The observant among you may have noticed the new link at the top, or you may have noticed me talking about it a lot on Twitter. But if not, my début short story collection, Bright Lights & Glass Houses, is set for imminent release in various digital forms.
All aspiring games writers know the pain of a rejected pitch. The blogosphere is filled with articles that editors just weren’t willing to take a chance on. Talk to anyone in the industry and they’ll gaze skywards, misty-eyed, and reminisce about that one great piece that would’ve changed the world if only the pitch had been accepted.
A while back, I realised I had some brilliant ideas for video content. I pitched some of these ideas around and never even had a single reply. I can only assume that the world of games journalism isn’t contemporary or progressive enough yet, so in the meantime I thought I’d share my ideas here, and hope aspiring writers can learn a thing or two about what editors do and don’t want.
Okay, so I can’t be bothered to make a fancy banner image because I am SEETHING with rage. This list went up, right, and it contains the top 50 games writers ever. These 51 people are the 50 people you should follow on Twitter to get the best games journalism. I agree with some of it, but there are certain people missing who should definitely be added, and this is making me angry. So I’ve constructed my own list of some of the best games writers excluding anyone on that other list. I haven’t added their Twitter handles though, you can find them yourself.
It’s easy to write something then sit back and think ‘I did well here, this article of mine is good’. But it’s a little harder to reflect on just how much of this was your own work. It’s a trap I see writers falling into all the time, and I don’t just mean newcomers to the field but seasoned pros as well. Pride comes before a fall, and never has this been more true than in the world of writing. You see, the problem is, that wonderful article you just wrote? You didn’t write it. That amazingly observant critique of the Kaiser Chiefs’ second album? Not yours. The lengthy diatribe on the state of games journalism? Nope.
Every so often on Twitter someone will come out with a poignant tweet, and it gets retweeted by a bunch of people in your feed throughout the day, or if the initial tweeter is lucky, the entire week. The poignant tweet must not be confused with the sensationalist tweet, or the scaremongering tweet, or especially not the actually-fucking-informative-and-worth-retweeting tweet. Poignant tweets are usually a take on a current subject matter, while remaining somewhat ambiguous so as to apply to a more general set of situations.
