This might be a bit personal, but how much of your writing do you consider to be under the bucket of “this is the most impactful work I could be doing right now”, versus work that you are assigned to do or have to do?
How do you choose what to write about, especially when it comes to shorter-form articles? How do you think independent writers/bloggers should decide what to write about?
What topics do you wish to do more writing or research on in the next 1-3 years, but haven’t yet?
1. this is a totally fair question! But … hmm. I am (these days) rarely “assigned” work, but obviously I do have to get my editors to agree to let me write things, and I can’t just write “buy antimalarial bednets” every week forever. That said, if I did, no one would read me, so I need to write interesting things that get an audience. So there’s a theoretical tradeoff between “say what’s important” and “say what will get read”, and the greatest impact means finding the right balance.
That said, in reality, it’s not often as though I have two brilliant ideas for a column in the same week and I have to choose between them; it always feels like a miracle that I usually manage to have at least one. And since I don’t always have a really clear idea about what will have the most impact, I rarely feel like I’m writing something I don’t think matters.
(I guess when I do something fun, like this about Warhammer, it doesn’t “matter” in some sense that it probably won’t save lives. But I enjoyed writing it, and people enjoyed reading it, and maybe it gave a few people an idea for how to have a hobby. I doubt it was the most impactful thing I could have done, but I still feel it was net positive in the world just by cheering a few people up.)
2. It’s a conversation with the editors. I come up with ideas, or they suggest something (maybe pegged to some news piece, or a new book out, or whatever. Quite often I’ll say “I’d like to write about X” and the editors will be unconvinced by my pitch, and since that is literally the purpose of editors, I can’t really complain.
But the key thing is I have to find it interesting. I don’t mind whether I’m writing about sperm counts or deworming or stupid economists, it needs to be something I enjoy learning about and then can enjoy telling other people about, even if I’m telling people that this is stupid and you don’t need to worry about it. I think that would be my main recommendation to bloggers/independent writers too: if you aren’t interested, don’t write about it, because it will be obvious, and no one will read it. (And you’ll be bored.)
3. Hmm. You know, this is really hard to answer! I have been lucky in that I’ve almost always been able to write about what I’m interested in, and what I’m interested in shifts over time: I went through a phase a few years ago of being fascinated with linguistics, for instance. Now I’m super obsessed with the replication crisis and statistics. So I have no idea what I’ll be fascinated by in three years time, and the things I’m fascinated by now, I can usually write about without too
much difficulty. This is unusual in journalism and I am super lucky.
Sorry, this is a really rambly answer; I hope it makes some sense.
I managed to press some button there; I wanted to include this paragraph somewhere:
I suppose that it’s worth being clear that I am mainly an opinion writer; I’ve done news reporting in the past, but my main job is commenting/analysing things in the news, so it’s not that I’m usually out there huntin’ down leads and meeting anonymous sources in underground car parks. I don’t know if the distinction between reporting and comment is really obvious to outsiders.
This might be a bit personal, but how much of your writing do you consider to be under the bucket of “this is the most impactful work I could be doing right now”, versus work that you are assigned to do or have to do?
How do you choose what to write about, especially when it comes to shorter-form articles? How do you think independent writers/bloggers should decide what to write about?
What topics do you wish to do more writing or research on in the next 1-3 years, but haven’t yet?
1. this is a totally fair question! But … hmm. I am (these days) rarely “assigned” work, but obviously I do have to get my editors to agree to let me write things, and I can’t just write “buy antimalarial bednets” every week forever. That said, if I did, no one would read me, so I need to write interesting things that get an audience. So there’s a theoretical tradeoff between “say what’s important” and “say what will get read”, and the greatest impact means finding the right balance.
That said, in reality, it’s not often as though I have two brilliant ideas for a column in the same week and I have to choose between them; it always feels like a miracle that I usually manage to have at least one. And since I don’t always have a really clear idea about what will have the most impact, I rarely feel like I’m writing something I don’t think matters.
(I guess when I do something fun, like this about Warhammer, it doesn’t “matter” in some sense that it probably won’t save lives. But I enjoyed writing it, and people enjoyed reading it, and maybe it gave a few people an idea for how to have a hobby. I doubt it was the most impactful thing I could have done, but I still feel it was net positive in the world just by cheering a few people up.)
2. It’s a conversation with the editors. I come up with ideas, or they suggest something (maybe pegged to some news piece, or a new book out, or whatever. Quite often I’ll say “I’d like to write about X” and the editors will be unconvinced by my pitch, and since that is literally the purpose of editors, I can’t really complain.
But the key thing is I have to find it interesting. I don’t mind whether I’m writing about sperm counts or deworming or stupid economists, it needs to be something I enjoy learning about and then can enjoy telling other people about, even if I’m telling people that this is stupid and you don’t need to worry about it. I think that would be my main recommendation to bloggers/independent writers too: if you aren’t interested, don’t write about it, because it will be obvious, and no one will read it. (And you’ll be bored.)
3. Hmm. You know, this is really hard to answer! I have been lucky in that I’ve almost always been able to write about what I’m interested in, and what I’m interested in shifts over time: I went through a phase a few years ago of being fascinated with linguistics, for instance. Now I’m super obsessed with the replication crisis and statistics. So I have no idea what I’ll be fascinated by in three years time, and the things I’m fascinated by now, I can usually write about without too
much difficulty. This is unusual in journalism and I am super lucky.
Sorry, this is a really rambly answer; I hope it makes some sense.
I managed to press some button there; I wanted to include this paragraph somewhere:
I suppose that it’s worth being clear that I am mainly an opinion writer; I’ve done news reporting in the past, but my main job is commenting/analysing things in the news, so it’s not that I’m usually out there huntin’ down leads and meeting anonymous sources in underground car parks. I don’t know if the distinction between reporting and comment is really obvious to outsiders.