Writers need to live their lives in a different time —
literally.
Magazine writers will often need to write about the Christmas
holidays in July, Mother’s Day in January and Halloween in April… give or take
a few months. The fact is that editors need to allow for production time in
order to release timely and relevant issues. Newspaper journalists will usually
have shorter time lags depending on the department they write for; obviously
hard news is put into print as soon as it happens or as quickly after as
possible. Many books are also scheduled to coincide with the calendar. Most
general fiction can come to the storefront any time of the year, but special anthologies,
reference books and holiday specific stories may have sensitive release dates.
If you are pitching an idea to an editor it would be a wise
idea to keep the calendar and available editorial calendars in mind. Pitching a
Valentine’s Day article idea to a magazine editor at the end of January will
usually be a waste especially as the office is busy on publication details for
the issue that is going to hit the stands in days. Several magazines make their
editorial calendars available on their websites (here is one example: http://www.condenast.com/brands/self/media-kit/print/calendar)
This type of calendar will give you the main feature subject, the final print
date and the sale date. Editorial calendars are helpful for freelancers looking
to pitch (remember that article assignments are usually due well before the
print date) and advertisers looking to market their products. If you use a publication’s
editorial calendar in order to sell an article idea remember to verify that
they accept freelance submissions.
Bloggers can use a simple Gregorian calendar (standard civil
calendar in the U.S.) for timely and relevant topic ideas. There are dozens of
calendars and templates to spawn lots of themes. (see http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/
for monthly holidays and observances); look online and you will find several
calendars featuring national, religious and sometime obscure historical facts
and trivia. When you’re looking for
something to blog about on “slow news days”, or you are pre-scheduling a series
of blogs to cover you during vacation or such, pull out a calendar for
inspiration.
Writing Exercise: Create a new
holiday/observance. Write two to three paragraphs introducing that holiday to
the public; be sure to include the traditions to be observed with that new
holiday (i.e.: parade, family dinner, etc.)
Writing Prompt: Growing up what was your
favorite holiday? Make a list of your significant memories associated with that
holiday.
Challenge Assignment: Create four characters that can interact with
each other. Choose four to six different holidays. Write a short story using
the characters (same four for each story) and use a different holiday as the
setting for each story. The stories can, but it’s not mandatory, flow from one
to the next (i.e.: Follow a family of four through the seasons in one year)
