Epic Flail

Did I mention this yet? I got laid off from the web-copywriting job. At first, I thought this would spur me to new and greater freelance efforts, but I am feeling paralyzed. I actually have made some great strides, contacting people and trying out for various really cool-sounding gigs. On the other hand, when it comes to pitching specific articles, I find myself at a loss. How did I ever do this?

My posts are forced, right now, to be short and frantic. I just don't have the luxury of thinking deeply, and that panic is probably really bad for my actual writing. But time is at a premium, and so is energy and focus.

This is it. This is me making this work for real. I must find a baseline gig and pile individual assignments on top of it in the middle of the worst job market in the history of forever. See? I just paralyzed myself again, I AM SO BAD AT THIS!

Online Copywriters Suck, Part II

In fact, it sucks so hard, I'm not all that upset to have been laid off from my day-job writing copy for an online shopping site. Okay, so my husband's also unemployed and we're looking down the barrel of a big, broke gun. What better way to kick my hiney back into freelance mode?

I've already submitted a personal essay, am doing a spec column, and am seeking out more information on a request for pitches. The last time I was laid off was August 2001, which turned out to be more than disastrous and I still ended up doing all right; let's see how I do this time around.

Stay tuned.

Online Copywriters Suck, Part I

Holy Crap! This is why I hate my job. Because Sephora didn't hire me. Instead, they hired the person who did... THIS!

Here's poop in your eye!

Why Did I Ever Procrastinate Before?!

Good god. Freelancing on top of a full-time job when you have a baby is insane. But I can't give up on the freelance -- it's the work that feels good, where I feel as if I'm using my skills rather than corporate-droning myself to death. Besides, I still hold out hope that I can go back to freelancing full-time.

Anyway, I'm amazed that I ever felt like I couldn't get anything done when I had all the time in the world. What was wrong with me?? Now! Now I need all the time I wasted then! Wouldn't it be awesome if it turned out that's what procrastination was? Banking free time for when you really needed it?

Here's hoping I get my latest story in by deadline, or close enough to it to keep my editor calling.

Ooh, I know -- I'm going to finish that spec personal essay for my pal at the women's magazine. Quick, before the baby wakes up... OOPS she's up.

I Love Being Tagged "Hilarious"

Oops. It's been a while since I updated. I was freelancing quite a bit while out on maternity leave, but with such truncated work hours, I had to make hard choices. Blogging lost. That's not true: I blogged, but not about work.

I thought it was hard not to procrastinate before. Turns out: I had no idea. When a wailing, hungry child brackets your time into three-hour segments, you get a stark lesson in just how much time you screw around. Seriously? Just as I would wind down my "just-for-a-minute" web reading, my husband would wander into the room with my big-eyed schmoo, and I'd have to admit I'd squandered my precious time yet again. 

It has taken some time, but I think I'm getting the hang of it now. 

Anyway, check out my iPhone Oscars, which I squeaked in right under the wire before the real Oscars. Man, I love my iPhone, Dr. Horrible, and Oscars. 

My Baby!

My baby was born this week!

http://www.maclife.com/articles/feature

Oh, also, I gave birth. ;)

Praise!

Oh! My gosh. The "ruining my life" story has been done for over a week, and i haven't stopped in to congratulate myself. Well, of course not-- no project, no need to procrastinate, right?

well, of course I do have my next project on deck -- it'll ruin my life again, for sure. abotu 1500 words/week for 8 weeks or so. but man, what a payday, and it's a fun project, so yay.

but back to the point: i got praise! props! big ups!

I just finished reading the [REDACTED] feature...OMG, if we can publish something this well-written, well-reported, and well-designed every month, we will eat [COMPETITION] for breakfast by end of 2010, no problem.

THANK YOU for your amazing work on this feature--I am so impressed and so proud of this story, and the Dec issue in general.

which prompted this:

And this is a good opportunity for me to thank [MADFOOT] for her great writing (her snark complements mine) and what must have been insanely frenetic (and nerve-wracking?) reporting/interviewing.

now, I did not work on this feature alone -- not by a longshot. i split the work with my editor, but I did almost all the reporting and worked my hiney off.

this post has been sitting here waiting to be published for almost an hour b/c i can't seem to say "I'm proud." but if I were capable of saying it, I would!

