Right now I’m struggling with a long piece I plan to submit to Suite101 for dissection and, hopefully, approval. This submission is part of their review process and is a necessary ritual devised to help new writers at the popular freelance hub come to terms with writing online. Despite being a mandatory exercise demanded before being haphazardly unleashed on their site to waffle on about whatever you choose, I have no problem receiving whatever criticism my faceless editor has to offer. Of course, ask me again after said critique has been received and I may be singing from a different, and more vitriolic, hymn sheet.

I was accepted to Suite101 with a certain amount of aplomb but have been putting off my inaugural submission for numerous reasons; the above procrastination bugbear being the most prevalent.

Getting accepted as a contributor to Suite101 had all the hallmarks of making the grade of a much more exclusive and secret sect. They even used an exclamation mark when congratulating me on my new Suite-y status. That said, I’m under no illusion of just how rigorous this vetting procedure may actually be and I’d be interested in hearing of anyone who has ever received a rejection letter from them. Maybe this does indeed happen, but for some reason I’m assuming it takes a certain special someone not to pass their quality check. Let’s face it. If you’re going to go through the hassle of submitting two samples of over 400 words and the obligatory roasting of why you think you’re good enough to write for them, you’re probably already proficient enough to get the final nod. I could be wrong. Maybe I have just been accepted into a wonderful and secret cabal few others get to experience and, before I’ve even signed the electronic contract, I’ve gone and insulted my new brotherhood. Apologies in advance to my new Suite101 cohorts if this is the case.

So, as you can see, I’m procrastinating. During this period of aloofness the following article on WebWorkerDaily found its way to me via one of the many procrastination channels the Internet, Gtalk, Twitter and email dutifully provides. As a short abeyance from my mammoth treatise for Suite101 on how I think Sony are re-positioning themselves for “The Big Win” in the console race (write about what you know, right?), I thought I might touch upon the idea of sabbaticals and why they are becoming crucial for creative people as a mechanism of both furthering their careers and maintaining some semblance of sanity. If they wish to remain creative that is.

The article features Stefan Sagmeister and his unique approach to how he earns his living. If you’re not familiar with Stefan Sagmeister, don’t worry – it’s not vital to have a deep knowledge of the man to appreciate his wisdom and the lifestyle he espouses. Stefan is a graphic designer of considerable talent and notoriety, one of those creative and cultural mavens who seem to exist slightly outside of the reality the rest of us gleefully inhabit. As we struggled to make mortgage payments and spent our waking hours worrying about the recession, Stefan was in Indonesia taking a year out to explore some “personal work” ideas.

And herein lies the crux of Stefan’s ideology. As creative people, it’s just not possible to constantly produce quality content without stopping and reflecting on where we are, what we’ve done and what we still want to achieve. Hence, rather than adhering to life’s standard path of studying, working and then retiring, Stefan takes a novel approach and interjects regular sabbaticals — in reality mini-retirements — into his working career. Work for seven years, take a year off. Repeat.

The beauty of Stefan’s approach to work/life balance is how followers of this admittedly new-age approach towards the orthodox career mentality get to experience some of life’s joys sooner rather than later.  Personally, I’ve always considered it a great paradox how retirement comes toward the end of one’s life when periods of it could be better enjoyed during the ride when everything was in optimal working condition. There’s no mystery as to why this particular life-cycle (or work-cycle) has traditionally played out. After all, it’s only logical that it should take a considerable about of time to stock the coffers before leaving gainful employment for good. But just because this is how people have engaged employment for generations, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the only way.

In fact, considering how much the way we work today has changed indelibly from the landscape in which our parents worked, there’s a great deal of sense in suggesting that this trusted and restrictive paradigm of working non-stop and then abruptly stopping for good may need to suitably adapt to our new working culture.

With the concept of work-from-home freelancers and people earning money from the web kicking into high gear over the last few years, the traditional approach to earning a living by driving to a building and trading in your hours for a handful of dimes (thank you Mr. Morrison) is now just one of many ways to fund life’s perpetual expense account.

Technically I’ve been on sabbatical since the first week of this month. But how do you actually define a sabbatical? Is it sitting on your arse all day playing videogames or is it simply moving away from what you know – your comfort zone even – and doing something different? Can you garner earnings during a sabbatical or does that go against the very ethos of what a sabbatical represents? The answer is obviously: your sabbatical is yours to do whatever you want with it.

