第2847期:The sportswriter

I'm talking to Simon. Hi Simon. Hi.我正在和西蒙说话。嗨，西蒙。嗨。Who is hoping to become a full-time freelance sports writer. Am I right about that? Yes, just about, yes.他希望成为一名全职自由体育作家。我这样说对吗？是的，差不多，是的。What kind of sports do you write about? Well, at the moment I only write about football.你写哪种运动？嗯，目前我只写足球。That's my specialist subject and that is done in two directions. I have always followed Manchester City Football Club, so that is my English arm of the football writing. And because I'm a resident of Lisbon, I also write about Portuguese football affairs.那是我的专长，而且分为两个方向。我一直关注曼城足球俱乐部，所以那是我足球写作的英格兰部分。而由于我住在里斯本，我也写葡萄牙足球的相关事务。Manchester City, you write about Manchester City. I do. Who do you write for? I write predominantly for ESPN.曼城，你写曼城的内容。是的。你主要为谁写？我主要为 ESPN 写作。Right. So I have a contract with them to produce three or four Manchester City-related articles per week. Per week? Per week.好的。我和他们有合约，每周需要写三到四篇与曼城相关的文章。每周？每周。And you find enough to write about per week? Always. And how long have you been doing that for? I've been doing that for about six or seven years, I think.那你每周都能找到足够的题材？总是能。你这样做多久了？我想大概六七年了。And then you said your other arm, as it were, is writing about Portuguese football. Tell me about that.你刚才还说你的另一部分写作是关于葡萄牙足球的。说说这个吧。Well, there's a huge global interest in the English Premier League, obviously, so there's a lot of competition amongst sports writers, football writers, to get their work published. There is not so much being done in the area of Portuguese football, so it's more of a niche market.嗯，全球对英超的兴趣非常大，所以体育记者、足球记者之间竞争激烈，想发表文章很难。而关于葡萄牙足球的内容并不多，所以这是一个更小众的市场。I write for an English-language website called portugol.net, which is run by a friend of mine in Lisbon. It's the biggest and most well-known English-language site covering Portuguese football.我为一个叫 portugol.net 的英文网站写稿，它由我在里斯本的朋友经营。这是最大、最知名的英文葡萄牙足球网站。Am I right in saying then, both... for both the Manchester City writing and for the Portugal writing, your writings appear on the internet only? No, it can be in print as well.那么我这样说对吗——无论是写曼城还是写葡萄牙足球，你的文章都是发表在网络上？不，也可以是纸媒。OK. Sometimes... sometimes... there's a lot of website-based stuff, but I write, for example, for the Irish Examiner.好。有时候……有很多是在线内容，但比如我也会为《Irish Examiner》（爱尔兰观察家报）写稿。All right. Again, about Manchester City. So that will be a newspaper?好的，又是关于曼城的。这是纸媒吗？That's a weekly column on a Monday in the newspaper, which is sort of a reflective piece on what happened at the weekend.那是报纸上每周一的专栏，主要是对周末比赛的一些回顾性评论。If there are other people listening who have a passion for a sport and like writing about it, what advice would you give them if they wanted to do something like this as well?如果有其他人热爱某项运动，也喜欢写作，希望做类似的事情，你会给他们什么建议？If it's football, it's very difficult to get into because there is a cabal of well-known writers who almost always are chosen by the newspapers and the magazines to do their stuff for them.如果是足球，这个行业很难进入，因为报纸和杂志几乎都选择那群知名作者来写稿。So are you the Man City expert?所以你算是曼城专家吗？Because I'm so old, I do have an advantage over some of the younger guns because I go back further and I can add historical perspective to a lot of my articles, which some of the others can't unless they research it.因为我年纪大，我相比年轻作者有优势——我能回顾更久远的历史，可以在文章中加入历史视角，而其他人若不特别研究，就无法做到。And even then, they don't have the feel as someone who was actually there and lived through whichever period we're writing about or talking about.即使研究了，他们也没有那种亲历其境的感觉——不像真正经历过那个时代的人。So you've got the experience. Yes. Yeah.所以你有经验。是的，没错。But I would say just keep going and try and get yourself noticed.但我会说，坚持写，让别人注意到你。If you have the skill and the ability and you write in an interesting, informative and entertaining way, somebody somewhere will take you on.如果你有技巧、有能力，并且写得有趣、有信息量、有可读性，总会有人愿意用你的文章。They probably will not offer to pay you to start with. So be prepared to do work for free just to get your name out there.他们一开始可能不会付你钱，所以准备好先免费写稿，让自己的名字被看到。Now, I know you're not a full-time freelance worker. So although you seem to be very busy, it's still a step away then from it paying all your bills.我知道你还不是全职自由工作者。虽然你看起来很忙，但这些收入还不足以支付你所有的开销。Yes, it doesn't pay all my bills. That's why I also teach.是的，不能完全覆盖所有开支。所以我还要教书。My dream would be to be free of teaching and just to write because I'd like to be a creative writer as well as a contracted writer because there's not complete creativity with what I do.我的梦想是不再教书，只靠写作，因为我希望既能成为创意写作者，也能成为签约作者——我现在做的写作并不完全属于创意写作。And how are you going to get onto that next step? Very good question.那你要怎么迈向下一步？好问题。Just keep writing. The more writing I do, the more it gets noticed. The more people want stuff from you, the more people are prepared to pay for it.就是继续写。我写得越多，就越容易被注意到。越多人想要你的内容，就越多人愿意付费。And your passion shows through your writing. I hope so. I hope so.而且你的热情会通过你的文字展现出来。我希望如此，我希望如此。

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