Truth in advertising

Right now, I'm truly procrastinating. It's 12:46 and I have the afternoon clear to bang out several chunks of the huge story that has been RUINING MY LIFE! for the past 2 weeks. Hokay. I have the transcribed interviews, I have (detailed) directions from my editor, and I know what to do... but I feel like ASS. I"m exhausted. My feet are balloons. My brain feels cloudy. And my reward, when all this is done, is that I'l be totally exhausted when my husband and stepkids get home and will be a cranky lump.

Okay! Enough bitching. I'm off to work now. But man, freelancing on top of a full-time job when you're pregnant: it is not for sissies.

"You love it."

I'm working at a frantic pace. I spend my days at my day job, getting up early and skipping lunch when i have to interview a subject. I get home and pound out a couple 500-word tips before bed. I charm cranky interviewees and reassure intransigent ones. I'm exhausted. What does my husband have to say about all this?

"You love it."

Well, so what if he's right. Jerk.

Hating Your Sources, Part Deux

Ya know, I'm seeing there's a pattern in my last few posts. A leitmotif, if you will. A theme. And that theme is crabbiness. I come here to crab about how annoying my stories are, and why is that?! I love what I do! I'm so grateful to be making inroads back to super-freelance status. What is my damage, Heather?

I guess part of it is -- since I have such a strict policy against (a) blogging about blogging, (b) blogging about not blogging, and (c) blogging about my blog, I only show up here when I have an axe to grind. I suppose it would be possible for me to blog about how unbelievably psyched I am about something. I am! I'm psyched about the cover story I'm writing, it's totally fun and today I got to call the PR company that inspired the name of the Beastie Boys album "Hello, Nasty." Kick ass! I'm psyched that I have a second chance at the big-money toddler tips. Yay!

But I'm bummed that I emailed a very specific request to a nutrition expert, and her reply was to lecture me about how the basic premise of my story was stupid, and try to give me a NEW angle to my story. Oh, expert! How could you? How many times, Expert, have I called you or your ilk to say, "Quick! I'm on deadline! Give me five tops for maintaining Zen in a crisis!" or "Help! I'm desperate! Name three top mood-making interior design tips!" -- only to be given the lecture that (a) the story idea I was assigned, over which I have no control, is stupid, and I SHOULD be writing about this other thing that you feel like talking about.

Expert, it just ain't right. It's not how magazines work. If you worked at one, you would know, but you don't, so on this topic, can I just be the expert? The expert says, if I need five energy-boosting food with spurious science to support each one, just give it to me. We can figure it out together, even! (I've done this before with your opposite, the Awesome Expert!) But don't try to change what story I'm doing so it fits your philosophy. In the long history of publishing -- back to the invention of the Gutenberg press, and possibly as far back as cave-painting -- there has never been a subject of a story, or an expert cited, who said "You ought to do it this way," and voila, wahoo, w00t, the article came out exactly like that. Nope.

If it worked that way, it'd be a blog. Your expert blog. God, wouldn't it be awesome if I googled my expert right now, and found a fresh blog entry bitching about stupid reporters and their dumbed-down requests? that was be so meta! our blogs could meet like matter and antimatter and destroy the internets and all its tubes!

In other bummer news, I didn't get the awesome part-time gig I was up for. Man! The awesome part-time work-from-home gig is right up there with the editor-at-large title -- mysterious, elusive, precious. Ah well. The timing wasn't so great anyway. If all goes well at their end, they'll have room for me in a few months, when my time will be either more my own or completely NOT my own. We'll see. I like them, and they gave me the nicest rejection ever ("No, YOU're great! No, YOU!"), so I'm choosing to believe they like me and will use me eventually.

"how can you stand to write that crap?"

Since I've been pregnant, I notice that I've become public property. Everyone likes to touch my belly and ask when the baby's due and whether it's a boy or a girl and whether it's twins, because I'm so HUGE. Fortunately, i have no boundaries and am a middle child, so the attention is totally welcome. 

Not so welcome is the attention I've gotten since the mid-'90s, when I went from writing little smart articles for little smart (poor) publications to more mainstream article for big fat (rich) publications. People seem entirely content to look at something I wrote and say whatever shitty and insulting thing comes to mind, and every single one of them is burned into my brain. 

