Can just anyone be a writer?
If a rat can cook, can anyone be a writer now?
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 ┠four, or if you subtract the hours spent drinking coffee/Facebooking/reading the newspapers/sighing heavily, three. Words written ┠1,500. Pounds cascading into the coffers after this morning of industry ┠zip, zilch, zero.
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pj
November 15th, 2007 2:14pmGood. Next question?
ian skidmore
November 15th, 2007 3:58pmMs Joynson proves the truth of her own headline
mburgess
November 16th, 2007 4:29pmThis 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 9:00pmThe 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 2:30pmWe 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 2:27pmRachel 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?