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How Do You Make Out Of Writing

What did you do before taking up free-lance writing?

I did an MA in history, then found myself in the position of not knowing what to do for a job and not being trained in such a way that would make the decision a formality. So I took the usual escape route and went teaching. Later an interest in the mechanics of education took me back to university where I enrolled for a diploma of education. Then I imagined I needed an overseas degree. And after a year of negotiation, during which I had to prove I did not have the pox and could speak English. I was accepted in the graduate school of the Catholic University of the U.S., in Washington DC.

What did you study?

I did an MA in education. Studied some administration. The standard wasn't notably high, actually.

And then?

Up to this time I had presumed I would remain a teacher until the chalk finally clogged up my arteries. But while I was in Washington I began to have second thoughts. The life of the journalist started to intrigue me. It's impossible not to be smitten with this virus in Washington. The place reeks of power. You could go to the theatre and find yourself sitting behind Dean Rusk. The Kennedys played tennis at a private club not far from my apartment, anyone could go in and watch Bobby swapping back-handers and gossip with Sargent Shriver. And there was, of course, the White House, and Ol Lyndon himself surrounded with a huge gaggle of reporters hanging on his every word and gesture. In Washington, the important people either made politics or wrote about it. And just like everyone else I got into the habit of reading Tom Wicker and James Reston of the New York Times, or Evans and Broder of the Washington Post to find out whether the world was going to survive.

Did you write your first material for American editors?

Not really. I wrote a letter to a friend telling him about American television not long after I arrived in the States. The friend submitted the letter to the editor of the Sunday Times who ran the letter as an article. Afterwards the editor wrote to me saying that his paper would run any further contributions from me.

Shortly after this letter, we had a strike at the university. Both students and faculty went out, an action quite unique in educational history. The strike made an interesting story which I wrote up and sent off to New Zealand. Later I did other articles—what Americans knew about New Zealand (nothing), and that sort of thing—and by the time I started to think about returning the hope of getting into journalism when I got back to New Zealand had hardened into a firm resolve.

Spiro Zavos lives in Mount Street, a couple of hundred yards from the university. A large, comfortable room, a desk facing a picture window, typewriter, tape recorder, shelves of books. We sat before the window, observing the progress, to and from Vic, of those whose progress seemed worthy of note ...

Why freelance?

The normal route into a newspaper office is through the wide thoroughfare of failed School Certificate. Likely lads are expected to rise through the ranks, graduating from sweeping the floors and making cups of coffee, when the Sports Editor drops dead or resigns in a hurry. My problem was that my qualifications were too good and no daily paper would take me on.

As a last resort I wrote to the editor of the Zealandia, a Catholic weekly, suggesting that his paper needed a political correspondent. His reply was most helpful. He offered me a column, but as well as this said he would take editorial comments, book reviews and features from me. Since then I have resigned from the Zealandia, and now write a weekly political column for the Sunday News. I do about six or seven pieces a week, and help prepare two broadcast programmes on current affairs a week. It was pretty hard initially, getting established as a regular contributor. There's one problem here, which is that if you lake a holiday the editor sees that the circulation didn't drop that week, and no-one missed you ... it's not a realisation you want any editor to get. So you don't take holidays. But of course I can take a day off whenever I want.

What sort of material do you do. What subject areas?

Politics and sport. I think that to be a freelance writer you have to have a specialty. You can be more of a generalist to start, but at some stage you have to have your own particular area. Food is a good one—look at something like Barry Duncan's column. Mind you, he must consistently strike good nights—I never find the food as good as he says it is. Salient's Nosh is good, but it's not really a commercial thing, is it? I mean a paper which had to be more sensitive to its advertisers probably wouldn't buy it.

What is your method of doing an article, in detail?

I collect clippings and information, and sort out the general structure, points one, two, three, and so on. Then I put it to one side, and any time I get an idea I add it in It stews page 7 away and then one Jay I sit down at the typewriter and out it comes, There was a time when 1 did about five drafts, but nut now. I get my best ideas in church, especially during the sermon.

Do you have any problem of the lack of stimulation from workmates?

No, not really. I have to mix with a wide group to get stories—I have close contacts with the Press Gallery, and I know most top sports people. And of course all the miniskirts on their way to Vic from the Terrace pass this window ....

