Giving up giving up

I was a teenage magazine addict (wow, call the News of The World). It started because I was published in one at 13. They spelt my name wrong but paid me a fiver in 1985, and so began the addiction, and Computer and Video Games, then published by EMAP, paid me £5 for every filler and £25 for every map or solution to 8-bit computer games on my Commodore 64. That kept me in more games and I loved seeing my name in print as much as I loved the cheques coming through the door. Someone liked what I had written, and gave me money. I couldn't imagine a greater job when I was a teenager.

So after graduating, I chased after the job, got it (at Dennis Publishing) but continued to write for free. That job ended and it seemed like the end of the world. It's a big internet now though, and at one end of the business of writing and journalism, you have anyone who ever began a blog or kept a paper diary for nothing. At the other extreme, you have JK Rowling. Write something good and you have an audience, who might just pay you. Write a ton of self-indulgent nonsense...and you're making yourself feel good. The only thing that comes close to the buzz that I get from writing something that people care about, makes them laugh, or makes them think, is to read something written by someone else that makes me feel the same way.

Since I was told that editing was never my strong point (and looking at my first two entries, they could be right), I'll end this post here.