Freelance journalist Polly Vernon here shares her tips on how to get paid to write words as she marks a year on Substack.
Vernon launched a newsletter on Substack a year ago and now makes around half her income from the platform.
The former Guardian magazine deputy editor is a regular contributor to The Times and Grazia and writes about fashion and culture, having been a journalist for 30 years. She has over 8,000 free subscribers to her newsletter and 1,000 paying readers (a full subscription to A Broad With Polly Vernon costs £55 a year).
1) Stop complaining
FFS, stop going one about how hard it is all the time. About the pain. About the “fear of the blank page”. Why anyone would want to write, if that’s genuinely how writing makes them feel, is quite beyond me.
Though I suspect a lot of the time, people either talk themselves into feeling that way about writing because they think that’s what they’re supposed to do, or, they lie about how awful it is, because everyone else keeps saying it. But enough!
To me, the blank page is a freaking uneaten cupcake. Nothing, but as-yet unexplored pleasure. Writing isn’t a test and it shouldn’t be miserable. It’s wildness and freedom. It’s a bit of a laugh. It’s the chance to reorganise your thoughts so they make better sense, cause you less internal clutter. It’s the opportunity to repurpose and diffuse unpleasant real life experiences, so the make funny anecdotes. It’s release. Once you see writing like that, you’ll be far more inclined to do it, and do more or it, and more again – which is the only way you’ll ever get any good at it.
2) Cut your intros
This is one of the first things I learned on my first magazine job, it’s something I still do to my own work at least 50% of the time. Just whack that opening para right off at the jugular: highlight and delete. Maybe the one after it, for good measure. See if the rest of your piece works better without it. It almost certainly does. Everyone’s original opener is almost always unnecessary waffle. You need to hit the ground running if you want people to stick with you.
3) What’s your point?
What is it you want to say with this post/piece/play/ book/ whatever? In one, really simple sentence? Once you know that, never lose sight of it, and make sure every line serves it.
4) Avoid whimsy
Don’t be wordy or whimsical. These aren’t the indicators of good writing they’re often assumed to be.
5) But do be funny
Funny writing is massively underestimated, yet it’s a) rare, b) a powerful and very speedy way to connect with your readers and c) totally necessary if you don’t want to end up sounding pompous as all hell.
6) Be of service
Tell readers things they don’t already know. Offer them stories and perspectives they haven’t already heard. Make them laugh (ref 5, above). People pay for information, ideas, and to be amused.
7) Don’t be writerly
People who write like they talk, are the best writers. It can take a while to be this free and easy with it, but you don’t get there with twiddly overwriting and using 17 words, where one would do; by thinking too much about form, or by adopting that sort of constipated voice you can often detect in that person who is TRYING TO BE WRITERLY.
8) Lighten up
Take yourself less seriously. Take writing less seriously, let it weigh less heavily on your identity and your ambition. None of which means you won’t end up being a good, and paid-for writer. Quite the reverse.
9) Just do it
You do have to do it, though. You just do have to write. At the same time…
10) But also get out
Get out in the world and do more things. Things which have nothing to do with sitting around writing, or sitting around, trying (and failing) to write. All the good ideas, all the inspiration, all the lush, sexy, active descriptions of stuff which actually happened, is out there. It is not in your head.
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