waiting help: I am a new music editor for an online magazine but I am suffering from serious writing block! - Help.com

What exactly is your job? Writing music, or writing articles?

hotkey wrote:
What exactly is your job? Writing music, or writing articles?

Writing articles, and also appointing people to submit articles to the music section (no one has come forward for it yet though, but hopefully soon enough we’ll get some). It is a voluntary job though, not paid. Just for journalism experience should I want to enter that career or similar.

Well, when you have trouble writing, try reading. Read about something that you like, or dislike, but read something written by someone with a differing view. You should find tons of points to make against theirs’. Then, just form those points into an essay-style format and try not to make it seem argumentative.

hotkey wrote:
Well, when you have trouble writing, try reading. Read about something that you like, or dislike, but read something written by someone with a differing view. You should find tons of points to make against theirs’. Then, just form those points into an essay-style format and try not to make it seem argumentative.

OK, thanks, I’ll try that.

I’d say start with musicians coming to your area and just expand from there. Listen to music look deeply at the lyrics and figure out why you like it. Research the background history and discover why its great. Then find something you’ve never heard that maybe an artist you likes recommends or is influenced by and do a peice on them.
Local musicians are always a good start too, nothing is easier than interviewing someone. If thats out of the question sample interviews and peice together an arguement over the best brand of instruments, the most universally influencial artists or underrated preformers. The difference between selling yourself and selling your art.
Critique a movie like Nowhere Boy, Last Days, About a Boy, Im Not There, The Importance of Being Morrissey, Walk the Line, Once, Across The Universe, Don’t Look Back, Control, Metal: A Headbangers Journey, Heavy Metal in Baghdad, The Last Waltz, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, No Direction Home, Notorious, The Runaways,Ray, La Bamba, 24 hour party people, hustle and Flow, Krush Groove, or any of the Beatles’ movies. Or even just take a movie and critique the soundtrack! For instance; Twilight was a terrible movie but with radiohead and muse their soundtrack was killer. Shrek has an unexpectedly good soundtrack, 28 Days later is mind blowing musically, Johnny Greenwood did There Will Be Blood…. So much to choose from.
Theres tonnes of potential when working with music you just gotta focus on what you like first and then bend the bracket of your interests.

1. Stop being a perfectionist. Google “perfectionist disorder”

2. Start with your passions. What are you passionate about in music? Why? How did that get started? Tell the story of your musical passion and where it came from. You could turn this into a series, interviewing other people about the same thing.

hi-here’s what helped me:
1) just writing anything down on paper for a while
2) brainstorming topics: just writing down questions, ftv series i wanted to write about
3) yeah, I agree with the posts that suggested reading, you need to practice writing, use your fave critics as a model, try and immitate writing styles, look at what others find interesting. Writing is a craft.Practice it.
4)Try contacting companies for interviews with musicians but if that is aiming too hi don’t forget the lower end of the market: is there a long standing music store in your area. Interview the boss, how has the music industry changed from a retail perspective over the last decade, talk to fans of a group or music genre
5) make something up! LOL Stanley Cohn (I think)whos writing is collected in the book BALL THE WALL wrote the article about the disco scene that the film Saturday Night Fever was based on. Thing is, according to him, he got to the club he was to report on, someone staggered out and vomited on his taxi, so he drove straight home and made up the article based on the 1950s dance scene he remembered. Of course then his article got made into a film, the film inspired the disco craze so his imagination became reality.

Oh wow, thank you all such kind and helpful people! A lot of good tips and advice I’ll be taking good note of. Thanks a lot :D

Anonymous wrote:
Oh wow, thank you all such kind and helpful people! A lot of good tips and advice I’ll be taking good note of. Thanks a lot :D

cheers for the feedback, good luck, stick at it writing is a learning experience