Pitching the World

I think I may have had enough. My beef isn’t with pitching – I don’t do nearly enough of it to have had enough of it – and nor is it with the semi-award-winning Pitching the World which I don’t update enough for me to be truly sick of it. No, my beef lies with my lifestyle. I think the whole commuting from Surrey to London thing and the whole prancing around all day like a tit thing isn’t quite right for me. The whole constantly-doing-sums-in-my head-because-I-never-have-enough-money-thing isn’t quite right for me. Nor is the whole grinding my teeth down to nubs and my soul down to a husk quite right either. And this state of affairs has been going on for some time. Towards the end of 2009, I wrote:

Another 600 magazines to go. It’s good having something to work towards, something with a bit of a resolution. After said 600 magazines have been pitched I reckon I’ll either be: (a) rich (b) mad (c) divorced (d) sick of bananas or (e) a combination of (b), (c) and (d). Depending on where I’m at mentally, financially, and in my relationship after all the pitches are complete, I can then decide whether I want to carry on writing for a living, become a male prostitute, or get a normal job. Whatever the hell that is.

How astute of me. As is stands I’m half-mad, half-divorced, three-quarters sick of bananas and wholly un-rich. Rather than become fully mad and fully sick of bananas I’ve decided to take a break, go to Europe and complete the necessary pitching in order to finish Pitching the World. Romantic, no? Europe in the spring? And I will do the necessary pitching. There’s no way that I’m just going to book a National Express coach down to Paris, skulk about a bit, chainsmoke my way around the cafes whilst becoming increasingly frustrated at my attempts to land a sugar mummy, then come back to the UK and my nan’s dining room floor. No way.

There is, as far as I can see, only one problem. I have nowhere in Europe to stay. True, I did spend 10 days eating out of bins and sleeping on the streets of Paris, Lyon and Barcelona when I was in my early-twenties, so I can do that again if necessary, but that was in the summer and it was warmer. True, I am going to be applying to various writing retreats in Scandanavia, France and Spain after posting this nonsense. But I’m also on the look-out for potential benefactors, sponsors, anyone really who would fancy a writer around the house for a month or so. If any Pitching the World readers fit the bill or know someone who would, then please get in touch. I can offer some money and the following skills:

1. Good at smoking
2. Good at building walls
3. Reliable gardener
4. Good at cooking stew
5. Can write decent copy, occasionally

That I’ve put ‘Good at smoking’ at the top (the top!) of my ‘skills’ list suggests, to me at least, that if there were a sixth item on the list it would be ‘Excellent at being a fucking idiot’.

“To get out of hell, you’ve got to use power. Tell ten people.” Or so someone told me earlier today as I was strolling to the beach. I’m in Bournemouth by the way, not Surrey. Surrey, to the best of my knowledge, doesn’t have a beach. In fact, I’ve lived there for a month and Surrey doesn’t have anything. It might have a shop, somewhere. And trains – loads of trains. But nothing else. Surrey might not even have Surrey in it, I’m not sure yet. Surrey’s only purpose, it seems, is shuttling people out of Surrey.

But I’m not talking about Surrey, I’m talking about strolling. Have you tried strolling? You must. Walking is for the birds, jogging even worse, but strolling, strolling is the new booze, the new black. No longer do I start my days with a brandy coffee and a can; now it’s a banana and a stroll. In the afternoons, when the fear sets in, I take a stroll. In the evenings, when the fear really takes hold, so does my relentless strolling. Oh, you should see me stroll. I’m better at strolling than I am at sobbing and keen-eyed readers will have noticed that my sobbing is not to be sniffed at.

“To get out of hell, you’ve got to use power. Tell ten people.” That’s what the kid with the angelic face, can of super strength lager and joint told me earlier today. It took a while for his message to sink in. For a start I was mid-stroll and I don’t like to be disturbed when I’m strolling. Second, he had massive, brilliant, crazy eyes that I just stared at for a while. I wouldn’t mind those eyes, I thought, and I wouldn’t mind that can of super strength lager you’re drinking and those drugs you’re smoking. In headier days I might have grabbed the lot – can, joint, eyes, face – but these are days of sobriety and strolling and my grabbing days are firmly behind me.

