We’ve done it, guys. We’ve reached the big 5-0. We started with just two girls, a South London sitting room and a dream and, fifty articles later, we’re now... two girls, a South London sitting room and a dream (and in our overdraft). But we’ve learned a lot from DITZY. There is still so much unchartered ground in terms of the young, female experience - purely because, until very recently, women weren’t given much of a space to write about it - so there’s just SO much gr8 material we can use for our own selfish ends.
Here’s what we, the Ditzy team, have learned from our 40 years in the business of blogging.
Deadlines are creative
We won’t lie, we still have a few kinks to iron out in operations - sometimes Thursday and Sunday creeps us on us. And as hair-raising as that prospect first seemed to us - staring at a blank page with the clock ticking - we have made a surprising discovery. Deadlines focus the brain. They sharpen the neurons and make them fizz with urgency. They help you mercilessly rip off the fat from flabby articles and half-shaped ideas. A bit of fighter-pilot-white-knuckle-red-zone adrenalin - the proper Class A stuff, generally reserved for dissertation deadlines - is the best non-hallucinogenic creative aid we’ve found so far.
It’s better to be reliable than perfect
There is a certain glamour in being the one who is brilliant but inconsistent, the natural genius who keeps you guessing until the last minute. We love a bit of that. It is very seductive and thrilling. Quite good if you’re conducting an illicit love affair with a tortured poet. But there’s not a huge amount of spare energy sloshing around for the nail-biting ‘will-they-won’t-they’ scenario twice a week. There is profound value in the power of ‘done’. A humble poetry in a ‘good is better than perfect’ ethos. Being someone who will deliver, week in week out, is massively undervalued. But we think it’s beautiful.
There’s material everywhere
Life is nutty. Life is bursting with mad, sad, great, raucous material everywhere you look. Creative genius Dave Trott says you can’t beat the real life that’s going on around you for good material. Everything can be something. Something cathartic, amusing, provoking or beautifully useless. We have used Ditzy as therapy, as escape and as a way of seeing the world. Because once you start looking at all the chaos, the disappointments, the drunkenness and ineptitude as stories that someone else might enjoy, it takes the sting out. And it makes everything worth something.
Zoos are a good place to go
Lions, tigers, zebras, antelopes, pelicans - the choice is endless. Plus the coloured rubbers in the gift shop. What could be better?
You’ve been a great audience
We are still flying blissfully under the radar from internet trolls. Or maybe it’s all in the mail. The feedback we have had has been full of kindness and encouragement (thanks mum). So thank you for helping us shape Ditzy into the gangly, awkward teenager that it is - we hope you stick with us through the next 50.
D - I - T - Z - Y. What does it spell?? Chaos.
Written by Jess Bird and Matilda Curtis - joint CEOs of DITZY Inc.