All you ever do is criticise...

Plus, the latest extract from my novel, vegan recipe of the week, a Menopaws walkabout in Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal garden, a three paw prints location!

When I started out in journalism, all we had was a shared typewriter. No internet. Not even a photo copier. If I wanted to know my word count, I would have to draw a vertical line down a sheet of typing, count the lines and multiply by the average number of words in a line , and then count every single straggly word on the outside of the line.

                  We designed a page using scissors and cow gum. At the end of the day, a courier would arrive to take the work to be typeset overnight, and it would return as gallies the next day. We were terrified of any mistakes, making any small changes, as every action made by the printer would cost money.

                  If we wanted to read up on an interviewee, we had to request the paper cuttiings from the libarary. Wanting to check a fact, we would phone up the Telegraph Information Service. ‘Hello. Can you tell me what year Adam Ant was born? Really? Thank you!’ I wrote my first book, a biography of Prince, on my very first Apple laptop, which had no way of accessing the internet.

                  Everything is much faster and easier now, of course. But I don’t think the standard of journalism is any better. The care we took over a feature – and I am talking about The Sunday Times Magazine, where I toiled away from the early Eighties until I left to edit Marie Claire in 1998 – was extraordinary. I would write the heading and standfirst (the copy that introduces a piece), cover lines, and take my words to the art department. They would return my work to me, with their marks. ‘Lose two characters from the first line, add three characters to the second. The cover line is good, needs to be one word shorter and lose a character from the second line.’

                  We would send writers to cover stories – the Jamie Bulger murder, or Dunblane – for months on end, costing tens of thousands of pounds. For photo shoots, we would employ only the best: Snowdon. Cartier-Bresson. Sebastiao Salgado. The writers Philip Norman, Russell Miller, Helen Fielding, Zoe Heller; Zoe would write her column in New York, walk with it to her local Kinko’s, and fax it to me.

                  I really miss those days, when we all knew we were the best in the world. I do enjoy the speed today: I can write 800 words in 17 minutes, see it printed online mere seconds later. But what I don’t enjoy is the constant criticism. I am sure the likes of Piers Morgan don’t care what others think, but I do. And it is always negative. No one has anything nice to say. Take my piece on writing about weight and food. I wrote a play about a big woman, Mama Cass, but all I got was criticism, saying I need to cut the fat jokes. Even when I write about my allotment, I get brick bats. You started it too late in the year. What you need to do this year is get rid of the weeds, improve the soil. Plan, don’t plant. And we haven’t had any photos of late…

                  So, I don’t know. The constant snipes are getting to me. To be a writer these days requires the skin of a rhino, which I don’t feel is conducive to being sensitive, an artist. Writing is all about exposure, showing your weaknesses, not showing off about how many books are on your shelf, or the fact a vase of flowers is all home grown. Do tell me what you think in the comments, which this week are open to everyone. I cannot guarantee I will read them…