“To get out of hell, you’ve got to use power. Tell ten people.” Well Angelface, consider them told. Sometimes more than ten people read this award-winning love child. Sometimes twelve people read it. What’s the point? Well, there isn’t one really. Last week I landed my most lucrative commission to date and I suppose there was a part of me hoping that I could’ve said I’d ‘strolled’ into it, but that would be stretching things. I suppose if you want a neat link, here’s one: all this strolling is keeping my head clear and I need a clear head if I’m going to keep down my regular writing job and also take on surprise commissions from time to time including this most recent one which is essentially writing the forward to a book on architecture and pays – wait for it, because this is what all the nonsense beforehand about cans, angelic faces being grabbed and strolling has been leading toward – £3 per word.

Three pounds for a word. Sounds a lot, doesn’t it? And it is a lot. Once you consider, however, that I know nothing about architecture then the deal might not seem so rosy. If I were being paid £3 per word for writing about strolling I’d be running – well, perhaps strolling – through the streets. Or if I were being paid £3 per word to write about architecture but could somehow shoehorn my newfound love of strolling in there then I’d be equally happy. And perhaps I can. Perhaps my introduction could be along the lines of:

“To get out of hell, you’ve got to use power. Tell ten people.” Or so someone told me earlier today as I was strolling to the beach. As I was strolling to the beach I was thinking about the fine work over the last two decades of Famous Architect and the relationship between architecture and strolling. Have you tried strolling? You must. Walking is for the birds, jogging even worse, but strolling, strolling is the new booze, the new black. No longer do I start my days with a brandy coffee and a can; now it’s a banana and a stroll and deep contemplation of Famous Architect and his work. In the afternoons, when the fear sets in, I take a stroll and think about Famous Architect’s clean, yet daring lines. In the evenings, when the fear really takes hold, so does my relentless strolling. Oh, you should see me stroll. I’m better at strolling than I am at sobbing (though I’m not better at sobbing than Famous Architect is at architecture) and keen-eyed readers will have noticed that my sobbing is not to be sniffed at.

I think I’ve nailed it.

“And twenty Camel Lights please. Thanks.” Me, Friday.

“Twenty Camel Lights. Please. Thanks.” Me, Saturday.

“Yes, and ten Camel Lights. Thanks.” Me, earlier today.

Seventeen words, all spoken to the same garage attendant and the only words I’ve spoken all weekend. I don’t want to speak to anyone and have turned my phone off. The only person I want to speak to for the time being is the garage attendant, and if I’m being honest I’d rather not have to speak to him. I’d prefer to just point and grunt.

Sexy, aren’t I? I’ve made other sounds; sobbing sounds mainly. You should see – you should hear – me sobbing. Oh you’d like it, I’m an excellent sobber. I’ve got sobbing nailed. Me and sobbing are pals. Why sob? Why not? It’s been a long time coming. Prior to this weekend I don’t think I’d properly addressed the breakdown of my marriage. I tried once when I was living in Clapton. My attempt involved spending most of the morning in the (mirrored) shower drinking Pernod out of the bottle and masturbating. Sexy, isn’t it? Occasionally I’d take a break and chainsmoke but my heart wasn’t really in the whole endeavour and at the end of my grieving session I didn’t really feel like I’d addressed much at all really. In fact, looking back, I wonder what on earth I was playing at.

I’m still not drinking by the way. I’d love to not be still not drinking, but I’m still not drinking. It’s tough, and made tougher by this borrowed flat I’m in being crammed with booze. Most of it hangs out in a locked cabinet. I unlock the locked cabinet, take out the bottles and then line up the bottles on my desk as I write and (in my head) swear at them. Fuck you Remy Martin XO, I think. Fuck you 10 year old Glenmorangie. Fuck you – really, fuck you – Bells. Fuck you Teachers – and you White Satin gin. Wow, I think, this is more like it, I’m doing brilliantly; I should do more of this, I should get in more.

