by Joe Cawley
By the time the third and final speaker had shared their insights, my notebook was half full and my head was humming from the strain of having concentrated so hard. I needed a quiet spot to digest it all.
As the other fifty attendees and I gathered up notes and coats and started to shuffle out, one of the lecturers made a last-minute announcement: ‘We’re off to the local boozer now. If any of you would care to join us, feel free.’
As I was only in the UK for forty-eight hours, I figured I’d better wring every last drop out of this learning experience. I quickened my step to find out which of the hundreds of London pubs the three founts of knowledge were heading to. Follow the crowd, I figured. But there was no crowd.
A burst of chatter and a comforting amber glow briefly warmed the cold November night as the deputy travel editor of the Sunday Times slipped from a dull back street into the Red Lion. I was close behind.
It was six o’clock on a Friday evening and the mock Tudor pub was standing room only. The three lecturers stood near the bar, hands tucked into the pockets of long black coats, the standard uniform of London workers. The editor of TNT magazine tried to catch the attention of the bar staff, mouth opening and closing as he failed to get acknowledgement.
Did these bar staff not know who they were? To me they were travel-writer superheroes, living on a different plane to the inebriated office workers around them. Their working space wasn’t a cloned compartment in an identikit glass tower. Their office extended from the frozen tundra of the Russian steppes to the backstreets of Calcutta; when they took their seat at work, it could have been in a beach hut in Bali or a penthouse apartment in New York. Each one of them must have racked thousands of miles of foreign travel, with tomorrow always bringing the promise of a new assignment, a new adventure in a new country.
I wanted to tell the bar staff all this, but instead I took my place at the back of a queue three-deep with other mere mortals and waited my turn. As the line dwindled, I found myself elbow-to-elbow at the bar with Max, the deputy editor I’d followed in. We were both in competition to be served first. I knew from my Smugglers days that leaning forward and maintaining eye contact with the person behind the bar was the key to getting the quickest drink.
‘Pint of London Pride,’ I said as the editor’s mouth closed once again in failure. I could feel his eyes boring into the back of my head. ‘Can I get you all one?’ I braved, turning to face Max and nodding towards his colleagues. The superheroes said nothing. ‘I was at the travel-writing seminar.’
Max’s expression softened a little. ‘Oh, right, sure… thanks. Three London Prides.’
The drinks arrived, and I took a sip. ‘Where’s everybody sat?’
Max looked puzzled.
‘The other attendees.’ I’d assumed they’d take over half the pub.
‘This is it,’ said Max. ‘Just you and those three talking to David.’
From a masterclass of fifty people eager to break into one of the most competitive freelance-writing niches, only four of us had seized the golden opportunity to have a one-on-one with industry stalwarts. I was astounded. ‘I thought everybody would stalk you back to the pub!’
‘We thought so too,’ said Max. ‘I guess they had trains to catch or something. You’re the one from Tenerife, aren’t you?’
I was flattered he remembered. The first half hour of the event had been taken up with stand-up introductions from each of us.
‘What took you over there?’
I repeated the story that I’d told hundreds of times to customers in the bar, pausing only to accept another pint as the first ran dry. I assumed that, like me, Max was drinking on an empty stomach, and that, also like me, he must have been feeling the full force of the London Pride by now.
I ordered a third and then a fourth as the conversation veered back and forth between stories from the bar and jaw-dropping tales about Max’s travels. My confidence had taken a seat in a comfy chair reserved for Dutch courage and I steered the subject back to travel writing. ‘Do you get many pitches about Tenerife?’ I asked.
‘A few, mainly about the nightlife scene, or as a winter-sun hotspot. Nothing unusual.’
I sensed an opportunity and blurted out, ‘Can I send you some ideas?’
Despite our alcohol intake, Max hesitated. ‘Err… I get at least twenty pitches a day in my inbox, most of them from travel writers we already trust and work with.’
‘But Tenerife gets such a bad rap,’ I continued. ‘It’s always the negative stuff that gets printed, about drunken teenagers and foam parties, and the timeshare rip-offs. Nobody prints anything about the other side, the volcanic caves, the subtropical forests, the hidden villages.’
Max nodded in sympathy. ‘True, but have you written for anyone else?’
‘I’ve written for a few online publications and I write travel features for the local paper.’ I immediately knew that sounded amateurish, but, along with the extra-strong beer, it seemed to do the trick.
‘Tell you what, send me some ideas, but no promises. Like I said, this is the big league. Don’t try to swim before you can… wait… that’s not right. Don’t try to walk before you… Well, you know what I mean.’
‘I won’t, and thanks. Have you got a card?’
He held out a Sunday Times business card. ‘And do remember everything you heard today. I can’t promise anything, but I will take a look.’
