Everybody's a writer!!!
You demand that diskmags should be full of good articles? Not only do you want to see quantity in the menu, also the topics should be enjoyable and the reports nice to read? You are right and you are not. It's correct to demand such things from people that claim to bring out a good diskmag but it's not correct only to spot what's going on like a TV spectator! If you dislike what you get served, become active and write yourself. It ain't THAT hard to do!!! This article was written to convince those people that have doubts about their own abilities.
Did you think the first article of Fishwave, Rokdazone or The Ripper was as cool as the rest? Knock, knock!! Wake up, it's more than obvious that you never got hold of their first steps as they didn't want to show them to anyone, simply because they were ashamed of them, hehe. They could not be proud of them, just as you will maybe have some problems with your first try but if you examine it a bit, it won't be really a problem after all.
The English language as a barrier? Yes, understandable, especially for Polish Sceners as they don't learn this language so well in the school. To my surprise also the kids in Italy & France aren't forced to learn the world language no. 1 as well as they should do as European inhabitants!! If you run around in a smaller Italian town and ask some younger looking Italians how to reach your target, most of them won't understand your question or they will only understand it but not speak themselves. And this is sadly also true for people who have visited highschool. But if you know a bit about English grammar, the rest is not hard to do. Fishwave's trick was that when he was writing an article, if he didn't know a special word, no matter if adjective, verb or noun, he wrote it down in German and translated it later. This way he was able to write fluently, he didn't lose what he wanted to write while looking up the English expression in the dictionary. So he was able to finish the complete article first and then finally he used the dictionary to fix the German words.
You'll never be as good as Wade, Mop & Co.? Well, they didn't have to learn anything except their writing style, as English is their native language. And style is also something you can learn, you especially learn a lot while reading other people's articles. Normally it's really simple: A good article has an introducing part, a main part about the topic you wanted to deal with and a closing part. You can heat up the readers' expectations in the first words or you write down some statements from other Sceners. Or you start with a quote out of a book or poem, there are one hundred thousand possibilities.
It also helps if you have the whole structure of the article in your mind. Not that you must know every sentence that you want to write, but it's better if you have a plan where your article will go. You can follow this path or leave it, just as you like. But roughly knowing what you want to talk about makes it easier. If it's better for you, write down your thoughts on a piece of paper first.
Even a good writer isn't able to write his sentences once and have the finished product in his hands. Everybody, really everybody has to go back, check what he wrote, make corrections or change things if you have an idea how it could sound better. Maybe it helps you to print it out or even to read it loud for yourself. Another good idea is it to give it to someone else to check it. He or she maybe has good ideas or can remove some of the mistakes in grammar etc.
Topics - what topics??
What to write about? Also, this shouldn't be anything that could knock you out! The easiest articles are interviews. Just ask your partners what comes in your mind, you can correct your spelling errors later after the interview. You can also do it via email. This gives the interviewed person more time to think about his answers but you lose his spontaneous reactions you would earn on IRC.
Writing stuff for diskmags gives you the possibility to let everybody hear what your opinion is about this and that. Being an editor is a great thing, but you also have to be reasonable. It doesn't make sense only to try to convince the readers of your opinions. And if you don't write anything else, it becomes very boring and people will soon think you're selfish. But really, being an editor is something with much responsibility. You cannot change the whole Scene by publishing one article, but with time you can give the people many aspects how they judge about things. It's up to you if people tend to give up and leave the Scene or if you are able to motivate them to keep on track.
The job of an editor usually is something that could not be better! You have only little work, not so much as, for example, a coder has, but there's no way to gain fame in shorter time!! Think about how hard it is to establish yourself as a coder and how easy it is to become known as article writer! It's not just, but that's how things go. And even more, everybody wants you in their group and they fight with each other to get YOU into the editors crew of their diskmag. The reason is simple and shortly told: There are not many people who contribute to mags and that's why your value is THAT high! Crazy but true!
But back to hints what to write: You could write about your visits at parties or computer fairs, reviews of group or person homepages, you could write down the complete story of a group and judge all productions they have ever done. But, this isn't so easy. What else? You could reply to other people's thoughts, you could start a campaign or a survey, ask the same question to many different Sceners and print their answers afterwards, Making Of's are also always welcome.. argh! There are SO many possibilities waiting for you! You must only do it.
Help wanted?
The clique of writers is a friendly guild: You could get support & help from anybody you ask. Send somebody an article and ask him what he thinks about it, how you could find an end or what you could do better etc. etc. and he'll help you for sure! Compared to coders, there's no reason not to share knowledge. We don't have to work hours and hours for a good effect whose source we don't want to give away to others to learn how it works. It's all public, you can read the output everywhere, there are no secrets possible for editors. And actually the majority of readers should stop treating editors as magic people, we do something which is easy to do. Even lazy guys like me are able to be wellknown, and my output during the past years has been more than poor to be honest! Ever thought why swappers tend to start a bright career as an editor after they have retired? For them it's the easiest and most clever way to get famous, not to forget that except some training you need nearly zero talent to become it. Examples? What about Darkhawk, who never retired as a swapper, Mop, Astro, Cesium, Kaosmaster, Fishwave, Ghandy, dunno how many other editors or former writers I forgot to mention.
It's not important to be perfect, it's important to start doing something!!! Perfection comes along with time! And non-commercial journalists who don't get a single buck need absolutely no perfection. Nobody will dare to pay you for your efforts and so why should your stuff be as good as that from wellpaid journalists, eh?? Got the point?
Surely it's easier to condemn other people's products instead of starting your own projects. I hear those guys again and again: "This sucks and that sucks, this is worse and this could have done better." Stop screaming you scummy mates, do it yourself and we'll see if it will really be better!!
So you see - it's not so hard to write articles and writing has a lot of advantages. What are you waiting for? Start your texteditor and send your results to Ghandy@Scenet.de!!