But it doesn’t stop there, it never does. I take my friends back to their cabinet and lock it. Periodically, I open it and (in my head) swear at them. Good, isn’t it? All this? Haven’t I turned out well? Going mad in a flat in East Horsley. I was always going to go mad in a flat in East Horsley – it was so obvious.

But what better time to test out the whole madness versus creativity debate? More specifically, what better time to try and pitch Leisure Painter? Unfortunately Leisure Painter (‘Instructional articles on painting and fine art. Payment: £75 per 1000 words’) doesn’t have an email contact so they won’t be getting the benefit of my banana-sharp mind this evening. But Executive PA – they might. I flick to the Executive PA entry. ‘Business to business for working senior secretaries’, it reads, ‘Payment: £140 per 1000 words.’

And I begin to crumble. But mid-crumble it hits me. It feels as if God comes down to my borrowed flat in East Horsley and puts his hand on my shoulder and I say my eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth words of the weekend. “Fuck”, I say, “Of course.” Of course it’s going to drive me mad and of course I should be sobbing: it’s impossible. Trying to pitch 642 magazines that I don’t care about in an industry where Caitlin Moran can win Columnist of the Year is not only impossible, it’s stupid. And I’ve spent 16 months doing it. And I’m living in a borrowed flat and I owe pretty much everyone in the world money and I have a job in Mayfair as a professional writer which I need to concentrate on and just what in the hell am I doing trying to pitch the world. I should, I realise with a sigh and an entirely welcome loosening of the shoulders, just give up.

And so I do.

But not for long. Just as I’m closing the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook for what I hope is the last time I notice The Erotic Review entry, a few up from Executive PA. It reads: ‘Up-market literary magazine for sensualists and libertines. Length: 1000 words (articles and features), 1000-2000 (short stories).’

Could I sell them my wank-in-the-shower-with-Pernod story? Would sensualists and libertines like that? Possibly. I resolve to write it up on my commute from Surrey to Mayfair in the morning but if The Erotic Review doesn’t go for it, I reckon it could just about be the end.

Some good news: not only have I managed to stop drinking, I’ve managed to not stop stopping drinking. I’ll start again at some point. Oh, I’ll start again all right. I know I’ll start again. And I know you know I’ll start again. And I also know that you know that I know that you know I’ll start again. Stopping drinking, apparently, can lead to short-term confusion.

More good news: it turns out that stopping drinking can result in mental clarity. Clarity is both good and bad. Good, in that you can see things clearly. Bad, in that the things you can see clearly – curtains, meaning, other people – aren’t really worth seeing clearly. Still, there’s something to be said for detoxification, there must be otherwise the papers at this time of year (which, unfortunately, I can see clearly) wouldn’t be screaming about how fucking brilliant it is at every opportunity. I’ve yet to see the brilliance. Perhaps I will. Perhaps the grapes and muesli that I eat and the herbal teas that I drink and the walks in the country that I take really are something, but at the moment I can’t see it, at the moment all that the vitamins and air and clarity do is annoy the piss out of me and make me look forward to the day when I can drink or smoke or crack cocaine myself to death. Stopping drinking, apparently, can lead to depression.

Thankfully however, there’s even more good news: a friend of mine who is a GP (wish I was a GP) and my brother who is a scientist (wish I was a scientist) are getting a flat together in Finsbury Park (wish I was Finsbury Park). They say I can stay there in their alcove. According to my brother (wish I was my brother), the alcove is big enough to ‘just about’ house a sleeping bag. And according to the friend of mine (wish I was a friend of mine) I can stay there ‘for a bit’. Frankly, I can’t put into words how happy I am about this. Nor, simultaneously, can I put into words how depressed I am about becoming so happy about this – that at 35 I’m overjoyed that I can stay in an alcove ‘for a bit’ that is ‘just about’ big enough for a sleeping bag. That is in Finsbury Park.

I suppose my over-enjoyment lies in the prospect of getting out of Surrey and getting back in to London. There’s nothing to do in Surrey but drink and walk – and I’ve given up drinking. If walking isn’t careful, if walking continues to piss me off, then I’m going to give up that too. All I can do in Surrey, really, is pitch a bit more of the world.

