How I Got a Column in a National Magazine

The thing about burning out and nannying three kids pretty much full-time over the summer is that my inbox was blissfully
silent. The other thing about burning out and nannying three kids pretty much
full-time over the summer is that suddenly, my biggest focus for twelve hours a
day was which way to slice the sandwiches – squares or triangles? – with nay a
whisper of anxiety about books and careers and achievement. The final thing about burning out and nannying three
kids pretty much full-time over the summer is that when you’re watching Harry
Potter for the eighth time in two weeks, idle swiping on Bumble results in
quite a few matches, and quite a few conversations, and quite a few dates.

I dated a lot this summer.

"...finding love is a lot like finding a job: you put your CV out there, you get as much interview practice as you can, and with the one you think is a match you go for it."

I’ve been dating a lot this year, actually,
since moving back to London in February. Boys – men, because I’m 30 now, and surprisingly
have come to like a grown-up in a suit – took a backseat when I was trying to
get published, because I knew no fella could make me feel how seeing my name on
the spine of a book would make me feel. Once that was done – BECOMING, and all
of it’s many drafts - and I could breathe again, meeting a man became quite the
focus for me. No online match went unmessaged, no offer of a date refused. I
committed to my cause, because, I reasoned, finding love is a lot like finding
a job: you put your CV out there, you get as much interview practice as you
can, and with the one you think is a match you go for it.

I didn’t want to make Superlatively Rude
into some kind of dating chronicle to talk about my love life, because I’ve
never written about my relationships in “real time” on here. It just doesn’t
seem fair. I prefer to talk about relationships already concluded, when there’s
a bit of perspective. But six months of a date or two every week and I had
thoughts and stories and ideas I wanted to share. And then Grazia features director Emily Maddick emailed me – a powerhouse of a woman I’d never actually spoken
to before.

“I
have just returned from holiday where I read your book,” she
said. “I didn’t just read it, but
marvelled, delighted, sobbed and hooted my way through it…” She’d been
though something similar, she said, and related to the “single gal” plight of
discovery as much as I ever dared hope anybody else who read the book could.

"Now listen. This 13-page proposal? It was fucking airtight."

I’d sat in my favourite café one weekend,
just before that, and put together a 13-page proposal for a column based around
the “new” singledom, about what it is really like to be on your own in 2016
(hint: not desperate, but also nothing like Samantha Jones would have us
believe). I wanted to write about what dating is truly like. I’ve been having a
great time. Dating doesn’t make me despair. I’m good at getting a guy to ask me
out (because look, I’m sorry: they like the chase, so rarely will I ask them.)
and I give great first date. I’ve adored meeting people, and this is something
Meg and I email about: that every date is just more information. Information
about what works and what doesn’t, and about who is out there and how most of
us just want to be seen, and heard, and men aren’t monsters. They’re really
quite lovely when they’re away from their pack.

(insert a wink-emoji here, etc. etc. etc.)

Anyway. When Emily said she heard me, that
she’d loved the book (!), I knew she’d be into the column idea, too. A column
idea I just happened to have to hand. We had a lunch date in the diary, but
before we finally met I emailed her and said, “I’ve been working on a single
girl column idea, and I think you – and Grazia – will really love it. Would you
like first refusal before I send it out more widely?”

Now listen. This 13-page proposal? It was
fucking airtight. Like, I had three 8-hours days of absolute joy putting it together because is felt
so right. I knew it was good. I wrote a page about who I am, about both the
hateful and incredible press around BECOMING, a page about what the column would
be about, and a page of quotes from Amazon about what people have said about
the book. I had testimony from other writers, taken from my initial book proposal,
and wrote three columns as example of what, exactly, Would Like To Meet would feel like. Natasha Pearlman, Grazia’s
editor, would later tell me it was one of the best proposals she’d ever seen. I
laughed, and said, “I couldn’t give you any
reason to turn it down.” It was a cheeky thing to say, but I meant it.

"I had a meeting at a fancy hotel to cement it, with Patrick Dempsy eating his lunch on the next table. It was the most surreal half-hour of my life, that."

I believed in the proposal and the need for
a column like this so much that I told Grazia they had a week to decide if they
wanted it, because it was timely and I knew other editors who’d be interested.
I wanted Grazia, though, because as
far as I’m concerned they’re the top publication out there for reader
engagement. I’d read once how the Grazia audience aren’t just readers, they are part of the brand, and that’s
like, my whole jam. That’s how I feel about what I do: that I don’t have “fans” or “followers” (that actually makes me feel a bit sick), but a genuine community. Also, Grazia has more AB-profile (that’s middle class to you and me) readers than Vogue and Elle. They’re massive. 

Grazia came back to me with a big fat yes. Emily
helped me hone my ideas, gave suggestions about what else to talk about, shared
her own thoughts with me. She’s basically my co-conspirator, so on board with
the idea that without her the column in this iteration would not exist, in this
particular form, in this particular magazine. We agreed we’d run til Christmas,
because I don’t want to have to stay single for my job, nor become a parody of
myself for the sake of filing 500 words every week. I want a life before I have
a career, so genuinely looking for love over writing about looking for love has to come first. I had a meeting
at a fancy hotel to cement it, with Patrick Dempsy eating his lunch on the next
table. It was the most surreal half-hour of my life, that. Talking with a couple
of national editors about my column as
I sat next to a Hollywood superstar. Life is bonkers.

Anyway, all of this to say: I think the
thing I’m proudest of with this whole shebang is that I was able to leverage
the earliest newspaper articles around BECOMING. The hateful misogyny that surround those
tabloid headlines – “Around the World in
80 Lays”, “Derby Girl Romps The Globe After Getting Dumped” – and the
ensuing slew of pervy men called Dave in Stockport sending me photographs of
their limp dicks through Instagram’s DM feature, well. It cut me to the core. I
refused to bleed, but that first month of publication was rough, man. Finding a
way to use the outrage around a book about a blonde 30-year old’s sex (and celibacy!) life to empower myself, and girls like me,
was very quickly my new agenda. That I bided my
time, kept my head down, and turned shit into gold makes me Beyoncé as far as
I’m concerned. Not apologising for who I am makes me Michelle Obama. HOLD THE
FUCK ON. Knowing who I am despite of what others might try to tell me makes me
LAURA JANE WILLIAMS.

A few people, on hearing my news, inferred that by
having a love column in Grazia I have “stolen” their dream job. With all due
respect, that’s impossible. This column didn’t exist for me to steal before I
pitched it. I saw an opportunity, and a way to add value, and I went for it. It
just so happened that by stumbling into Emily’s hands, a woman who saw me in
herself, who saw herself in me, who knew other woman would get a kick out of all
this single talk too, I found a home quicker than I could've anticipated, or hoped.

So. That’s how I got a column in a national
magazine. By being myself, relentlessly, and doing good work that means
something to me, and trusting my instincts about the people who wanted to support
me doing so. Oh, and by writing the kind of pitch that leaves no room for
doubt. That was killer. If only there was a similar formula for
finding the love of my life.

you can read the first Would Like To Meet column here