There are a couple of problems one faces It is often difficult to get an interview if you don't represent someone, and when you have got to see a person it is often difficult to get them to say what they think, to get then to express their real opinion. They're not used to it, of course, because there are only one or two journalists around who are willing to challenge officialdom Terry McLean is one—he has put himself in a position of strength by proving himself as a journalist. That's another problem for the free-lancer too—it is more difficult for him to slash. You interview someone, and if he doesn't like the result you may never get an interview with him again, if he is that sort of bloke. Whereas if you are a reporter from the Herald, then at some time this bloke will need the Herald. There are no magazines in New Zealand to print high quality critical articles without being too academic Magazines like Harpers. Esquire, and so on.

I think if you are a free-lance journalist you have to accept that you are going to give offence. There is a Golden Rule in New Zealand sports journalism that you don't criticise players. Well. I don't believe in knocking players, but you read some reports and find that everyone played marvellously and lost by 30 points. That's a bit ridiculous.

Have you any plans for going overseas?

I'm a bit tied down, really. If you go away you lose contacts here, and the editor drops the column or gets someone else. So that when you come back you've got to start all over again. Almost, anyway.

What about selling stuff overseas?

I send material to South Africa. On Rugby, I was in Sydney for about a week last year, to see what possibilities there were for a New Zealand correspondent. The trouble is I have never worked inside a paper, and to a large extent I am still regarded as something of an outsider. And these correspondents are usually newspaper staff. The thing's a bit incestuous—if one chap is giving up a column he hands it on to someone else and unless you are a part of the system it is quite difficult to break in.

Can you make a living out of free-lance writing?

Definitely, On the average my salary would be considerably higher than if I had stayed on as a school-teacher. Hut nevertheless there is a problem for the free-lancer in the nonsensical rate of payment offered by most papers for articles. A normal fee is around ten dollars. Ocassionally one comes across editors who are willing to pas up to twenty-five dollars for a piece, but this is rare. Very rarely is quality or reader response taken into account when the rate is set. The flat rate is paid whether the article is good or bad. This hardly encourages the writer to do the research that many articles need. Nor does it encourage a writer to work over his text until each word in it has a sense of rightness about it. And yet the papers will send a staff member to New York, or fly him from one end of New Zealand to the other, to get an article which is at best no improvement on what could be done by a man on the spot.

That's another problem with the dailies here. Unlike Broadcasting, the dailies are unwilling to bring in outside experts even when their own people are doing an inferior job. Editors prefer the colourless gruel of the Press Association releases rather than using writers on the spot who could do a good story for them. Good papers have an instinct for the jugular, and once again this is a quality ours lack. The possibility of hiring a free-lancer to do a special feature for them hardly seems to occur to most editors, although the practice is a common one overseas.

What are your long-term objectives?

It's a matter of seeing what happens, really. I don't know about continuing writing, although I could do more and earn more. I find writing very hard. If I could just sit down and write I would face the future with equanimity, but I don't find it this easy. Reporting is easy, but writing is hard. Ultimately, I suppose, I would aim at editing a sports magazine or something like that.

What of the future of free-lancing in New Zealand?

I would be more hopeful. For one thing, even today it is possible to make a comfortable living as a free-lance journalist. If a person has a specific expertise, say a deep knowledge of music, films, wines, chess, cooking, or bridge, then an excellent living can be made. Then, too, papers like the Dominion are beginning to adopt the overseas practice of featuring columnists and opening up their pages to expert writers.

Time really is on the side of the freelance journalist. Perceptive editors are beginning to realise that television is making the old-fashioned paper an anomaly. Hard news reporting is becoming less and less the responsibility of the papers, increasingly it is a task for television. We saw this last December when Mr Muldoon presented his mini-budget to the TV watchers before going into the House and telling Parliament and the press gallery what he intended to do. One doesn't have to read Marshall McLuhan to predict what this will mean in the future. A look at the New York Times provides the clue. From being a paper which printed "all the news fit to be printed", the Times has become a paper which prints "all the views fit to be printed". The emphasis on comment, on explanation, on backgrounding stories, rather than the stories themselves, is going to make an uneducated journalist a liability for any paper to carry.

In my opinion we are still from five to ten years away from the full completion of the switch but when it comes the freelance journalist will be in his element. Bring on them happy days ....

What had you done up until you started free-lance writing?