I stumbled back out into the chilly evening, my thoughts floating in a bubble of excitement, and also quite a lot of beer.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Back in Tenerife, I continued writing for the local newspaper but with my eyes set on a loftier target. At the time, the Sunday Times travel section was running a regular feature called ‘Perfect 10’, and this is where I aimed to slot my choice of the ten best things to do in Puerto de la Cruz, the city I’d developed a fondness for during my brief visit on my round-island bus journey. There were plenty of obvious things I could write about the place, but, as advised, I needed to surprise readers by including some unexpected things too. After half a day patrolling the streets, I’d made my selection.
I wanted to go beyond the well-known attractions like the Loro Parque wildlife park and the beaches, so I settled on some lesser-known gems. My favourite of these was the naval museum. Some distance from the shops selling local lacework, hidden at the back of the overgrown garden of the eighteenth-century Casa Iriarte, the exterior of this museum looked no more inviting than a decrepit potting shed. Inside, however, visitors were treated to a curious array of maritime knick-knacks exhibited in rooms off a dark maze of creaking corridors. Dusty model schooners, faded photographs of solemn crews, and old manuscripts imprisoned between sheets of Perspex bore illegible captions obscured by long-dead flies. Although some might have seen this scruffiness as simple neglect, life on board a sixteenth-century Spanish galleon would certainly have been no luxury cruise, so what would have been the point of presenting its story in sterile surroundings?
The actual writing of the ‘Puerto de la Cruz Perfect 10’ took considerably longer than I expected. Twelve days, to be precise. I wrote, I tore up. I restarted, then cast my efforts into the bin. I agonised over the opening paragraph, or ‘the hook’, as we had been advised to see it, and ruminated on how to end it.
Joy would silently place a succession of coffee mugs on the thesaurus, dictionary, grammar guide and sheaves of notes as I sat staring into the glow of my PC monitor late into the night. And finally I had it, the complete guide to both the obvious and not-so-obvious sights of this northern city.
Joy read it and declared it brilliant. I beamed with pride as I imagined my name immortalised in the Fleet Street hall of fame alongside the distinguished journalists and scholars who had written for the UK’s most esteemed newspaper.
I emailed five pages that I hoped was an application for literary fame and fortune, along with the following cover note:
Max,
Over pints of Pride and bucketfuls
of Caffrey’s, post TNT writing seminar, I harangued you into agreeing to look at a ‘Perfect 10’ piece on Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife. Well, from the sunny shores of the island they like to call ‘trash’, here it is.
I continue to fight our corner against the media beasties who paint the island in simple primary colours. There is more here: more subtlety, more sophistication, more sensory feasts than are often served on the wide-screen platter.
Yes, the southern resorts of Los Cristianos and Las Américas are rife with sombreros and sun cream, but the north is a million miles away (well, not quite), and Puerto de la Cruz is the epitome of graceful tourism, a matrimony of serenity and sun in a home of charming character.
The BBC are filming Puerto de la Cruz in early August for part of their Culture Club series, so a piece in your Travel supplement around the time of broadcast could be both interesting and timely.
Anyways, enough banging on. Thanks for your useful advice at the seminar, I really got more out of your presentation than from everybody else put together – and that’s not (just) a desperate attempt at flattery (I can’t afford bribery) – so thanks for your time and I hope we can work together.
Best regards,
Joe Cawley
Tenerife
P.S. By the way, it’s your round again!
Now it was just a waiting game.
It took exactly one week of checking my email hourly before a response arrived and what I hoped would be a passport to the best job in the world.
I sat with Joy on the patio. Fugly pawed at my bare ankles but gave up when she could see there was no reaction. I stared at the laptop screen. Joy stared at me.
‘Go on then. Read it.’
I opened it with all the care of an archaeologist unearthing a priceless relic. If it was the news I expected, my future career began right now. Not just any career though. A role that was only enjoyed by an elite few the world over. Like a secret agent, I could be one of the strangers on a plane full of holidaymakers, curious stares asking who this mysterious loner could be. I would be the one checking into the hotel with surprisingly little luggage. I would be the one who could pluck a backstreet restaurant from obscurity and set its till alight through a glowing recommendation to hundreds of thousands of readers seeking tips and advice in the Sunday travel sections.
Conversely, I could be the one that put in their place the snooty owner of a pretentious eatery with a few carefully chosen words of caution as to why the reader’s holiday money would be best spent elsewhere. I could be that man. And it all started now. With this email. On my laptop. Open.
It began with ‘Dear Joe’. A good start.
Thanks for the ‘Perfect 10’ – and well done for being the only one to send me something!
OK, let me go in hard here, it’ll be easier. This suffers from a bad dose of the twee and cliched. Lots of ‘lush’, ‘boasting’, ‘treasures’, ‘claims to fame’, ‘residing’… fucking sort of stuff that sends me screaming from the room. I want to see really robust writing. What’s good about a big penguinarium – the stink, the sight, the sound – WHAT?
Dinner dances and casinos? I can get that in Blackpool.
Oscar Wilde’s dad? Umm!
