I've dreamed of editing a magazine since I was about four (or at the very latest, eight, when I decided to get a team together to produce a fortnightly school magazine hand-written on photocopier paper. My team's job was to copy the master issue I created by hand so that we'd have a 'print run' of, ooh, five in a good fortnight. It ran for about three issues, if memory serves. And was unutterably shit)
I don't quite know how I pictured being an editor, or even if I pictured it at all - it was more a case of reading other magazines and thinking 'but why isn't there anything out there that talks about stuff the way I want to read about it?' and wanting to get something out there that did things differently. But nonetheless, it's been a dream for a very long time.
Now it's come true, I feel a bit shell-shocked. The reality is definitely interesting - in a kind of 'having no life' way - and I am loving it. But it's not quite the life I'd imagine most people would picture an editor having. Most of the last couple of months has been spent having meetings, writing, dealing with emails, editing, proofing and all manner of other really glamorous things. I've tended to finish at four or five am and start again in the morning.
IN THE MORNING.
I don't do mornings. I have a moral objection to mornings (and there aren't that many things I have moral objections to.) But nonetheless, I've been there, rolling straight from bed to my computer chair (one of the advantages of working from home) and typing away. Even before 9am on occasions (OK, not that many but enough) More scarily, there have been times when I've realised I've worked for four hours and still haven't had my first coffee of the day. And that's just wrong.
There is some glamour going on though. I had a fab night at a recent Janet Reger launch party and even ended up blathering to the lady herself for hours. Turns out that Janet Reger is a top laugh who smokes as much as I do and is totally lovely and down to earth. Given that I was expecting some posh bird who was dead snooty, I was really pleasantly surprised. As I was with Jodie Marsh, who I met at the Scarlet launch. Prior to meeting her I, like a lot of people, figured that she was a total bimbo. I was so wrong. Her favourite book is Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, she's really articulate, writes her own column for Zoo (rather than having it ghosted), is currently working on her first book, and she's a total sweetie.
About a week after I met her, I was in the pub playing pool with a couple of random blokes (and my new-ish boy). One of the blokes mentioned he was a massive fan of hers so, being a tad the worse for wear (hell, it was the first night off I'd had in about a month) I sent her a text saying 'any chance you can call this bloke and totally freak him out/make him happy?' Ten minutes later she called back and chatted to him for about twenty minutes, putting a smile on his face (and no doubt giving him a wank bank memory for life) despite the fact that she was running late for a mate's birthhday party. So, don't judge her for being blonde, wearing skimpy clothes and going to parties. She's actually a really sweet, kind, bright girl.
It's also been interesting to see the amount of PRs who previously ignored my mails and are now inviting me out to nights with free champagne (apparently, all press launches have canapes and champagne: not just ones for glam products. Ones for cookers, toilet cleaner, pet food - every one has canapes and champage. Then again, I guess few people would go to a toilet cleaner launch party unless they were promised free booze.) Though ironically, now I get invited to the kind of glam parties the 16 year old me must have dreamed of, I don't tend to have time to go to them because I'm so busy subbing copy (if only it just said 'yes Mistress,' and did exactly what I wanted it to, it would be so much easier.) Oh, and while I'm on irony, I was in a cab today and the driver was an ex-geologist who couldn't get a job because he was too old. Is it just me that finds that utterly absurd?
Other than working and partying, I have had a chance to learn some things so far as an editor. The designers have taught me how to use proper proofing marks rather than random scribbles. My Fashion Editor has taught me the correct way to wear a ribbon belt (I didn't even know ribbons could be used as belts but according to the team, now I'm an editor, I have to dress properly, which means dressing like a grown up with hints of fashion going on. I'm not entirely sure I approve but I'm prepared to give it a go - not least because they looked fab on Richard and Judy while I looked like an old munter. So I'm having to get girlie advice from them.) And I've learned that magazine grammar is apparently not the same as 'real world' grammar; something I really don't approve of and am resisting as hard as I can. Every time we use 'fashionable' grammar, I am plunged back to school, standing up with the rest of the class reciting 'a noun is the name of a person, place or thing.' It's traumatic having to break those childhood rules.
Anyway, wittering aside, it's time to go to bed now. Oh, but before I do, and I know there are going to be a million bloggers out there saying this in a far more articulate way but Bush - what a cunt. And not in a good way.
Posted by emilyd at November 04, 2004 03:47 AM