I actually call myself a freelance journalist rather than a writer, for [unclear: no] special reason but it sounds a bit more committed, if you like, a bit less of the tucked away in the garret trick. And writer' gives the idea of fiction, which is something I have yet to do to my satisfaction. Your question; yes I did a part-time BA. then a BA (Hons.) in Pol. sci. A bit of the time for the government, then about eighteen months with private industry, which wasn't such an improvement on the government as I thought. And a period working for myself, I found I am my most satisfactory employer, really I like to decide how I am going to do a thing and be responsible for the results This is modern management thinking, of course, but a lot of New Zealand management is not modern. Or may be it doesn't think.

Had you done much writing before setting up as a professional?

A certain amount A few articles for Focus One or two articles for Salient. About two years doing a column for Salient. A few bits and pieces—ads for the Coffee Bar which I was managing for a while. Very little actually. I must say.

It is surprising you didn't edit Salient. Did you ever think of it, or apply?

No, I would have quite liked to, but when I was doing my thing around Stud. Ass. it was in the direction of Exec, and so forth. Two or three committees before that, ran Arts Festîval here one year, did a part of Easter Tournament fairly early on in the piece. There's a limit to what one can do, especially when money must be earned. Anyway, as a columnist I could prod at people and things in a way that an editor cannot do so easily. Or at least not so irresponsibly and one-sidely. So that used to give me a mouthpiece with ample feedback, and was free enough to be really enjoyable to write.

Why did you start doing this?

I didn't really want to start in a newspaper, mainly because in this country the sort of qualifications I had aren't really recognised And the sort of thing I prefer doing is the investigation of an issue rather than finding pieces of ephemeral news. They talk a lot of crap about the journalist—more usually the reporter—needing a 'nose for news'. Well I suppose to some extent .... But a terriffic amount of news these days is a manufactured commodity, created by the Public Relations industry etc. to fill as much space as is available. The papers don't go and find out what happened today; they go out to find material to keep the paper full, and different from yesterday's. You know—the NZBC says 'There will be more news at 9 o'clock.' How do they know? Maybe nothing will happen. Perhaps I should justify that little rave. It's not the fault of the media, it's just that everybody wants to be told that they are living in a swinging world where new things are happening all the time, with every edition of every paper. Read Daniel Boorstin, We haven't gone as far as the US. mind you.

you were about to ....

O yes, I didn't really have anything against newspaper work, except the sort of item I would probably be spending most of my time writing. There aren't a great number of magazines in New Zealand, of the sort I would want to work on full-time. The thing was that as a free-lancer I would not he restricted except by my own abilities. I had something of a base to work from Focus has been a reasonably steady market, even if the pay's bit low. At that time, too, News Communication Ltd was just starting up and was going to need a steady flow of material. And no-one I spoke to seemed to know whether a free-lance journalist would make a fortune or starve, which roused my curiosity. Actually, the general opinion was more towards starvation, but still I don't know if that answers your question. It was partly, I suppose, the urge to remain self-employed and pick the topics I found interesting, partly the fact that there was a market for some of my stuff already, and very largely the feeling that if one's work is of high quality—and one must always assume this, after all—then the opportunities are unlimited.

What sort of stuff do you write?

Well, let's see. My file of clippings is in Auckland at the moment, so I can't show you Several interviews of various people. Some on aspects of town planning. The caste system in [unclear: India]. which was a rehash of an Honours paper. The 4D Society. The place of women in New Zealand. The state of Housie in Wellington. Problems of the Tokelau Islanders in New Zealand. The newspaper war between Truth, the National Informer and Censored. I'm working on a radio script looking at prisons with a couple of others in mind after that; an article on urban development, following the recent conference; a look at the graphics and interior design of the Display Centre; and a few other items to follow these There's a book in the offing, which consists of profiles of 15 guys who have been All Blacks but who have also made the scene professionally, or in business. It's very interesting—I'd like to do more of that sort of thing. A person's life, ideas, and so on. As long as they have had them.

There's a common denominator, although it may not be obvious. In a great number of fields action is taken, or decisions made, on the basis of what was done before, or a rule of thumb, or what sounds immediately plausible This Beat-the-Bastards campaign that Truth is carrying on is a perfect example. We've got a problem of violence, so belabour the bastards, that'll turn them into good citizens You know —'My roses are not growing properly!' 'spray them with weedkiller'. 'They're getting worse!' 'Not enough weedkiller, more! more! Yet go into the public library and there are several shelves of books on penology, saving weedkiller does this and that and other action which could be taken has been effective ... yet people still prefer simple-minded emotional ravings. This is just one example, but you take almost any area of life and you will find that the easiest and most immediately plausible answer is accepted as the right one. People feel insecure if they feel they are living in a complex world, so they simplify it beyond all semblance to reality, then find some evil person or group which makes things 'go wrong'.