Looking at old pots in a museum: I’d rather get pissed in a swinging pub, you’d rather get pissed in a swinging pub – so write about a swinging pub?
You live there, but you’re writing like you saw a travel programme on it last week. It’s not rocket science, it’s certainly not brochure writing, it’s just about writing the stuff people can get excited about. Apply this to all of them and excite me and we might get somewhere!
Sorry. Did say I’d go in hard. Now, that’s about £60 of my time – you’ve got one more go at it!
Good luck!
Max
‘Oh,’ whispered Joy.
My face glowed pink with disappointment and embarrassment at having got it so wrong. Dreams of joining the big league evaporated.
‘At least he took the trouble to write back,’ said Joy. ‘You told me he said you don’t usually get a response unless they like it.’
‘True. And I’m pretty sure he didn’t like it.’ I put the laptop down, stood up and stared out to sea. The world didn’t seem like my oyster anymore. It was more like a shrivelled whelk that got stuck in your throat, choking hopes of fame, fortune and foreign adventure.
‘But look at this.’ Joy’s index finger moved across the screen as she read. ‘“You’ve got one more go at it.”’ He’s giving you another chance. He must see some potential.’
Such was the darkness of my disappointment, I’d failed to see any glimmer of positivity in his comments on first reading. Suddenly, the flame of hope flickered again. ‘Do you think so?’
‘Definitely.’ She put an arm around me. ‘Joe, it’s your first attempt. You can’t expect to jump from Island Connections to the jiddy Sunday Times without a little stumbling along the way! Rewrite it and send it back. He’s giving you another chance. I think that’s brilliant!’
Joy was right. So I did. I attacked my first effort like an assassin. Red ink poured from my pen as I slayed clichés, garrotted brochure-speak and slaughtered a whole battalion of adverbs and adjectives that I’d let invade the page. I had nothing to lose, so I risked bizarre metaphors and threw in as much humour as I could muster.
It took two full days, but when I’d finished, I had become so focused on the fine detail that I couldn’t tell if it read better or worse. I knew that if I was rejected again my dream of the perfect job would remain just that.
Joy, of course, told me it was brilliant. But added a pinch of reality by reminding me that I was aiming rather high and that I shouldn’t be too disappointed if I had to start my ascent up the travel-writing ladder from a lower rung.
Hi Max,
The bruising is beginning to go down now after the battering you gave me for my previous effort. It’s not without a little trepidation and with the satisfactory safety of two thousand miles between us that I send you a rejigged version.
Although not a great lover of pain, I did appreciate the time you gave me in your verbal assault and hope that after reading it this time you won’t get the urge to exit stage left screaming obscenities.
Hope it works for you.
Cheers,
Joe
And then I waited again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hi Joe,
Something seems to have done the trick – nice work. I’ve shown it to my boss and she’s in agreement. Slight problem in that she’s commissioned one of her writers to do Gran Canaria, but we’ll see if we can somehow incorporate something from this.
But it’ll take a while, so don’t hold your breath. Also, I’ve passed on the piece to the chap who oversees ‘On the Cheap’, just to see if he’s interested in using you.
Well done. If anything gets published, you can buy me that beer.
Cheers,
Max
This time I felt like I’d earned it. I had applied everything we’d learned at the travel-writing seminar and everything that Max had spelled out in his response. I’d found my voice and made the article unmistakably mine. Okay, so they weren’t going to use it as they had already commissioned a piece on the Canary Islands. But he liked it and he’d shown it round, to his editor, to another colleague on the travel desk. Blimey.
I now felt foolish thinking about my first attempt. It was all too clear now how to find your own style and how to avoid being one of the ‘brochure writers’. It was also easier. Writing brochure copy was like being a forger trying to recreate a masterpiece: the slightest slip and you’d be found out. Writing from the heart was being the original artist, with nothing to imitate. Yes, you still had to stick to the dimensions required by the client, and the subject had to have been agreed on, but the rest… well, the rest was a blank canvas, as they say. I had suddenly become an artist; not only that, but an artist closer to big-league recognition.
The following day
I pushed Max for more, asking if he’d commission another feature. ‘No,’ was the succinct reply. But his explanation was encouraging. ‘You’ve still got to prove yourself. Send me another article, on spec. If I like it, I’ll pass it to the boss and see what she says. No guarantees, but I promise I’ll look at it again.’
The Sunday Times’ new feature, ‘On the Cheap’, that Max had mentioned was about how to do major cities on a minor budget. The idea was to recommend three or four economical but appealing places to stay and eat, and devise an itinerary that would take in the best sights at minimal cost.
Out of the trio of selections I presented to Max, Florence was chosen as the favourite. I’d never been, but it was on the European major cities map and eventually it would have to be done by someone. Why not me?
I immediately began to research all I could about Italy’s Renaissance city. I made lists of the most important sights, worked out when the ‘fringe’ period fell, just before high-season prices kicked in but when the weather was at its best, and read everything I could about my next destination. The only thing left was to visit the city itself.
