It’s almost a year now since the spectacularly unpopular (yet multi-award winning) Pitching the World came into being. Over the year we’ve seen several nervous breakdowns, borderline alcoholism, chronic alcoholism, divorce, a football trial for Colchester United, me eating some beetroot, a pie chart and precious little else. Maybe a handful of pitches, but that’s about all. But Pitching the World isn’t – and never really has been – about pitching. Nor is it really about the world. Rather – despite me stressing on numerous occasions that the whole idea behind PTW was to pitch all the magazines listed in the frankly terrifying Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook – it’s always been about the life of a freelance journalist.
And if Pitching the World is about trying to give an honest and accurate account of the life of a freelance journalist, then I suppose it’s been a success. And it’s nice to have been a success in one aspect of my life because every other area of my life – financial, matrimonial, professional and plenty more – has been a colossal fuck up. But I’m beginning to think that colossal fuck ups could become a thing of the past.
Since the breakdown of my often-wonderful marriage and my divorce from the always-wonderful booze, good things have started to happen. I’ve been asked to write a book for someone in Dubai. I’ve been asked to go on a covert mission with a team of detectives and write about it. I spend a lot of time reading philosophy. I also write really dull posts – much like this one – and completely neglect the idea of pitching or putting up pitches. But if Pitching the World is going to survive for the next year – and survive it will – perhaps this is the way of the future. Little talk of pitching, much talk about the life of a writer whose life has fallen to bits. Not that much of a deviation, then, from the previous year.
Thank you.
Pitching the World 