Writing: A Conversation Without Interruptions

I think Tuesday was the very first time I’d considered just how much writing articles could do for me. At the start of this series on writing I hadn’t given it much thought, but, since then, I’ve talked with breastfeeding peer supporters, my business mentor and other writers about articles.
Let me explain:

Breastfeeding Peer Support
You may or may not know – I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it in passing or not – that I’m training to be a recognised breastfeeding peer supporter in my area. I’m over half way into the training and expect to graduate in May. I’ve thought about writing articles for various parenting and mother/baby magazines 1) because I think they need real information from people who know a little more about breastfeeding, rather than doctors who simply give you the generic ‘breast is best’ and 2) because there is gap for the stories I have in mind. I’m a young (ish) mum, first time mum at that and I have twins. I’ve breastfed them both and even though they are ten months old (and change) I’m still breastfeeding them. It’s the sort of message that I feel might be encouraging to mothers who feel they can’t go on, or who have hit a wall. Particularly because I had such a rough start. Not only is the idea of seeing my name in print very attractive to me, but potentially helping other mums is a warming thought. It’s why I’m doing the training in the first place!

My Business Mentor
On Tuesday I went to an induction for the New Enterprise Scheme. For those of you outside the UK, or those who just aren’t familiar, why not check this out for more information. Anyway, that was an incredibly helpful experience (I’ll be blogging about that later, not here but on the business website) and through it, I actually began to consider writing articles as a means of promotion. Not even necessarily on what the business handles, or even on writing, but whatever might be needed at the time, depending on whether or not I can get a regular gig somewhere. It’s almost free advertising since any article I write would have my name, my byline and contact details on it, would would be the business web address. Pretty handy, eh?

Other Writers
We talk a lot – at Phoenix Writers – about ways to get our writing out into the world. Competitions, letters, open anthologies, open small presses and the like. Last week we talked about articles and how easy it is to write something (even something small) on something that interests you. It might not get anywhere to begin with – in fact, it probably won’t! – but getting the practise and having your name crop up over and over (if you keep submitting) can’t be a bad thing, right?

So… at some point I will be looking into articles. I have enough on my plate right now that I’m not going to rush into that, but there is certainly scope for that. I’m likely to start with a view towards promoting the business, rather than me as a writer. After that – hopefully – I’ll have the time to spend on promoting my brand as a writer, rather than my brand as a business woman. ^_^

Continuing my rather enlightening series on writing I’ve reached something that until this moment I hadn’t properly decided I would include. When I say letters I mean those little snippets you find at the beginning of magazines, written by readers with something to say. They either suggest articles or respond to previous stories and the like. I wasn’t sure I should include this because I’ve never written one before.

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing for money. I would love to earn a couple of £s for something I write and this is one of the ways to do it. It has been suggested to me, very many times, that I write something for a woman’s magazine or a mother and baby magazine. There is certainly space for it because I find very little in these magazines about twins. Or rather, there was very little about it while I was pregnant. I haven’t read one of those mags for a long time.

There is certainly space for me to talk about my experiences raising my boys and being pregnant with them too. I can also appeal to geeky magazines about things like LARPing, pen and paper RPGs and I’m sure I could find someone who would like to talk about my radio show (I really should try to get back to that by the way; now that my Sundays are a little less hectic these days).

Well… that’s my plan anyway. It takes a back seat to all of the other stuff I have lined up for myself, but, if I get an hour or so spare one day I’m going to write a letter. Something I can send to a magazine. They may publish it, they may not, but it’s all experience in different sorts of writing that I should be working towards building up anyway.

Have you guys ever written to a magazine before? How did you get on?