And so with my eyes shut and pen in hand I flicked through the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook and blindly selected five publications that I’m determined to pitch this weekend. They are:

Leisure Painter

Digital Camera Buyer

Executive PA

Fly-Fishing & Fly-Tying

Backtrack

Fun, isn’t it? On a Friday night, doing this – it’s fun. Isn’t it fun? Oh, it’s so much fun. I can’t wait to pitch Backtrack in particular (“British railway history from 1820’s-1980’s”; payment £30 per 1000 words) but all the others are solid gold too. Assuming I haven’t gone mad or started drinking again (either, or both, entirely possible) expect to see pitches for some or all of the above by the end of the weekend.

It appears I’m experiencing the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned on the revelation that is Pitching the World that I tend to drink now and again. Well if I have – and I suspect I have – then it’s true. I do. For the last fifteen years I’ve drank almost every day and since the summer I’ve drank heavily every day and since my last post I’ve drank like a madman every day. On Saturday, after my New Years Eve celebrations had been going about a week, it all got a bit too much. On early Saturday afternoon I had to drink four cans in 15 minutes just to be able to get on the tube at Finsbury Park. And once I’d got off the tube from Finsbury Park, I had to drink another can to get me on the train at Waterloo. And once I had done that, I had to drink myself to Surrey and then drink myself from the train station at Horsley to my place a mile up the road in East Horsley and then I had to drink myself to sleep. This last bit, in particular, took some effort.

So I’ve decided to give up for a bit. For how long I don’t know, but for a bit. But what does one do when one gives up for a bit? If you’re anything like this one – and bad luck if you are – the options seem limited and terrifying. So far (and it’s been less than 48 hours so far. The bad bits are to come, apparently. The bad bits come in 72 hours) I’ve spent a lot of time walking from room to room and staring at things. I like to have a little shake now and again. I’ve been sweating lots. I’ve become fascinated by how, underneath the boozy exterior, emotionally delicate I am. I’ve been drinking lots of sugary drinks (good, apparently) and trying to take vitamins – though I’ve pretty much forgotten what vitamins are, and unless they’re in cigarettes then I’m not really taking vitamins.

This stuff is small fry though. In 72 hours, when the bad bits come, I can expect the DTs. It turns out the DTs are nowhere near as glamorous and far more dangerous than I had once thought and can lead to convulsions, fits, a stroke, a heart attack and powerful hallucinations involving snakes, spiders, and falling coins. The falling coins in particular strike me as odd, though a lot of things strike me as odd right now.

There is, however, hope. There is always hope. I’ve got responsibilities, you see. My love child, my weird kid in the attack, my darling Pitching the World needs looking after – and what better distraction than a barely-award winning blog that not that many people give a fuck about? What better distraction indeed. So, after a quick check that I’m not seeing any falling coins or snakes (I’m not) and a sugary drink (good, apparently) I open the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook for the first time in a long time. Although I haven’t pitched the publications in there alphabetically – I’ve jumped all over the place pitching whichever magazines appealed or paid the most – I’d carried a feeling around with me that my finest work was on the A’s; that if nothing else, the A’s were looking in good shape. Well they’re not. It appears that I’ve pitched the first six magazines listed in there (Accountancy; Accountancy Age; Accounting & Business; Acumen Literary Journal; Aeroplane Monthly; Aesthetica Magazine) then given up. Next on the list, rather alarmingly, is Africa-Asia Confidential.

I stare at the Africa-Asia Confidential entry for a long time. It seem that Africa-Asia Confidential is concerned with ‘news on the Africa-Asia axis’. I stare at the Africa-Asia Confidential entry for a longer time. I wonder if I know what the Africa-Asia axis is and if I did know what it was then would I know any news about it. I decide that I don’t and I wouldn’t. I’m not even sure if I know what an axis is. I stare again and decide that the best thing to do is stop staring at the Africa-Asia Confidential entry and go and have a sugary drink. Sugary drink drunk and snakes and falling coins not seen, I go back to staring at the Africa-Asia Confidential entry and, after much deliberation, decide that Africa-Asia Confidential can – for now – go and fuck itself. I move on to the next entry.

