EDitorial ± 21-May-2012

We Like Your Blog

Hi Ed, we like your blog. Would you be interested in writing some content for us? Email me if yes.

That's how it started, my big break, that moment when the Hollywood producer wanders over and asks if you've ever worked in pictures before. Except, in this ever-changing world in which we live in, this was a Twitter direct message from the editor of a local magazine. No matter. Before the electronic ink was dry, I bit his hand off. So I wrote:

Yep, I'll happily write something for you -- what did you have in mind?

Then he wrote:

Your blog is generally funny, do you, or are you interested in writing serious stuff as well?

More compliments. All very lovely, though curious that he seems to be steering me away from the hilarity. So I wrote:

I'm far more comfortable *not* being serious. I struggle to take myself seriously.

Bit nervous now about his response. Then he wrote:

That's fine, we like your stuff because it's funny. Please come up with three ideas for blogs that you think would work on our website.

Ball's back in my court and with plenty of spin. Takes me a few days to assemble an answer. So I wrote:

(a) Dad's Taxi -- life as a father of 3 (one of each)
(b) When This Was All Fields -- why modern life isn't rubbish
(c) Yoghurt Of The Month -- lessons to be learned from the latest products in the supermarket chiller cabinet

Then he wrote:

Just to let you know that I'm on holiday so will get back to you in a couple of weeks.

I get up. I bike to work. I bike back. I eat. I sometimes shower. Then he wrote:

I need a bit more info on Dad's Taxi, as I don't quite get that one.

When This Was All Fields sounds good, particularly if it was historically based on Ipswich/Suffolk. Historically informative but also funny and stupid sounds like a winning and original combo.

Yoghurt of the Month is a bit too random for us... I should've mentioned that ideas should be in some way of local youth interest.

Er, OK, let's flesh it out a bit. So I wrote:

Dad's Taxi -- slightly fictionalised episodes from the life of a parent of three kids (inc. two teenagers). Would maybe show your youth readership what it's like on the other side.

There follows a brief period of deafening silence. Then he wrote:

This is going to sound really cr*p, but I didn't realise you were 43 [actually I was 45 at the time], and although this shouldn't matter, it in fact does.

You might not know about our set up but basically it is a youth media organisation, with specific objectives to provide opportunities in media production for young people from Suffolk (our target age is 16-25).

I wrongly assumed you were in this age group, from your general internet persona, and it was only when you mentioned the Dad's Taxi idea that I started to thinking maybe you are not the spring chicken that I thought you were. LOL!

Sorry to mess you about, and all I can say is that you are very young at heart.

Ouch. First it giveth then it taketh away. So I wrote:

Pass the Werther's. I'm off to write for the East Anglian edition of Saga magazine

That was my brilliant career.