It's All In The Timing

Today, I had an idea for a column. Nothing important or even intelligent, just a bit of fluff, a bit of filler, but it promised to be a mildly diverting read, the sort of thing you click on while wasting time on the internet. I write the occasional review and column for a website called CultBox, and this seemed an ideal place to send my bit of writing to.

It took about a hour, and was a fairly smooth bit of writing, presenting very few problems or challenges, bar a few checks of dates and spellings. After tidying up the prose a bit, I sent it off.

Less than a hour later, I got the inevitable reply: someone had already pitched, written, and sent a similar article. Very similar, in fact, apparently making many of the same points I'd made in my article. The only difference, really, was that they'd got there first. You see, kids, this is what happens when you don't send a speculative querying email first.

Obviously, I'll be reading with interest to see what I think if the article that beat me to the post, but overall, I'm reasonably ambivalent about the while thing. Despite having written things, on and off, for about twenty years or more, I feel like its only really now that I'm really getting to grips - nearly - with the various disciplines of being a writer. I'm not exactly saying that I've been lazy (not out loud, anyway), but I suspect that even earlier this year I would've had that idea for the column, written half of it in my head, not actually written any of it in real life, and missed the chance to get in published. I'm aware that I missed the chance anyway, but you get the point. It wasn't so much about acting on the idea more quickly, but having the idea itself more quickly.

Although someone else 'got my gig', I don't regret the time I spent writing the piece. It's quite some time away from anyone ever pays me for anything I write, and indeed, everything I read suggests that I'll spend at least a year or so having stuff published with absolutely no expectation of remuneration. But, the idea is that it's all good practice, and in any case, it's entirely likely that I'll be able to use the article (or some version of it) in the future, and adds to the mythical portfolio that may well help me get that first gig.

Well, that's the idea, anyway.