The next entry, far from hilariously, is Africa Confidential. Africa Confidential is not terribly dissimilar from its counterpart and contains ‘news and analysis of political and economic developments in Africa’. I stare at this entry for a while but not too long, quickly realising that I don’t really know a great deal about political and economic developments in Africa. If I hadn’t spent the last fifteen years drinking, I think, then I might do. But then again, if my nan had wheels she’d be a bicycle.

It’s going to be a bit of a slog, this.

I’m still ill. From now on, and unless I say otherwise, I’m always still ill. I’m also still in Surrey. Again, unless I say otherwise, I’m always still in Surrey. I can’t get out of Surrey. I might never be able to get out of Surrey. The rest of my life could be spent in Surrey. Surrey has got hold of me and won’t let go. I can’t get out because I’m both snowed in and I’m ill. I’m slowly, brilliantly, getting cabin fever. I haven’t spoken to another human being for four days. I speak to the television, or myself in the mirror and if things carry on I might start imagining that I’ve got a dog and speak to that. It’s a lot like The Shining down here in Surrey, except scarier and nowhere near as good.

So what to do? Well, the obvious answer is to drink and play with myself but my heart isn’t really in either – and besides, I’ve comically exhausted both options over the last few days. Instead, I’ve started to think about pitching again, to get the phenomenon that is Pitching the World back on its original course. Problem is – and, as regular readers will know, there’s always a problem – my Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook is stuck in my office in Mayfair and I’m stuck, with just a make-believe dog for company, here in Surrey.

Thankfully, there’s a solution. As regular readers will know, there’s always a solution. The solution, in this instance, lies with three magazines that have been left in the flat that I’m borderline squatting in in Surrey. And I’m going to pitch all three of the fuckers. Today. Later today, of course, after I’ve finished doing this and taken the dog for a walk.

The three magazines are Woman and Home, Waitrose Kitchen, and Olive. Now, if I was stuck in a flat in Surrey – and I am, I really am stuck in a flat in Surrey – then I couldn’t think of three magazines that I would least like to be stuck with. Or at least I would have thought that, until a second ago when I started looking at the October 2010 edition of Woman and Home. Have you seen the October 2010 edition of Woman and Home? It’s incredible, it’s like it was made for me. Woman and Home is my ideal magazine, I adore it. I’m going to subscribe.

Everything you need to get you through life you can learn from Woman and Home. “MAKE THIS THE WINTER YOU DON’T GET ILL – De-stress your life” sings one coverline and I think, yes, I wish this was the winter that I didn’t get ill. I wish I had read this back in the Autumn, I think, so that I didn’t get ill. Although if I hadn’t have gotten ill this winter, then I wouldn’t be stuck in Surrey and if I wasn’t stuck in Surrey (and I am, I definitely am) then I wouldn’t have been introduced to Woman and Home, so in fact I’m glad that this wasn’t the winter that I didn’t get ill. And there’s more, plenty more. “HAVE MORE MONEY” promises the cover, “New ways to bring in the cash – and stop it going out”. Wow, I think, this is definitely what I want. I want new ways to bring in the cash and I want to stop it going out. What else do I want? “BRIGHTER, SOFTER, YOUNGER – Secrets of fabulous skin & great hair every day”. Yeah, I want that too, especially every day. I want everything that Woman and Home can offer. I even want a 21 page Baking Special.

Yes, I’ll be pitching Woman and Home later, as soon as I come up with a suitable idea. As for Waitrose Kitchen and Olive, I don’t know where to start. I try to read them, but my mind is on other things, my mind is on Woman and Home. Still, I persevere. Waitrose Kitchen is a magazine about how to cook you and your lovely families lovely food and is full of good looking mums and dads with happy children. And all the food is lovely and beautifully shot and the editor’s letter is lovely (and yet completely fucking annoying. Example: “And here’s a good party conversation gambit: to share or not to share food? Small plates for all, or hands off my tucker?”), and all the adverts are lovely and the interviews are all innocuous and lovely and there is a feature on salt which is probably the loveliest feature on salt you’ll ever read.

