Growing vegetables is always fun

Fresh from wondering where my writing career is going, I thought it might be fun to revisit some of the places it has been. In 2007 I was just starting out as a freelance writer, having been made redundant from my job as a techie. I’d been blogging for several years, and was slowly getting published (and paid!) online and off.

In December I received an email from Dennis Publishing, saying that they were looking for someone to write “a one-off gardening guide to growing your own fruit and veg aimed at 5-12 year-olds”. I had been recommended by a friend of mine, who knew that I was looking for freelance work. After a short email conversation, the people at Dennis asked me to meet them at their offices in London for a chat.

At that point in time, I was slightly obsessed by the use of coffee grounds in the garden. Starbucks were doing their “Grounds for the garden” scheme, where they put their waste coffee grounds back into the packets for gardeners to take away from free. But I didn’t live anywhere near a Starbucks that was participating, so I was frustrated in getting my hands on some.

Arriving in the big smoke with some time to kill, I stopped off in a Starbucks, and they had a basket of coffee grounds by the till. I picked one up (had I not had to carry it all the way back to Oxfordshire, I would have taken more). Which meant, of course, that I took it into my interview with me.

So I’m sitting in an interview in London with two guys from Dennis Publishing, and there’s a packet of coffee grounds on the table in front of me. I think they were too polite to mention it! I do remember saying that big words were out, because “every time you use one you lose 10% of your audience”* and suggesting that the bookazine (they’re called