New Girl

I am helping set up a new magazine in Edinburgh. This all happened largely by accident, I had a chat with a friend of mine (now boss) to say, 'hey lady, wanna take my writing' and ended with, 'look if you need a bit of advice on the sales side'... Before you could say 'is this part of your long term plan?' I was being whipped up to the artic climes of not so sunny Scotland and persuaded to give the guys a hand as they had sold precisely no ads, arranged precisely no distribution and considered (you guessed it) precisely no content.

They did however have a very glossy media pack with fabulous green eyeshadow which hit the uber-feminine side of me and got me all excited about glamour, make up freebies and fabulous launch parties. I have it seems been reading far too much Marian Keyes as so far not one pair of free eyelashes, not one chance to review a restaurant and not one party invite has come anywhere near the mag let alone me. Ahh, unless you count the dull lady from yesterdays women's network I angled to go to hoping to meet some power mentors and kissable maidens (nope, neither) who wants us to to have a glass of wine with her while she exclusively launches her latest holiday cottage for I-on magazine. (hum, busy that night, sadly)

I have in true me style told it how I see it, i.e 'come on girls, you say we have five weeks to make this work yet as far as I can see there's no urgency from either of you' (lots of coffee, lots of strategy, lots of turning up to work around 11am), and as a result lists have started appearing and boxes getting ticked off. This is I think good news. I have agreed to give them five weeks, which is when we need to have the cash in the bag to go ahead... Not sure what I'll do beyond that but currently London seems appealing even if it's up and running and that's a big if. I have told the girls that if they want to keep me long term I want to be involved editorially but it seems we have different views on what the mag should look like (I want vanity fair, naturally, they want a PR type hello thing) so not sure that will happen. Maybe I should revise my expectations as it is after all just a free lifestyle mag for Scotland's sexiest city.

It's the first week though and I've a load of meetings set up, a load of people to meet and a load of work done, plus I have a fabulous two bedroomed flat in the centre of town (guests welcome, bring your own bed) so it's not all gloom. I even have three friends other than Jo here, all of whom have responded to my desperate pleas for company and are taking me out next week. On top of that I have stopped eating ginger nuts which if nothing else good comes out of it, makes the whole endeavour worthwhile.