Yet this loveliness doesn’t sit well with me. Although I may be living in Surrey and working in Mayfair, my life is a million miles from the lives depicted in Waitrose Kitchen. I can’t relate to it (yet, strangely, I can relate to the lives of the women in Woman and Home). I fear I will never have a lovely wife and lovely kids to serve lovely food to. I’ll be forever here, in Surrey, serving cups of tea and roll ups to my make-believe dog. If the editor of Waitrose Kitchen wants to send someone round to take some beautifully shot photographs of that, then he’s very welcome.

In the meantime, the pub beckons.

It’s been a while. Since you last heard from me, I’ve managed to get out of Dubai, get into London and get a job. I’ve also managed to get a flat, for free, for six months. I’m about to get paid. Oh, I’m all about getting stuff these days. You should see me get stuff. I might even get laid soon. I might even get to show one lucky woman how terrible I am in bed.

But not everything I’ve got has been good. I’ve got a bit madder and I’ve got ill. My first thought was that this was bad: getting madder and ill, I thought, is not what I want to be getting – I want to be getting other stuff. But then on my way into London to get to my new job this morning – my flat, for free, for six months is in Surrey – I realised that I wasn’t alone and that everyone has been getting ill. My train carriage was full of people coughing, snivelling, wheezing and having heart attacks and mini-fits and aneurisms and strokes and all sorts of other stuff and I realised that everyone travelling from Surrey to London at eight-something in the morning is either ill or mad and working in ill and mad jobs in an ill and mad city. When I realised this – when I started getting this – I felt strangely comforted.

What does this have to do with pitching? Well, nothing. Well, a bit. Because this morning as I was looking through the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook – for the first time in about five months – I realised that getting madder and ill is precisely what I need to get in order to pitch to the likes of Park Home & Holiday Caravan and Picture Postcard Monthly and Pensions World and if anything I need to get madder and iller.

Any ideas on how to achieve this, please let me know.

Some things have been troubling me lately*. First, that my 2010 edition of the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook is looking depressingly out of date. When I started this harebrained scheme back in September 2009, I was hoping to get the whole project wrapped up by that Christmas. Now, that Christmas has been and gone and this Christmas sits about four weeks away, gently mocking me. I have a feeling that by this Christmas I won’t have pitched the remainder of the 642 magazines I set out to pitch in September 2009.

How many remain? I’m not sure, but if I had to make an estimate I’d put it somewhere in the absolutely-fucking-loads region. When I thought I was pitching a lot earlier in the year, my records –  yes, I do keep records – suggest that I wasn’t really at all. More recently I’ve had a feeling that I haven’t pitched a thing for weeks and, frustratingly, this time my records back me up. So there’s lots to do – that’s one thing that’s troubling me. Perhaps I should stop keeping records. Or perhaps I should wrestle control of this project and start pitching ideas with a little more discipline. At the moment, I’m leaning towards not keeping records.

The other thing that’s troubling me is my diet. A few days ago I bought six kilograms of oranges. When I bought them I thought that buying six kilograms of oranges was a good thing to do and that if, over the following week, I was ever stuck for something to eat I could eat an orange. I congratulated myself on such fine, robust thinking. Now I realise that although at the time my thinking may have seemed fine and robust, there was nothing fine and robust about it at all. I’ve grown to hate oranges. There’s nothing to eat in my room in my big tower but oranges.  I’ve eaten seven today. I can’t face another one. What bothers me most about my heap of oranges in the fridge is their lack of versatility. There’s not a lot you can do with an orange: you can pretty much peel it and eat it or cut it up and eat it. It’s quite difficult to jazz up an orange – and, believe me, I’ve tried – and do something different with it. Unlike, say, a chicken. If I had six kilograms of chickens in my fridge I’d be having a ball right now.

