recommendation, I have sent this off to the contributing editor. Time will tell if the Editor will use my work.

It cannot be stressed enough that all writers will receive rejections throughout their writing careers.  A rejection doesn’t always mean that your work is not good enough; it may be that your work just doesn’t fit the editors’ requirements at that time. If an editor has any suggestions to improve your work they may well give you those in the rejection letter and this can be a piece of valuable advice for future articles or pitches.

My next assignment is to write two pitches and articles for two different publications. Realistically with lead times etc., I am now looking at articles that will be published in the New Year, the research goes on.

In and around this course work I have also found time to write short stories, one of which I even entered into a competition in The Writers Forum magazine. This was the first time I had written a story since my school exams in 1978!

Being a writer has really energised me as a person and joining Ottery Writers has given me so much inspiration. Never in a million years did I think that I would be reading out my writings to a group.  This inspiration had led me to write more short stories; I have ideas for a couple of books in my notes now and even an idea for a possible comedy play.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading a bit about my life as a writer. Living in East Devon and Hardy’s Wessex, you cannot help but be inspired by the works of Thomas Hardy and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Indeed Coleridge’s famous poem Kubla Khan is carved into the entrance of the park in Ottery St Mary, his birthplace.   At Ottery Writers we have members with varying interests in the writing world; poets, novelists, fantasy writings and children’s stories are just a few. The field of opportunities for writers is vast. These talented people continue to inspire me every week to challenge myself further.  I do have several ideas for stories and who knows one day and hopefully not too far in the future, I too can proudly present my newly published novel.

Referring back to the beginning; yes I am a writer. I wouldn’t call myself a professional just yet but that is certainly going to change soon.

I’m on a wonderful journey and loving every minute of it! I hope you can join me for the ride.