Five Years
I've been a professional journalist for half a decade. Here's how I feel - and what I've learned.
On 9th October 2020, a scream rang out throughout my house. It was me, in the loft room of my student house in the Coventry suburbs, absorbing what was on the screen. An article with my name on it. It was an interview with Hot Milk published on Guitar.com – the first time I had ever been paid proper money to write something. I was 19 years old, just a couple weeks shy of my twenties, and I was now a published, professional writer.
I suppose this was making it, or the start of making it. Dreams aren’t static; they’re fluid and I was ‘making it’ again and again. It happened when I landed a byline in The Telegraph a few months later. It happened when I got to go to my first festival as press, after filling in for someone as press with a day’s notice to cover Download Pilot in summer 2021. It happened when that led to me writing for Kerrang!. It happened when I became freelance full-time after finishing my degree, which was only going to be temporary but then became permanent when I changed my mind about doing a 9-to-5 on top of journalism. Gradually, I could go from saying, “I’m kind of a music journalist now?” to confidently writing ‘journalist’ on medical forms asking for my occupation.
I’ve now been a journalist for half a decade of my life. I’ve had five whole years of doing my dream job. People older than me, when I started, made out that I would be jaded by now. I am not. There’s always something I will be excited about – an exciting new interview, a great commission, brilliant new albums, festivals, parties, everything. Not everything is wonderful (see: doing own tax return, chasing payments, the phrase ‘we’ll pass’, my egregious work-life balance) but I still find enormous joy in my job. I never want to lose sight of how lucky I am to do this. Here, it’s a case of ‘we few, we lucky few’, for one thing, but there’s nothing else that could compare. I combine writing and music, the two things I love most in the world, every single day.
As ever – if you are an editor who’s commissioned me, a publicist who has arranged me an interview, put me on a guest list or had a natter with over email, or an artist I’ve had a chat with at any point in the last five years, thank you. You make this possible and I love you for it. I will be here for as long as I can.
And, to make this anniversary feel extra special, and for any baby journos who might be stood where I once was, here’s a fun list of stuff I’ve discovered over my five years of doing this job.
FUN THINGS I’VE OBSERVED IN MY LINE OF WORK
· Writing in your phone’s notes app is a skill – and it’s very useful. If you can lock in you’re not in front of a notebook or laptop screen, you can make your life a lot easier. This is especially helpful for live reviewing and sometimes at festivals, it’s essential. Sometimes I start my live reviews on my phone on the way back from the gig to save time. I once wrote half an album review from the back seat of my parents’ car on a long drive back from Norfolk.
· Taking a good selfie holding a magazine is harder than you think. Don’t ask me how or why. It just is.
· A good level of political awareness goes a long way, even for cultural journalism. Especially in a time like this, you can’t divorce culture from politics (and neither should you). Everything is connected and music does not exist in a vacuum. In fact, nowadays as the boycotts of Barclays, Superstruct/KKR and the current No Music For Genocide movement attest, it is a cultural battleground.
· Everyone is overworked. We’re in an undervalued and increasingly busy field. There’s more music and more tours but there isn’t more money. Thanks, Spotify.
· On a similar note, you can never underestimate how much everyone loves a 10pm curfew. You get an early bedtime or a trip to the pub. Everyone wins.
· There are dodgy men in this world yet to have a public reckoning. We know we have a sexual misconduct problem and a pervasive culture of silence, especially when so many of us are freelancers and there’s not a supportive structure in place. More than once I’ve heard stories of men who have #MeToo moments in waiting. You’re left thinking, What do I do with this information? I hope there can be structures put in place to challenge this.
· You will meet the most incredible people and then not see them for months, if not years. People are busy, they live far away. Then, you’ll see them either on the next album cycle or for five minutes in a festival press area. On that note…
· Industry crushes are awful. I mean, maybe they aren’t always for everyone but mine have been, not least because of the point above. And professionally speaking, as a woman who is attracted to men, it’s a great way to give yourself *the fear* about how you might be perceived. (It’s also very fun when they go extremely wrong and you have someone to avoid in a press tent.)
· There are neurodivergent folk EVERYWHERE. Especially in bands. We don’t talk about this enough. I have had so many conversations about this with other people and we have all agreed – we ought to talk about it more so the neurospicy among us can feel supported, or at the very least just seen. It makes sense when so many of us have turned a special interest or hyperfixation into a career path.
· Keeping that inner teenage fan with you, when harnessed properly, is the greatest strength. Multiple people have told me they can sense my fandom in my writing and they’ve always meant it positively. Of course, you have to be professional and respect boundaries, but with everything I’ve just outlined, you can’t do this job if the fundamental love of music isn’t fuelling you. It’ll get you through the rough parts, keep you grounded, and keep your intentions pure. You have to write with love, for your craft, for music.