Which brings us rather belatedly and extremely clumsily onto Square Meal. Earlier this year I was the north London section editor for their 2011 Restaurant & Bar Guide and had to review 130 places. The (I imagine heavily-edited) reviews will be available both in print and online next month. Anyway, I was looking through some records – I do keep records – earlier today and came across my original approach which got me the gig. It read:

Dear Editorial,

Love the magazine. Now, I understand I’m probably not the first or last person to express this, but I’d like to write for you. Really like to. Over the past few years I’ve written features for The Independent, The Guardian, Square Mile and a bunch of men’s magazines on all sorts of stuff, from illegal organ trading (I tried to sell bits of my body to strangers, it didn’t really work out) to anaphylactic shock. I don’t have a CV, but this piece for The Guardian about marrying someone within four weeks of meeting her, should tell you more than a CV ever could.

The bulk of my writing over the last couple of years has been about property and I’ve reviewed hundreds of agencies across the country for SoldOut magazine. I’ve attached a couple. My thinking is this: if you can make an estate agency review gripping and lively (debatable, but please read), then you can make a restaurant review, um, more gripping and more lively.

Best wishes Editorial,

Pitching the World

I dislike pretty much everything about that letter. I don’t like that I haven’t bothered to find out the name of the editor and address it accordingly. I don’t like the childish and desperate way I’ve written it. I don’t like my safe and half hearted attempts at humour. I don’t like that I’ve used a comma really badly in it. But what I do like is that it led to several thousand pounds worth of work and a fairly illustrious freelance job. And what I like even more is that if such a shit letter can lead to such work, then imagine – just imagine – what I can do when I come back from Dubai on Friday and start trying to get this ill-fated horror show of a project back on the right lines.

*Please note that the two things mentioned as THE things that are troubling me aren’t really troubling me at all and I’ve only included them to (a) remind readers that Pitching the World is, sometimes, about pitching and (b) serve as an excuse to actually include a pitch (even though it isn’t really a pitch). That said, there are some things that really are troubling me including (1) becoming more or less homeless (for the second time in three months) in less than a week (2) not having the money to get public transport out of Heathrow airport when I arrive there in less than a week (3) writing shopping lists that, if I didn’t know any better, could quite easily have been written by a serial killer. Today’s effort? ‘Tissues, fags, milk, TAPE!!!’ and (4) that one of my new readers was led to Pitching the World after he (at least I assume he’s a he) searched for ‘fuck my nan’. This troubles me and has unfortunately led me to spending an unhealthy amount of time speculating whether or not he was fantasising about a romantic encounter with his nan, was planning a romantic encounter with his nan or had gone as far as conducting a romantic encounter with his nan. Any scenario makes me feel queasy and – call me an old square – I feel the world would be a better place if there weren’t too many people out there who wanted to do that to their nans. Let’s hope there aren’t.

“If my life was a fish,” I used to think, “I’d throw it back.” Note the used to. Note, also, that this used to doesn’t refer to some romantic bygone era, but in fact the dog-end of last week. I’ve less than two weeks left here and last week I was panicking. I’m going back to London homeless, penniless, wifeless, jobless, unfit, addicted to alcohol and cigarettes, and sometimes over-reliant on prescription tranquilisers. Troubling stuff, it would seem.

But that was last week. This week things are different. “If my life was a fish”, I think this week, “I’d take it out for dinner, show it a good time, then try and have sex with it in a park on the way home.” Because although I might be penniless, jobless, homeless and so on, I’m not gutless. And I’m not spineless. I’ve got a spine and I’ve got guts. A better writer than I wrote: “The worst thing about regret is that it makes you duck the chance of suffering new regret just as you get a glimmer that nothing’s worth doing unless it has the potential to fuck up your whole life.” And Pitching the World at one point did look as if it could fuck up my whole life. Arguably it nearly did (see above paragraph. In fact, see practically any paragraph of the last fourteen months).