I don't know if I have expressed it very clearly, but basically what gets me is the smug acceptance of the easy answer, and what I like to do is say that if you had given this a little thought, and made use of other experience which is available, you could have avoided this or that problem Or you will avoid it. Like a proposed shopping mall which, I gather, is going to be closed off outside normal shop hours to prevent vandalism, yet the only effective way would be to make the place a hub of activity and fore-gathering. It horrifies me, it really does, that an itinerant journalist can so easily be more up-to-date than a man who has spent his life in a certain field, but I suppose it's idealistic to presume that an 'expert' has necessarily done any thinking since he became qualified, and at least there are enough who have done so to keep me supplied with topics.

Let's be clear I don't set out to become an expert in say town planning or business management, but to know enough to recognise incompetence, or ignorance, and to know where to find some informed views.

Spiro Zavos considers that a free-lance journalist must have a specialty. Do you agree?

No, not really. There are areas in which one has a special interest, and a degree of competence. But I can always find someone to cross the its. And one knows what books and magazines are available. Here's a quote from Lewis Mumford which I like.

I have one genuine qualification, unfortunately still a rare one, that of a generalist, equally at home in many different areas of life and thought. My speciality is that of bringing the scattered specialisms together, to form an overall pattern that the expert, precisely because or his over-concentration on one small section of existence fatally overlooks or deliberately ignores.

Do you make a living out of it?

There's a quite severe liquidity problem. What I write today I may not gel paid for for another month; I may never get paid. And over a short period that makes it very hard to estimate just how well one does. But at the moment I'm certain I would be financially better off with a salaried job. I would be most displeased if this doesn't change. It's partly, too, that I am trying some things for the first time and financing my own training period. I can now do a 500 word article in a time I would never have dreamt of in the days I was writing 1500 word essays. So now I am aiming at the same thing with radio scripts and material.

Do you do most of your stuff on spec, or [unclear: do] you know you can sell it before you start?

In general on spec. In some cases I have known the editor beforehand and he has known my work, and I have been more or less commissioned. But in most cases it's I matter of going to see or write to an editor and say here's what I've done and what I am, what sort of thing are you interested in, what do yon pay, and so forth. There's a publication called the Writers' and Publishers' Handbook which although it's not very well produced and not completely exhaustive is useful, although you can gel a pretty accurate idea of the possibilities just by buying a few magazines at a bookshop.

Are there possibilities in overseas publications?

O my goodness yes, I mean, say you write a short story, and it is of high enough quality for Playboy, you could get over $3000 for it. You wouldn't need to sell many to make a living. I don't know that there is exceptional potential for nonfiction articles from her to overseas, although there is a little. New Zealand does have something to say to the world in fields like agricultural research, for example, although I can't say I've explored the possibilities. There are some high quality overseas magazines English and American—which I would like to write for. They pay well enough for you to spend some time on the piece, which means it can be much more probing. But there are not many issues you write relevantly about from this distance.

Fiction? A novel?

Two or three ideas have been simmering for a long time, but it would have to be a full-time high-pressure slash, and I can't afford that yet, Later, though, it's something I would like to do.

What are the details of your methods? Can you type, write shorthand?

Shorthand would be useful, there's no doubt about it. But I've never studied it and there's an even chance that I never will. I borrowed a small cassette tape recorder to do the interviewing for the book, and really that is the only way for that sort of work. It's more accurate, although it is rather slower. It depends on the subject, really—I mean the topic. Talking to people about careers possibilities in their organisation, which I have just been doing for a careers magazine. I just used notes because most of what will be said fall into one of a few patterns. If someone is bubbling with controversial ideas for perhaps an hour then without the tape much of it would be lost. Even with shorthand probably. So it depends what you are doing.

Type?

Oh yes. My handwriting is hard to read as many will tell you, and so for several years I have typed essays, letters, just about everything. I found it less laborious and quicker anyway.

How did you learn? At a business school?

