One door shuts....

And after a few weeks of stress, panic and foreboding doom, another one opens!

As a few of you may know I lost my steady job a few weeks back after (unofficially!?!) being made redundant a little over a year ago. I have managed to find some steady work for a friend but have also been applying for loads of jobs and positions, one of which was something of a dream job, a Ranger for the South Downs National Park, all of which I have met with little (one interview!) or no success.
Then I got an email yesterday from a competition I entered to work as a freelance writer for Haymarket Media, in particular for a joint venture between LG, Stuff Magazine and What Hifi. There were three positions up for grabs and little old me bagged one! I understand it won't pay all the bills but it's exciting and looks like a whole load of fun! I am going up to London next week to meet them and to find out what my assignments will be.
And to give it a little retro flavour for you all, the entry requirements were to write about a piece of tech you love - I wrote about my mother's gloriously retro 3310 and mentioned my old Vic 20 in the 140 character description they also asked for!

Here's a link if you are interested....
http://www.howtoliveit.co.uk/2014/05/02 ... ng%20Stars

Darn. I can drone on for weeks about this sort of thing...

Good luck with it all.

Did you see the small print

There is no job up for offer – just a series of freelance commissions. good luck, but its a bit like winning a entry into the xfactor.

Haymarket retains the copyright to all material submitted, so you submit a article and they don't use it, you don't get paid, then some one edits your article they use it and you still don't get paid.

Writers will be paid standard How To Live It freelance rate per article. so you can write 10 articles and they use 0, you get nothing, on top of this you will get all the BS about building your portfolio, getting exposure, etc is all well and good but it cant pay the bills.

I am sure one way or another you will have fun, good luck.

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From a confidence point of view I can see the massive boost. Add to that the advantage of having that on your c.v. When another position comes up cannot be underestimated. Well done and good luck.

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Good luck.

I'm a freelance contributor to a couple of shooting magazines, and have been for something over ten years. I only occasionally get asked to write these days, but that is my choice.

Be sure, you will not get rich on an article by article basis, as the money is megre, but, if you write well and people like your stuff then you may well get asked for more. I had a year long series in one magazine, repeat that across a couple of mags and all of a sudden your monthly income is starting to look more health.

One thing to find out is when and how to invoice. The publisher I write for pays at the end of the published month.. or some such, in essence, six weeks after the magazine appears.

My one bit of advice would be to write in your own voice and try like hell not to become repetitive or formulaic; there are writers in the shooting press who you could almost substitute one brand name for another and the article would read the same, real cut'n'paste jobs. I am always very careful not to do that.

Enjoy yourself, you never know where this could lead.

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With the economy picking up is there not lots of work in your area?

My brother has ramped up on the solar installations lately.

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Good luck with it mate , remember what the man said .

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"
Lao Tzu

Cheers Paul

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Thanks for the comments guys, Green Rabbit I'm under no illusion it could all be fruitless but I'm looking at it to have some fun, possibly for financial gain and to also get writing again, something I have been promising myself to do for years. The confidence boost has been terrific at a time when I have been getting a little forlorn, I'm certainly going to try and make a go of this.

highlandsflyer":1n1rk6zw said:

With the economy picking up is there not lots of work in your area?

My brother has ramped up on the solar installations lately.

Click to expand...

The economy is improving if you are heavily involved in building cheap estates. If you not, nothing much has changed down here - lots of talk about being eco friendly but no money has filtered through yet.

Well I had a great time up in London on friday, had a look around the offices and was shown around the What Hifi testing rooms - crikey they have some mint kit in there - a £13k turntable anyone??? The car park was also a very nice place to be, Rolls Royce sat next to a Jenson Interceptor, lots of awesome other road test cars and all top end

I have to write seven articles over the next 12 weeks about various things including a couple of product reviews, a pitch, an opinion and covering the Commonwealth Games. I'm not sure how much I get paid for the other articles but the first one in which I'll be writing about 600 odd words about my favourite movie, I'll be getting £80, and expenses covered when needed. Not bad really! It's going to be a load of fun I reckon...

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Did you get to meet Verity? She has lovely boobs.