Why I don't read magazines...but wish I did.

Hang on, hear me out guys...I like magazines. I really do. I have so much adoration – and admiration – for their makers, bringing out new editions every week or month and ensuring the hardest work goes into making them beautiful and current...like, wow. So much respect, mingled with the utmost awe.

But...I don't read them. Not regularly, anyway. Once in a blue moon, tbh. Like, I have read them in the past, but these days I honestly *braces self for the onslaught of ridicule* don't seem to have the time!?

(Grazia, October 3rd edition. Excellent column about 'dating' (/casual sex), Also my current read, The White Tower, part of my January reading challenge...

I mean, I do. I have an abundance of time. You need time? I got it. I'll hook you up. But for some reason that endless time I am engulfed with more or less 24/7 can never be spent sitting down and reading a magazine cover to cover. 
I almost always buy one with the purest and keenest of intentions, eager to learn about that fashion trend or the latest tricks for optimum self care, even the new sex tips that everyone is trying out with their consenting, loving partners...but then it sits beside my bed for actual weeks, if not months, stewing and growing outdated – at an alarming speed for something that's just sitting still?! 

The thing that inspired this post is a woman who has inspired many things in me, not gonna lie, and seems to have had the same effect on many of my lovely blogging peers. Laura Jane Williams is a beautiful beacon of joy and hope; she blogged and she tweeted, she hurt and she healed, then lo and behold a book was born, then a column in one of the loveliest weekly mags, and she became a bestie (and also #goals) to readers everywhere.

Since she announced her little shimmering slot in Grazia magazine, I've faithfully purchased a copy whenever possible. Today as I cleared my room, I discovered an October edition of Grazia on a bedside table, folded over on Laura's page, under a couple of books and pots of night cream. I felt sad seeing it there, only half-read and then left alone. Guilt swallowed me for a moment. 

Look! I have a dating column! https://t.co/dguisaFw5c

— Laura Jane Williams (@superlativelyLJ) January 24, 2017

EDIT: LJ has announced that after 5 months - when the original agreement/plan was just 3 - she is ending her column, so brb getting the latest issue in which she says goodbye to her loyal readers, omg...

The Tesco Express across the road from my house (which I've actually quite recently vowed hate for, due to their decision to not stock Bourbon biscuits) has a wide selection of magazines that I'll almost always take the time to look at and wonder at (and at times get angry at, I mean ffs are we not past the hideous era of 'bikini bodies' yet?!) and consider buying...but I know it'll be a waste. I'll buy, read a couple of things, if that, and then it'll be forgotten. 
But then I always enjoy dipping into and flipping through mags in the hairdresser's or one of the many hospital waiting rooms I frequent...

I used to love magazines, not for their articles or fashion trend tips but for their designs and photos – for the bold fonts and the delicate backdrops, the smiling models and sparkling shots of clothes. I did Art Textiles at GCSE, and some weeks we'd spend the whole double period lessons cutting and sticking and collaging and montaging mags and newspapers. Vogue was my favourite. I'd pile issues up in my room as well, most of which were hacked to pieces on the inside, but they looked cool in a stack on my bedside shelves. I even daydreamed about working in design at a magazine, if it meant I could cut out and colour in and collage to my heart's content... 

Plus back then my life goal was to be Andy from 'The Devil Wears Prada'. Well, obviously. 

Anyway, let's get to the moral of this post, shall we? I have outed myself as a...what, exactly? A non-believer? That sounds too extreme...we'll say a not-reader (lol, Creative Writing degree say what) of magazines. I have made this outrageous statement, and y'all are free to judge me – or it may be more useful to comment below and tell me why I absolutely should be reading any and all weekly or monthly publications, or even if you feel the same perhaps. But hear me now, when I say: I can change. I want to change. I desperately want in on this magical mag world. I actually would quite like my own column someday. Or to be commissioned for articles now and again, maybe. 
I mean, I did work experience last year at The Times Magazine, and that was quite enlightening in its own way, so there is hope for me yet.

So yeah, I'm gonna tentatively but earnestly say now that I will buy more magazines. I will study them, devour them, if not in one sitting then definitely by the time the next one comes out. Then (as per) I'll pass them along to my colour consultant mama so she can get her fashion fix! I'll even include which one I read in my monthly round-ups from time to time. See? I'm growing! Watch this space. I'm gonna try, mags...