Thursday 30th July – part 2

Panic over – a room has been found.  It is however skinning me £300 to stay in London for 12 nights – thank God for the bank of mum and dad coming to my rescue and helping me out.  I couldn’t have got it much cheaper though really, and I do have an en-suite in [...]

Thursday 30th July

Having a total nightmare – the accommodation freebie that I was holding out for in London has disappeared, leaving me potentially homeless.  The uni halls I had on standby as a back-up plan are full, and everything else costs an absolute bomb!  So instead of having a busy day or writing and researching articles and working on [...]

Wednesday 29th July

My countdown has now well and truly begun for the month of madness and sleep-deprivation that will be August.  4 weeks of unpaid placements, working at the weekends in my bar job and more travelling than I’ve ever been used to doing.  In spite of all this, I’m actually really looking forward to it – [...]

Friday 24th July

Something that I’m coming to appreciate as a freelance journalist is just how much longer it takes to get things going.  I’ve been working on a two-page spread for the Evening Times in Glasgow – something that I was over the moon to get.  However, the back-and-forward trailing around from editor to subjects to interviews [...]

Wednesday 22nd July

I think that the stress of having so many things to juggle is finally starting to get to me and break down some of my basic brain functions.  I have just spent half a day looking for my train tickets to London for Grazia – in my house, my boyfriends, the street, the gym – [...]

Tuesday 21st July

I’m beginning to feel like my inbox is either empty or full of rejections.  Not really the way I was hoping this would pan out, but every time some little thing does work out I get far too over-excited about it.  I seem to have a bunch of maybes at the moment that could lead to something [...]

Monday 20th July

I am finding Bank Holidays to be extremely unproductive.  It’s difficult because I know that I should be treating it just like every other working day, but I find it puts obstacles in my way because things are not open or closing early and everyone else seems to be having a day off to relax. 
So [...]

Friday 17th July

Spent the day yesterday working on my feature for the Evening Times.  It’s really interesting, and each small step forward motivates me to keep going, which is good.  I’m just really looking forward to building up a portfolio of published articles with my name on it.
I also spent another £20 that i can’t really afford [...]

Thursday 16th July

Getting lessons today on fully optimising my blogging for search engines and user interface.  It all sounds very complicated…  However I’m hoping that it will eventually work to my advantage.  I’m ok with technology but a few extra lessons will certainly do me good and if it brings more traffic my way and therefore more [...]

Tuesday 14th July

I have just spent £10 that I don’t have on business cards that look awful.  They looked great online, but when they arrived they looked like something that I had made myself using a school photocopier.  So do I use them or waste even more money that I don’t have on news ones?  Am still [...]

Monday 13th July

I was planning on starting this week afresh.  Too many late shifts at work followed by even later nights and embarrassingly late lie-ins means my weekend was unproductive and unhealthy.  My lack of routine is causing me issue.  So last night I went to bed with good intentions of a healthy sleep and an early [...]

Friday 10th July

I have somehow managed to end my week of a productive-ness lull.  Although I suppose working to pay my rent does technically count as being productive, just not in terms of my journalistic endeavours.  And I suppose I could be thinking up features ideas, etc while I’m pulling pints?
I also spent a very useful half-hour [...]

Thursday 8th July

I have now signed up to a month’s worth of unpaid placements – two weeks each at Grazia and The List (which means a month of eating toast and reading by candlelight).  I’ve also signed up to work for two websites and potentially a new magazine which is launching, plus I’m pitching all sorts of [...]

Tuesday 7th July

Being a freelance journalist sounds terribly exciting.  It conjures up images up of someone who is one minute dressed in a trenchcoat running around the streets, notebook in hand, scooping stories, and the next swanking around at premiers and parties with the help of a press pass. 

Unfortunately, I have not found this to be [...]