I was an apprentice, there’s no shame in it. I started work as a journalist when I left school to avoid university. It was an amazing education that taught me how to gather information, sort it into order and produce the required number of words against the clock. Basically I learned how to get stuff down on paper in a way that people would read it
If at first you don’t succeed, don’t throw it away!
Unless you have the most massive ego, you will inevitably be displeased by some things you write, especially early in your apprenticeship. The first law of ‘Write Club’ (I honestly can’t believe I wrote that, hohum) is never throw anything away. There are a few very valid reasons for that...
Nodding candles – an exercise in pace
The table was narrow. Two dinner plates would almost touch in its width. It was littered. A few bread crumbs, an ashtray, wine glasses, a box of wine, shreds of tobacco, rizlas, a lighter – the residue, the remainders, the late night, dawn-breaking survivors, like them, of a recently past...
Sentence length helps with pace
Listen to the people around you and watch television. When we argue aggressively we tend to use short sentences. The words are thrown together in outbursts without a huge amount of consideration. When we are having a discussion, we build in more pauses so that we can assemble our thoughts...
Anger – another exercise in pace
‘Fuck off, you bastard.’ She screamed the words at him. She spat them. If they’d been bullets he would be dead. The Saturday traffic sped past. An island in the middle of a High Street thronged with shoppers wasn’t where she would have chosen to hurl her anger at him...