Forget external validation and do this

We think we need the commissions, awards and accolades to prove our worth but actually, that's not what people notice first. What they see is whether or not you're doing the work.

It’s 2008, we’re in the midst of a financial crash, and I have just completed an English BA at Sussex University.

My dad and I have been having exciting conversations about what career I might like to go into. 

Perhaps you could be a film producer, he says. I like that idea. But I think something that involves writing would be better. I decide to be a journalist. 

I move back to London and start writing emails and letters to local newspapers, putting myself forward to work for them.

No one gets back to me. I’m not given a job.

No one seems to care that I have completed this English degree, and that I’m ready and raring to work hard on my first journalism job.

Eventually, I get a meeting with an editor of a Hackney newspaper. We drink coffee and he seems excited about the idea of having me on-board. I’m excited too.

I share ideas for people I could interview. Local festivals I could review. I’m full of ideas and energy and I can tell that he likes it.

I ask him what my starting pay will be and he pauses. Oh, there’s no budget to pay writers, he says. My heart sinks.

I decide that I need to get my foot in the door anyway, and that I will work for free. I start doing the interviews and reviews.

They are often splashed across the front page.

Each week, he publishes my articles. I draw people to the website, I help to grow the community around this newspaper. 

In time, the editor can take a living from it. He starts paying a young male journalist, too. But I’m never paid.

I decide that I might not be qualified enough yet, so I apply to study for a print and online Masters in journalism.

This year-long course is fun and I do learn quite a lot, but I’m also reminded that what is most important with journalism is to just be doing it.

I apply for another job (this time in Somerset), it goes to a young male journalist - less qualified than me - and I’m offered an internship that doesn’t even cover expenses.

I take it. Have my articles published in the paper every week. And then get fed up.

This is not so easy.

Around four years later, I’m made redundant from my copywriting job because I’ve had a baby. I work on a digital magazine a few months but then it folds.

I realise something.

If I launch my own digital platform, I get to write articles and do interviews, publish them, share them and if I monetise it: actually earn money from journalism.

So that’s what I do.

I launch a culture and lifestyle platform called The Early hour, publishing articles daily at 5am. In its first month, the website has 15,000 views.

I get tote bags made, go to networking events, design postcards to distribute that will draw people to the platform, grow a following on Instagram.

Less than six months in, the Guardian get in touch, asking if they can commission me to write for them. And then Red Magazine.

I meet a lovely editor, Michelle, at 4th Estate and after a few meetings, she commissions me to write my first book: The Freelance Mum.

This has all come from launching my digital platform, The Early Hour (RIP).

I’m commissioned by the Telegraph, the Observer, Refinery29, Metro, the Independent, Grazia. I speak on BBC Woman’s Hour.

Someone comes up to me in Hackney and says: Are you Annie Ridout? I confirm that I am, and she says: I’m a massive fan of The Early Hour.

I note that she is a fan of the platform I launched myself, not of the articles I’ve written for nationals. Those don’t matter to her.

I get a second book deal, and third.

In the background, I write poetry and I share it on Instagram. A few of my poems go viral, and that feels good.

But while I have self-published poetry books and prints - and sold lots of copies - I haven’t been traditionally published so I don’t refer to myself as a poet.

Other people do, though. I notice that in interviews, people often introduce me as an author and poet.

Do you not know I’ve not been published? I think.

They don’t care. They see the poems and like them and see me as a poet.

One encourages me to run a poetry workshop. So I decide that I will. I push aside the imposter syndrome and design one on ‘Mother’.

(If you’d like to join it, you can sign up here. It’s a one-hour online workshop, next Wednesday, no previous poetry-writing experience required.)

I come to realise that the women - it’s almost always women - who like my writing don’t care about book deals, commissions and awards (of which I’ve won none).

They just like the writing, and want more of it.

It’s a blimmin’ honour to write and share it with people. The greatest honour.

I launch a Substack, offer a paid option and people start paying. Paying to read my emails. I can’t quite believe.

EVERY time someone signs up, I shout down to my husband to tell him. He seems as excited as me. (He’s nice.)

Again, my writing is in my own hands. I’m in charge. I write whatever I want, publish it when I want - and now, I get paid to do this.

When I write articles that aren’t behind a paywall, people share them. Using this button right here…

I screenshot the message I get from Substack saying this is happening and WhatsApp it to my husband.

He send a thumbs up emoji in response.

I become firmer in the belief that what matters most is that:

1. You are doing the creative work you want to be doing.

2. You are finding a way to share it.

3. The people are seeing/hearing it.

4. Something about it resonates.

5. So you continue doing it. For them.

Look, I’m not going to pretend external validation doesn’t matter at all. It does.

It boosts your confidence - and bank balance - when someone else wants to commission/publish/exhibit your work. And confidence matters. As does payment.

But what matters more is that you are doing it.

There are so many examples of the most famous authors being turned down continually until one person takes a chance on them and BAM - they go stratospheric.

So if you have a dream around that kind of external validation - awards, commissions, someone taking on you and your work - keep pitching.

But in the meantime, just find a way to share your work. Because there are people out there who want it and don’t care whether an official body has recognised your work.

Power on, people.

Love,

Annie x