LETTER CRAFTING

Retro Gamer freelancer Graeme Mason returns to talk about his newsletters

Back when I was a young man [Crikey, we’re going back _that_ far? – Ed], someone told me that starting and writing a regular blog was a good way of testing your skills, while acting as an early calling card for when you don’t have actual paid work to show off. I jumped in with Jdanddiet’s Blog (my online name on the Retro Gamer forum, RIP), writing posts about movies, gaming and music. I wrote about my favourite games and what I was currently playing. I posted hidden movie gems and analysis of pop videos. And, of course, I wrote about the videogames I played growing up, most notably on the ZX Spectrum. Note those last four words.

I don’t know if Darran read my blog while he was musing over whether to let another reader have a stab at writing for Retro Gamer, but it certainly didn’t seem to do any harm. Fifteen years and almost 250 articles later, I’m assuming he doesn’t mind me working for him. Yet while pitching and writing for Retro Gamer is great – and I’ll never tire of it – it does have to fit into the mag’s structure and feature templates. Sometimes I think back to that time writing Jdanddiet’s Blog, posting views and opinions on whatever random game I happened to fancy writing about at that particular moment. Wouldn’t it be fun to be able to do that again?