I’ve spent most of the last three weeks looking for writing gigs (with some success I might add, but more on that later) and setting myself up, at least mentally, with the necessary shift in mindset required when advancing from a high-stress office job to a high-stress (because you’re self-employed) writing one. Come Tuesday, however, and the sabbatical starts outright when I pack more gadgets into a large black bag than humanly thought possible and travel around the world. It’s a three month trip, and though hardly the equivalent of a Stefan Sagmeister-esque year off in Bali toying with abstract ideas and getting into adventures, it signifies a complete break with my old existence and a further step towards this new one I’m attempting to forge.

This is my sabbatical and yet I plan to spend it writing, networking and preparing for the next chapter. When are you going to step back from the grindstone and say: I’ve worked hard. Now it’s time to live a little?

Photo credit: joyfullmarketing.typepad.com

As I pass my one year anniversary with this particular online publication, I’ve become more and more aware of just what some people think games journalism is, and the reality.

Studying journalism’s totem pole of respectability, with positions ranging from print media to obituary writing, games journalism (or gaming journalism or even game journalism, the practice has bred numerous similarly sounding names) has the unfortunate indignation of languishing quite close to the mucky foot. Somewhere above writing for your local parish paper but still below the dazzling heights of sports or music journalism, writing about videogames comes with its very own tailored form of digital stigmata.

Branding its practitioners as “chancers”, “misfits” or, if the hand on the iron in question belongs to a male between the ages of 15 and 21, “lucky bastards”, there are a lot of misconceptions, half-truths and, in some cases, blatant falsities flying around about just what it’s like to work in this industry.

Here are just five of the most obvious ones.

If you know a lot about games, you can write about games

Though the job title might indeed be “games journalist”, when people conjure up images of the type of person who embodies this noble endeavour, the emphasis is unfortunately usually skewed towards the first word, and not the second. Viewing the role of gamer as a primary requisite for working in games journalism is disingenuous for a number of reasons. The most flagrant of these is that a lot gamers are young, impressionable and couldn’t string a sentence together if they wanted to. Most games journalists are in their 30s and hence have a distinct advantage over their younger counterparts. Namely they’re not likely to fly off the handle or throw a hissy-fit when asked to review Hannah Montana on the DS (again).

You have to know how to write to be any kind of journalist; though I’ll grant you, I can point to numerous examples of works by certain gaming journalists that contain grammatical errors so egregious they would make your head spin. Of course, I’m not infallible when it comes to grammar and have been known to slip up as much as the next mortal. There are people working in this industry, however, that I honestly ask myself “Who are you sleeping with?”

For the most part, gaming journalists are writers first with knowledge of the gaming area second. In this day and age, a talented writer can pretty much write about anything. I could take a stab at horticultural journalism if I were so inclined. I just doubt I’d enjoy it. Having extensive acumen of the gaming industry’s history, current landscape and possible future is quite helpful when writing about this particular field, but it’s not mandatory. The gaming world inhabits such a vast spectrum that it’s practically impossible for one gaming journalist to know everything about every facet of such a complex and varied topic. That’s what wikipedia is for.

Despite the above declaration, this hasn’t stopped — and never will stop — dedicated gamers trying to become gaming journalists. I should state that I don’t discourage this practice. After all, if it’s what you want to do then all power to you. I will say this however: if you’re thinking of entering the games journalism field, please do everyone a favour and brush up on some basic grammar. Subscribe to Grammar Girl, read up on the art of writing, review some of your favourite journalists’ works and figure out why you like what they produce. It’s not enough that you’re unbeatable at Tekken. To become a good games journalist you need to play less and read more. Give or take a few years and your writing should be something most people will enjoy. This won’t happen overnight.

Games journalists are great gamers

It’s natural to think that those of us who spend hours peering down a virtual sniper scope or charging around race tracks in cars we’ll never afford as part of our day-job should classify as at least “good” gamers, if not excellent ones. The fact is, though playing games is obviously an integral aspect of games journalism, the average writer in the games industry spends far more time at his or her PC writing about the latest titles than actually playing them.

The stark reality is, if games journalists spent all their time playing games (and with games they actually want to play – see below), they’d quickly find themselves as unemployed games journalists – also known as bums who play games all day, which is actually quite the growing demographic. Answering an enquiring editor’s question of “Where’s the content?” with “Didn’t you hear? Warcraft man, cap increased to 85!” just isn’t going to cut it. Hence, any assumption that games journalists are the cream of the crop is just folly. If you want a job where you get to play games all day – don’t be a journalist in the gaming industry. Be a politician.

Games journalism is easy

Also known as “games journalism is nothing but a non-stop fun riot” and “the articles just write themselves!”, there is a gross misconception that writing about the gaming industry is exceptionally easy to do. This is tied quite closely to my first point with strong evidence supporting this theory found in the shed-load of blogs and fan-sites out there populated by a never-ending host of gaming acolytes more than willing to write about games for nothing. And if they’re doing it for free, it must be easy.

