An article I wrote. If you do get in touch, tell them Jen sent you!

Write or Wrong
By Jen Errico

If ever there was proof of the pudding, this is it. Can I write? Can I sell what I write? The chances are, if you are reading this then yes, I can.

I've recently travelled. A great big round the world trip with my two children. Adventures? Every single day, some just too big for friends and family alone. I've longed to share them. Not only because in the telling there'd be the re-living but in the selling there be the chance to buy more adventures. Appealing in itself. But where to start?
Did I risk alienating commissioning-editors by sending inadvertently rude emails? Did I even know to whom I should write? And which publication? It was a minefield and not knowing where to start had been enough to stop me trying.

Then synchronicity stepped in and I found myself chatting to Ian Belcher and Sophie Campbell, freelance travel journalists who, along with three others, ran a two day course in London on how to sell your travel articles and photos. Exactly what I was looking for.
I signed up hastily and a few weeks later found myself arriving at Kings college, decidedly late, having travelled via Kings Cross and Kings Hospital. Funny to think I'd travelled the world yet still managed to get lost at home without effort.
Ian, friendly and uncritical handed me the course notes and I slunk into my chair as the last of the class introduced themselves. I was reassured as I listened, everyone wanted to do what I did, write, and sell it.
The first lesson was the 'furniture' on a newspaper page. Slugs, I was astonished to learn, lurked here, along with standfirsts or sells, captions, fact boxes, pullouts and quotes. My whole perception of newspaper articles was altering as I learnt and already I was standing in a different place. I was starting to feel more at home, I knew where the furniture went.

There was value too, in knowing which paper to target with your story, no point pitching your Arabian tale of goats head polo to the Mail, nor yet your 'Budget Budapest' to the Times. Contract magazines, devoted to the product it sold, might be interested in travel stories, furthermore they paid nicely.

Despite having virtually just arrived the suggestion of coffee was gratefully received and I chatted to Sophie, trying not to feel awed. I'd read her articles, like Ian's, in the Times, Telegraph, Mail, Guardian, Observer to name but a few. I needn't have worried, experience like hers doesn't come without being able to put people at their ease.
It was over coffee that we all began to realise that while there was money to be made in writing it wasn't without hard work. Forget the get rich quick scheme. 'Writing loads,' said Fiona, who'd obviously hoped otherwise, 'seems the only way to pay the mortgage.'
Which the next lesson covered neatly. Extracting angles. A week long trip could provide so much material, so many angles. Getting as many angles to hang your story on hook from each and selling them to different publications could mean the difference between debt or dinner.
Not only did selling your stories cover past adventures, future adventures could be based on your ability to sell the concept. Contact a commissioning editor with an idea that had merit and you could find yourself jetting off, paid for the privilege.

Afternoon lessons brought a real live commissioning editor. Cath Urquhart from the Times. I'd never known who to contact with an idea, afraid I'd contact the wrong person, pose the suggestion incorrectly or, horror of horrors, my idea would be stolen. Cath dished the goods.

The national papers received hundreds of pitches a week. She taught us what to do as much as what not to and I got the feeling that while she received hundreds of pitches a week if any were decent - and spelt her name right to start - she would always consider a pitch. And as for stealing an idea? It was simply never done. Later, as I struggled to construct a mock pitch I listened to everyone else's efforts and tried not feel enviously inferior. Baked-bean trails, women travelling solo, foreign toy-boys, real Italian produce, circumnavigating blind men and spontaneous property purchases. Every pitch deserved criticism but all had potential and each member of the group was guided and encouraged to explore their ideas. So much so that what had started out as random ideas for some, developed into active projects.

Sunday brought home the importance of good intros. Those first few lines of an article, words that caught you and made you stay. The lines that often said the least and did the most important job. I watched everyone scribbling busily and tried to think. Annoying how inspiration can go AWOL.

Research was vital too. Fancy Japan? Speak to people, read papers, magazines, listen. Find a hook on which to hang your pitch. You'll discover that the Japanese are fixated on the spring blossoms, they even have televised countdowns to blooming. Sell the pitch and you'll be winging your way to Japan, under commission to write about it.

The next task was to analyse a newspaper. Find a quote, a cliché, a colour piece and explain why a certain article suited the publication. Quick as a flash my imagination ran riot, I could offer a million clichés but they were all mine. I sighed, clearly my newspaper was highbrow.

I regretted our vote the day before to have a shorter lunch in favour of a lie in. I was dying to grill Ian about his travels, to ask Sophie about her book, discuss property purchases with Rebecca but in no time at all we were back in the classroom tying up what we had learnt with the boring but essential bits, like contacts, invoicing and money, the law, copyright and reselling.

Then it was question time. I had so many questions I could fill a day on my own so I kept quiet and listened and thought how lucky I'd been to stumble across Words and Pix. Top of their game, Ian and Sophie brought with them their wide range of experience to the teaching and I was left with the excellent feeling that, hey, maybe I really could do this.

I still write to Ian, run my ideas and writing past him and he comes back with patient comments. I'm still at the stage where I need my hand held, 'nannying' as he puts it so succinctly. But it's getting better, I'll be writing solo soon. A couple of months down the line he'll open his copy of the Times, see the byline and say to Sophie, with pride and pleasure, 'Hey, that's Jen!'