Glamorous, Globe-trotting Career Started By Studying At Home
Travel writer, photographer and editor, Cindy-Lou Dale, learnt her craft from The Writers Bureau’s Home Study Creative Writing course. Fifteen years later she now specialises in writing for the highend travel, luxury motoring and affluent lifestyles market. Here is her story:
Within 18 months of enrolling on her course Cindy-Lou had been published in more than 80 magazines, newspapers and e-zines around the world, but she hadn’t quite achieved her goal. In 2006 CindyLou wrote, “Since childhood I’ve had a secret dream of writing an article for National Geographic. Okay, okay, I know that is really huge but let’s be honest here, look what I’ve accomplished already. The Writers Bureau laid the foundation, my tutor nurtured and guided me and I now have several impressive writing clips to my name and perhaps the confidence to pull it off.”
It took another four years of hard work but in 2010 Cindy achieved that childhood dream and had her work published in National Geographic. From this exciting acceptance she carried on and her career has gone from strength to strength, “Both my travel writing, and car reviews, have been published in numerous high- end journals around the world, as well as inflight magazines, luxury lifestyle publications, wealth management and trade journals…whatever takes my fancy really.”
So, apart from getting the right training and working really hard, what else has contributed to Cindy-Lou’s success?
“The key is to publish in a diverse mix of magazines,” she says. “For example, I’m a travel writer, but this doesn’t mean you’ll only see my articles in travel magazines. In fact, you’ll seldom see them there as they don’t pay nearly as well as genre specific magazines like a dental magazine. Remember, dentists too go on holiday – and drive luxury cars!” It’s now 2019 so we asked Cindy-Lou what she thought was important for would-be writers to learn.
“World economics has made freelancing all the more difficult, especially in getting past the first hurdle, which is grabbing the editor’s attention. Therefore, formulating a good pitch is crucial, essential even. Being a luxury lifestyle magazine editor myself I’m often appalled at the shoddy pitches I receive from supposedly professionally trained journalists. I found training with The Writers Bureau to be crucial.”
Cindy-Lou has written a self-help book for those who want to break into travel writing. Secrets of a Professional Travel
Writer, available to buy on Amazon, gets down to the fundamentals of how to compile a pitch and construct an article.
For those wanting to explore creative writing as a full or part-time career option then The Writers Bureau Comprehensive Writing Course is a good place to start. It covers all types of writing from articles to short stories, novels to scripts so people can discover what they’re good at and where their passions lie. Plus, you receive constructive feedback from your personal tutor – a professional writer. Information is free and you can enrol on a 15- day trial to make sure the course is for you. Visit their website or call them today. You never know where it will take you – around the world maybe! www.writersbureau.com
0800 856 2008. Please quote AT619