Yet it hasn’t. Over the last few days my whole opinion of Pitching the World has changed. If Pitching the World was a fish, I’d skip dinner and just take it to the park and bang the hell out of it. Why the sudden enthusiasm for this award-winning fucker? First, it’s afforded me the opportunity to work on this book in Dubai – a book that I think could be remarkable. Second, it’s got me an agent. I’ve always wanted an agent, and on Friday I got one. And not only do I have an agent, but I have an agent who is pretty much the best agent in the country working for what I reckon is about the best agency. He came on here after a copywriting friend of his told him, “This is the blog I wish I had written.” He told me that and I buckled. I wanted to kiss my agent. I wanted to hug my agent. I wanted to take my agent out for dinner, show him a good time, then – well, you can guess the rest.

So, some good news. But will my agent actually prompt me into pitching the world? Will – after 14 months – those 642 magazines get pitched? Will my readers learn something about journalism? Probably not, but you never know.

When I was young and poor and having sex with women round the back of supermarkets in bins I used to harbour dreams of becoming a professional writer. Very occasionally, I’d try and do something about it. Once I tried to write a book, though at the time I didn’t – and still don’t – really know what it was about. Another time I wandered into a bookshop in Bournemouth and read a book called something like (and the title may well have been this pedestrian) ‘How to be a freelance journalist’.

After reading ‘How to be a freelance journalist’, I realised that being a freelance journalist was the last thing I wanted to be. That, frankly, is saying something. There were lots of things at the time that I didn’t want to be (skinny, bald, mad, poor, sexually frustrated, an alcoholic) which I was, so to put being a freelance journalist at the bottom of this pile must have meant that I really didn’t want to become a freelance journalist.

Yet I’ve become one. At least I think I have. I’m not sure if I’m a freelance journalist or a freelance writer but I’m certainly a freelance something. Whatever I am, it’s freelance. What I do isn’t normal work, I’m convinced of that much. What annoyed me at the time about ‘How to be a freelance journalist’ – and what continues to annoy me about it – is that the advice contained in it was largely meaningless and the whole thing seemed as if it was written by a fool. Which it was.

So I thought I’d like to write my own advice for writers. Barely a day goes by without the empire that is Pitching the World being asked: “How do you do it? Become a successful writer, I mean. You’re a success, although, if I’m being honest, you’ve gone downhill a bit since your wife left you – or did you leave her? You never did clear this up – but that aside you’re doing okay. How did you get to be relatively successful at this. Feel free to leave out the part where you became an almighty fuck up at this. Oh, and why is it that Pitching the World has turned into a blog that consistently fails to deliver any useful advice about pitching and has steadfastly strayed from the original objectives?”

To that, I say two things. First, if you don’t like my apples don’t go shaking my tree. Second, I’ve been working for some time now on my tips for becoming a successful – if arguably unbalanced – writer. Unfortunately I can’t put said tips up quite yet. This afternoon I’ve taken to spending an unhealthy amount of time in my big tower in Dubai drinking neat whisky, with the curtains closed and sunglasses on. This means both that I’m a bit heady and can’t write, and that I can’t really see too well. It also means that I want to get out of my big tower and bowl around Dubai harassing people, which I’m about to start doing. In the meantime, here is a glimpse of what you can expect from my ‘How to be a writer, part two’ post which will be up on this multi-award winning fucker in the next day or two:

Tip 1: Watch Fletch lots

Tip 2: Don’t write regularly, only when inspired

Tip 3: Be bold

Tip 4: Don’t familiarise yourself with the market. Or with anything else.

Tip 5: Don’t keep a journal of your ideas.

Tip 6: Do a succession of shitty jobs in your twenties.

Tip 7: And maybe in your thirties, too.

Tip 8: If you’re writing an important cover story for SoldOut magazine (a magazine aimed at estate agents; now defunct) and you have to interview the CEO of a company on a Monday morning, spend the whole weekend getting off your tits and then turn up on Monday without really sleeping for days and not knowing a single thing about the company, the CEO or yourself. You probably won’t know what words mean. In this situation your first question should be: “So, pretend I don’t know anything about you. What do you do?”

Expect all the above tips do be fleshed out in the next day or so. Bet you can’t wait.

Someone watching Fletch lots, earlier.