Can just anyone be a writer?

If a rat can cook, can anyone be a writer now?

Rachel Johnson

17 November 2007

And now everyone is a hack, what hope for the professionals?

So this is how my average weekday morning goes. Give briefing to a telly researcher on a subject I have written sum total of one article about, complete long Q&A for self-publicity purposes for a magazine (which will appear under someone else’s byline), supply a written quote to help a reporter on a daily broadsheet fill space, update my website in case the one person who to my certain knowledge has checked it out ever visits it again, post blog for this magazine’s Coffee House, then break for lunch, hopefully somewhere nice and near like Rowley Leigh’s new Le Café Anglais (plug, plug), where the Parmesan custard and anchovy toast is not merely vaut le voyage, but possibly worth Eurostarring over from Paris for.

Hours worked â” four, or if you subtract the hours spent drinking coffee/Facebooking/reading the newspapers/sighing heavily, three. Words written â” 1,500.Â Pounds cascading into the coffers after this morning of industry â” zip, zilch, zero.

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pj

November 15th, 2007 2:14pm Report this comment

Good. Next question?

ian skidmore

November 15th, 2007 3:58pm Report this comment

Ms Joynson proves the truth of her own headline

mburgess

November 16th, 2007 4:29pm Report this comment

This piece would have had greater force had it been better written. The casual nepotism (what makes her think her daughter will be able to write?) is tawdry.

Max

November 18th, 2007 9:00pm Report this comment

The only hope for the professionals is for them to prove that they can produce something worth paying for. There are many examples on the internet of amateurs being supported by subscriptions/payments because people genuinely want to read their work.

Gavin

November 23rd, 2007 2:30pm Report this comment

We tell my granny she's a great cook, and I have to say, she's not half bad. But good enough to win a Michelin award? Or run a high street restaurant? Naw, takes a real pro to bring all the elements together. Even if they are not appreciated or properly paid.

Lucan C. Heraclitus

November 25th, 2007 2:27pm Report this comment

Rachel Johnson belongs to the chit-chat school of columnizing (has anybody seen that word before - if not I claim it) and it is not for me to speak of its value, or her skill as an exponent. However, it would be helpful to know if any reader can identify even one observation or argument in this piece as being worthy of note?

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