I have a lot of respect for people who are so passionate about something that they regularly dedicate their free time creating news stories and opinion pieces on the topic in question. In fact, I readily admit that I’m not much higher in this pecking order considering not all of my writing is paid work. I am, however, at least confident in my ability to create good, relevant and interesting copy that is worthy of the time it takes someone to read it. The amount of bad games journalism found on the Internet is truly shocking. And I’m not just talking about bad grammar. Sites regularly steal other sites’ content while others break embargoes or care little about professional conduct.

This type of games journalism is easy. It’s just not actual games journalism but more inane drivel from the minds of people who have little interest in gaming (or writing for that matter) and more about how much traffic they can generate to their site from the standard “Why Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo sucks balls” shlock articles.

Good gaming industry content requires research, an eye for detail and the ability to engage your reader. Just because your audience may not know the grammatical nuances of various writing styles, this does not give you carte blanche to spew out any old drivel, assured that it will be lapped up nonetheless.

Games journalists get lots of free games

The key word here is “free”. Games journalists do get free games but some people are under the impression that my post-man must despise me; cursing my name every time he visits my house burdened by a cornucopia of new gaming wares. The fact is: it’s just not possible to review every game that you could get your hands on. There’s therefore absolutely no point signing up for a review copy of a game you know in your heart of hearts by the time you get to it the sequel will be out. Getting into games journalism for the free games is like wanting to be a professional footballer for the free travel. There are easier ways of getting access to a lot of games. Try being successful at something else and buying them for instance.

The other aspect of this endless gifting parade is that nothing is really free in this world. More often than not, that complimentary game that has just arrived in the mail is not something you would personally choose to play. I have reviewed sports games, retro games, crap games and great games. You do it because it’s part of the job. I can think of worse jobs of course, but writing a good review is still work no matter how you spin it.

Finally, the scourge of the review process is that you must play the game with an eye towards critiquing it and not simply enjoying it for what it is – entertainment. David Mamet once said that adapting his own work for the screen was like teaching his children about sex – by raping them. Extreme perhaps, but the review process can be similar. Taking something perhaps hundreds of people have spent countless hours pouring their hearts into only for you to bang on about a camera angle is not something most people enjoy.  It’s a hackneyed and almost silly argument at this rate but, trust me, reviewing a game is not the barrel of laughs you might think it is.

Games journalism is one giant big happy family

Though it’s true many online and print publications are more than willing to help each other out at times, it’s important to recognise that this is very much a cut-throat industry. Gaming enthusiasts are a fickle bunch and will quickly go elsewhere if your site is not as up to date with the latest news and views. Because of this, many web-sites that cover the gaming industry are regularly at loggerheads with each other, when they’re not surreptitiously trying to poach each other’s readers by any means necessary.

Without naming names, I’ve come across more than one over-zealous or downright untrustworthy gaming journalist in my time writing in this industry. We might be dealing with games here but not everyone is adhering to the same set of rules. Take anything you hear from the mouth of a gaming journalist (myself included) with a grain of salt. It’s a competitive market and people have been known to lie, cheat and steal to get a hot story. It usually comes back to bite the offender in question but, in the mean time, you’ll be left disappointed while someone else is off basking in the glory of all your hard work.

It’s silly really, especially considering that the old adage “Content in King” couldn’t be more suitable than a site wishing to focus on writing.

But when it comes to beautifying your work online, it’s highly likely you’ll spend more time tinkering with CSS during those nascent first steps than creating the all-important content.

It was during this monotonous process that it hit me: selecting a new blog’s appearance is quite similar to another crucial and painstaking process – choosing that one special woman to spend the rest of your life with. Or until she tires of your crap and issues divorce papers.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that there are more than just basic similarities between what a wife is, and brings to the table and your very own WordPress theme.

Hard to pick – the longer you leave it, the worse it gets

You’re in Vegas. Maybe you’re even on a roll. And through the alcohol fuelled delirium of “the best night of your life” she seems awfully nice. And willing. Fast forward a number of missing hours and you’re speeding towards Reno in a frantic quest for a drive-through divorce hopefully before throttling the new love of your life.

Similar to picking a WordPress theme, getting rid of an unwanted wife is fairly easy – if you catch the mistake early. Of course, consummating the union/installing any sort of new plugin, and things are going to be harder to annul.

Leaving a wife or a theme to fester and it can be extremely difficult to extricate oneself from their nefarious binds down the road. If you install a theme and immediately think “I’m not sure about this”, that’s a deal breaker. Deactivate it as fast as possible. Failure to acknowledge an incompatible theme early will only lead to a life-long struggle and abject misery. You can try and force a theme that wasn’t tailored for AdSense compliant to your monetising ways or hack its CSS to be more “flowery”, just like you can make a wife live in a shed or call you Daddy. It doesn’t make it right.

