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Yet I\u2019d recently lost that Radio Times work. I\u2019ve been hired back since – would you believe they keep making the magazine without me? – and I was only ever freelance, but losing it was a big deal. Not so big that I didn\u2019t just have to check what year when it happened, but at the time it was a blow.<\/p>\n
So coming back home to Birmingham and learning of this Room 204 programme could reasonably have felt like a new start. I didn\u2019t get on it that year and I believe I just squeaked in the following year. But I will always take a squeak, I will always take being a second or third or tenth choice. I\u2019ve no problem with that at all.<\/p>\n
And as I write to you now, my head is back in that office when I\u2019d got on the programme and was having the first of three serious Room 204 consultations. I can see the room \u2013 you\u2019ll never guess what number it was \u2013 and the people and the table.<\/p>\n
Plus I can see me explaining about all of these different starts, all of these different things I was doing. In my head then and now, these were six major areas of work and I laid them out on the table like folders. I didn\u2019t. But I felt like I did and I remember feeling a bit foolish as I\u2019d talk about, say, fiction writing and would nod at the second invisible folder from the left.<\/p>\n
This is all on my mind today because everyone who\u2019s ever been involved with Room 204 has just been asked to spread the word about how it\u2019s open for submissions again. Applications are now open for what will be the new 2019\/2020 cohort. It seems to have come around quickly this time but I know I\u2019ll be having conversations with people about it and I know I\u2019m going to over-enthuse. <\/p>\n
I promise you that isn\u2019t over-enthusing because I\u2019m exaggerating or paid. But it could be considered over-enthusing because I suppose it is actually possible to go through Room 204 and get nothing out of it. I think you\u2019d have to put your back into it to achieve nothing and defeat all the efforts of organisers Writing West Midlands but you could do it. And I have seen people waste the time they get on it.<\/p>\n
The trouble is that it isn\u2019t a course. There isn\u2019t a syllabus. It\u2019s not for beginners and it doesn\u2019t set out to teach you anything or pat you on the back when you write a poem about the ocean. Rather, each year and each person are given what they need to develop their writing career. That can well include getting you work or putting you in touch with people who may need you: It most definitely does include workshops and sessions and experts in areas your year\u2019s cohort needs.<\/p>\n
In my case, what it gave me during the year was that I got my head straightened out. I swear that by the end of this key introductory conversation, organiser Jonathan Davidson was also pointing at these invisible folders of mine. I remember him saying that, right, this one and this, you could do those today. That one at the end will take longer so maybe park it until you\u2019ve got these others developed.<\/p>\n
I love, utterly love, thinking of something and then doing it. The idea is the thing but the doing it is the other thing. I need them both and as I felt I was being more open with these people than I usually was with myself, they saw this in me. Consequently where I understand many Room 204 people left their first conversation with an idea of what to do next and maybe who to speak to, I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Instead, I left that room with a To Do list of 40 specific steps to take to sort me out. I went in a mess who wasn\u2019t writing, I came out straightened and ready.<\/p>\n
By the end of that week, I think I\u2019d done 20 of those things. By the end of the month, I know I\u2019d done 39. All these years later, I\u2019ve not managed the last one but it isn\u2019t for want of trying. Well, it wasn\u2019t for want of trying but now it is: it was to do with contacting someone or other who has never replied to me. <\/p>\n
My year on Room 204 was ignition. And it was just a year, you do get just a year on this programme. At the end of mine, I tell you I was deeply upset at this great time being over. They do tell you, repeatedly, that once you\u2019re on Room 204 you never really leave but bollocks. When your year is done, another 15 writers are starting, you\u2019re gone.<\/p>\n
Except you\u2019re not. <\/p>\n
A few months after my year finished, I needed some advice and I got it from Room 204 exactly as if I were still on it. That was a few years ago now and to this day, they still help me.<\/p>\n
You can see why when they asked us all to spread the word that applications are open for the next year\u2019s cohort, I wasn\u2019t certain that I could be concise about it all. Let me try, before you go applying<\/a>: you have to be a writer in the West Midlands of the UK, you can\u2019t be a beginner – and you have to be someone that they can help. <\/p>\n You can see that I\u2019m a fan. I hope you can also see why I sometimes think I got my start in Room 204.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The other day I caught myself telling someone that I got my start in radio. I wasn\u2019t lying to them, … Continue reading