I don't touch type. I wish I had learnt to. No, I learnt when my parents sent me a cheap old typewriter in my second year at Vic. I laboriously and slowly typed letters, essays, and so forth, until I was tolerably proficient and it became easier than writing. I've just achieved one ambition and bought a second-hand electric machine, and a bit more labour is saved. I suppose the ultimate would be to dictate stuff, but I don't think verbally at all well. Two extremes—Hemingway wrote with a pencil, standing at one of those old high ledger desks. Norman Mailer uses whichever method is appropriate at the time from longhand, typewriter, dictaphone, or a secretary of living flesh. I think he also has a videotape machine and a TV camera, but I could be wrong.

What are your methods in detail?

Very similar to the way I used to write essays. I get together some pages of notes, then [unclear: an] outline. Headings, with references back to the notes. I look at it from time to time and add stuff or rethink, then when I come to do it I sit down at the typewriter with the outline in front of me and pages of notes scattered around, and probably books open at appropriate pages here and there. Then go through by headings. I very rarely write it out more than once, but I usually write on 8" x 5" copy paper or half-foolscap, one paragraph to a sheet. So it is easy to rearrange paragraphs, or rewrite one here and there. I usually have to do a bit of this. Mind you, it depends on the type of article. A more sort of news thing is much easier. An interview I work direct from notes of the interview to the final copy, because I have put the logical structure into story by planning the questions.

What sort of hours do you work?

If I am going to interview someone I try to make it in the afternoon, and if I plan to go into town, or the public library, or Vic, I try to make it between about 2 and 4. Sometimes you could call this working and sometimes not. I rarely start before 10, I rarely go on after 1 a.m. Within those rough limits I vary quite a bit. I don't know how many productive hours the average day would have. It would certainly be capable of expansion. The point is. I don't have to sit there until 4.30 whether or not I am actually doing anything useful. And more people do that than I would like to mention. And that's an uncivilised way to live, isn't it?

What are your plans?

A bit indefinite, really, except in broad terms. I am more. I think, of an analyser and problem-solver than creative in the usual sense, which is why I am loath to call myself a 'writer'. It's like calling someone a telephone conversationalist—taking the tool, or a means, for the whole thing. But it means I am not happy just turning out articles and so forth—' need some thing more ... practical if you like. I'm applying for the Focus editorship for next year—this would suit very well, and be most stimulating. It has potential as New Zealand's quality magazine of comment, to fill the gap I mentioned before.

Any plans for going overseas?

Yes, but not immediate ones. It's not just a lack of money for the fare, though this comes into it. I think there is much more happening in New Zealand, and about to happen, that one can have some influence on. The economy. The structure of the society—you know, the welfare state and so on. The physical environment—there's quite a lot starting to happen there. The scene in the arts has been changing considerably over the past few years, and will continue. Education versus Muldoonism. Industrial development. Research. Foreign and Defence policy and so forth. And people talk, you know about the homogeneity of New Zealand life, and the dullness, and how everyone thinks the same .... Largely correct too. But you look around, keep your cars open, and you will find that New Zealand has some stimulating people, here and there, with a power of good ideas. No, I have no objection to staying on this country for another couple of years before exploring the outer world. Anyway. I don't think it's my objective to remain a citizen of one city. After all—and this is a very recent phenomenon—my immediate circle of friends extends now over several countries, and this is an increasing trend in the world.

Do you find problems in working by yourself?

Two connected ones. The lack of stimulation provided by workmates is one. The idea of disappearing into the bush for a year and emerging, you know, with the Great New Zealand novel, is completely foreign to me. I [unclear: see] big cities and urban life and people and ideas. This is all very well, but it makes it very easy to leave an empty flat in Newtown where there is only me and a typewriter, and look up some books in the Vic library. Or more likely look up some people in the caf. The other problem is related, and is that of having self-discipline to actually do something in between cups of coffee. The IBM is good for that—it mutters away to itself, waiting, poised, for me to guide it into good words. The portable is like me—happier just sitting in the sun, thinking restful thoughts.

What do you think are future trends in journalism?

The journalist is a part of the entertainment industry, really. People are reading more and more—not just reading either, but listening to the radio, watching TV. And I think—I hope—we are becoming more sophisticated, people aren't watching pap all the time but things like say The Lost Peace'. People like discovering new things, being shown different aspects of their society. And I think perhaps we are becoming less liable to believe in blind forces controlling our destiny, as an older generation believed. We are more confident in analyising what's going on and in changing it. I don't know, I may be over-optimistic, but I hope it is a trend and if it is, the person who can take the step back and look at things is going to be more in demand. I suppose it depends on how smug and accepting of official dogma the present under-thirty generation remains. But I am by nature an optimistic person, so I remain hopeful.

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