Just like wives, themes make life easier

Let’s face it. The main reason we install a theme/get married is because we need someone to control our lives. Delving into the intricate inner-workings of stylesheets, HTML and Javascript, most men will start to rapidly lose consciousness. Themes, like wives, take life’s abhorrent and mundane tasks and hide them in the background far from your easily distracted eyes. What? You thought the house/dog/children cleaned themselves?

The reason we place our hands firmly into the willing hands of a theme author is based on the same logic of why we beg a woman to come take care of us – half the time we have no idea what the hell we’re doing. And if we don’t manage to empower some other greater force who can promptly intervene, we just might end up hurting ourselves. Where would we be without wives? Probably with ugly content and a fridge consisting solely of stale bread and potatoes that now answer when you ask them if they’re OK to eat.

Not all themes are created equal

By wary of flash, pricy themes. Sure, they may promise the earth but get them home and they’ll boss you around to such an extent that your life/content takes a back-seat. You become a slave to your theme; constantly upgrading plugins and rogue pages, rarely focusing on what’s important – your content.

Some themes are also free but don’t do exactly what you want from the getgo. Like a great marriage, working with a theme is all about compromise. OK, so some of your widgets are a little temperamental and you need to tweak a few margins. Would you rather write a calendar plugin?

There’s plenty more themes in the sea

The amount of themes available right at this minute is staggering. Big themes, small themes, themes with colourful pasts and others that appear demure and straight-forward but transform into unwieldy beasts as soon as you look under their hood. Themes that come with a price, themes that, just like those popular girls your mother warned you about (and your father taught you how to spot), have probably been called into service a little too much.  To each their own of course, but always remember – if you think you’ve found the theme of your dreams, it’s highly likely you’re not the only one.

The right woman for the right job

You know when your buddy shows up with his new girlfriend and, for whatever reason, you immediately think: “That’s just not right”? Such is the case with an inappropriate theme. If your blog is about technology, try to pick a theme that is clean, austere and functional. Just like your topic. Unless you’re specifically talking about technology no one gives two hoots about of course, then you can go wild. After all, no one is reading your treatises about the glory of the Acorn Electron anyway. If you’re writing about feelings or similar areas, feel free to go as bizarre as you like. In fact, the weirder the better.

Think about what you’re writing about and the obvious connections. Gardening blogs might want to show a flower or similar horticultural imagery. It’s not rocket surgery. The analogy with picking a wife couldn’t be closer. If you’re short, don’t Do A Stallone and marry a seven foot tall Elk slaying ice-maiden. If you like quite nights in … don’t pick a theme that requires a M.Sc. in Javascript to maintain.

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The most salient point is that your theme should compliment your content. A good theme will help you through the good times and the bad. In your blog’s sickness and also in offline mode. After all, you’ll probably want to tweak it and turn it into what what you really wanted in the first place anyway.

Promoting themselves as the complete online publishing service, Triond allows writers looking to monetise their work without all the hassle of building a popular blog.

The deal is simple: you write the content, submit the new work using a fairly uncomplicated submission process, at which point they go off and work out how best to make money from your hard work. Namely publishing your content on the most appropriate websites available in their catalogue.

What’s in it for them? Well, they take 50% of the cut from any profit your content generates.

Ostensibly it appears to be a fair arrangement. After all, they have the audience and connections along with the means to publish anything from photos to compositions. All you have to do – as they so cheerfully exclaim on their “How it works” page – is “Create!”

However, after spending a few hours this morning working on what turned out to be an overlong article entitled “9 Real-life Tips for the First Time Marathon Runner,” some underlying issues surfaced.

The main gripe is quite simple: you have no idea how much your content is going to generate. Of course, you could say the same about blogging and publishing content on your own site as no one is prescient enough to know what’s going to be popular on their site – if anything. For smaller sites with popular content it probably makes sense to publish content through Triond as half of something is worth more than all of nothing. As a site grows and builds up a readership, however – do people really stick with Triond?

Secondly, and this is something I am well aware of, there is a lot of negativity floating around the interwebs in relation these type of aggregate sites. Though a “living” can apparently be eked out from these services (Triond is just one many sites accepting content and promising residual payment through the life-time of your content), there are those that criticise the service for demanding an exorbitant amount of time and effort to perceive any real success.

Ofcourse, the proof is in the pudding and I’m happy/anxious to say that my first submission is now ‘pending’. I’ll be sure to chime back in with an opinion after the piece is published (if it’s published) and how much money it generates. I’m predicting somewhere in the region of 6c.