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
‘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...
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...
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...
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...