Just in case you don't believe me, here's a partial list:

• "No offense, but your magazine's worse for women than Hustler." (nb: six months later, the same person was begging me to get her novel excerpted in that same magazine)
• "I just can't believe you think it's OK to pump that crap out." (two weeks later, an email from this person asking how she could freelance for my magazine)
• "Why not just write for Bust or Ms.?" (I was able to tell this person that, in fact, I was writing a feature for Bust that was paying me $150, while the Maxim feature she was bitching about had paid literally 20 times that)
• "We don't want any more of these." (An agent, indicating the three-book arc I'd written about teens who become reality TV stars. My babies! We don't want any more of my babies?) 
• "Well, how about this... is that stupid enough for your article? (This from an expert who was getting free publicity for her stupid sex-advice book via my stupid article)
• "You mean there's a difference between Glamour and Self? I thought they were all just 'ten ways to get a guy to hand over his wallet.'" (I reserve comment.)
• "I can not believe you got paid money to write... that." (Full disclosure: the story I had pulled out was really silly. On the other hand, fuck you. What did you ever get paid to write? Actual answer: "A lot of money.")
• "No seriously, I'm totally impressed that you wrote books! This just isn't the kind of thing I usually read." (I've had 2 husbands and 2 serious boyfriends since I started writing books, and 0% of them has managed to plow through my prose. Granted, they're essentially Gossip Girl with less sex and more smarts, but how hard could it be?) 
• "Good lord, can't you just write for the New Yorker?" (Yes, mom. I can, I just won't.)

Usually I take the criticism in stride. Yes, it's odd to me that, like lawyers and Catholics, I seem to be in a group that it's just considered OK to take pot-shots at. (at which it's OK to... oh, never mind.) Sometimes it rankles. What are you gonna do? 

No seriously, is there something I can do?! 

it's bad to hate your sources!

Holy bananas! I'm doing a very simple article right now, the kind I've written hundreds of times before... simple premise, established bullet points, 3 experts. I had a short deadline, so I gathered a LOT of experts all at once, and wasn't terribly picky about them.

Well, I have to get pickier about one of them. 

How often do you interview someone and end up feeling offended to the very core? I'm not Keith Olbermann -- I usually don't write about anything soul-stirring or morally important. I write low-expectation stories for a mass-market audience, and since freelance rates have dropped in the last few years (and stayed at the same rate for the previous, oh, twenty years), I write them quickly and with a minimum of fuss.

But when I'm confronted with an expert spouting what amounts to ignorant, sexist hate-speech, what are my options? I can:

• Decide not to use her at all, which feels impolite, since she did give me her time and thoughtful answers (soul-curdling as they are);
  
• Use her less-offensive answers, which feels gross, because I'm giving her free book publicity, pointers to her site, and implicit approval of her worldview. 
  

And before you go telling me I shouldn't censor this poor beleaguered therapist, I just don't see how not using someone as an expert is censorship. Do I have to provide damaging advice based on shitty research to be p.c.? 

Anyway, I feel dirty having even spoken to her. To hear ancient bromides like "women cheat because of emotional needs; men cheat because they need sex, and aren't capable of thinking or feeling more deeply about it" made me want a Karen Silkwood shower. I don't think I can use the interview; if she objects, I'll fall back on the old "blame my mean old editor" response. If she gets that enough times, maybe she'll stop being such a reductive hater. 

 

Oh yes. I remember this.

When I went from freelance to full-time at my Hearst job, I thought I'd be able to keep writing young-adult novels, no problem. I was used to doing a chapter a day and thought, with the amount of actual time I spent writing, that piling that on top of a full day's magazine writing and editing would be easy. There's a lot of what seems like wasted time in a writer's day -- and it seems wasted even to the writer wasting it.

What I learned then was that all that "wasted" time helped to gather stores of energy and focus for the actual writing, fingers on keyboard, eyes on monitor. You cannot do that half-assed. You cannot sandwich it between scheduled research and scheduled interviews. It takes its own time, and you have to allow the full amount of that time.

This is not to say that you have to wait for the Muse to strike, or that repeats of "Bonanza" are integral to the creative process. There is a sweet spot, a perfect amount of cushion before and after the actual writing; learning exactly what you need (as opposed to what you want, because in addition to being a hardworking writer, you are a big lazy bum) is about the most precious and helpful information you can put in your hopper. 

All this is to say that I got a disheartening response from an editor this morning, saying that a rough draft was way off the mark. I've gotten these before, and written these before, and still ended up with a triumphant final draft, but it is always a blow to the ego. It reminded me of my editor-friend Roz's response to me ten years ago: "This isn't the Amy-writing we're used to!" 

Back then, I could give up the freelance and commit fully into my equally satisfying day job. Now, I need to do both till I can transition to freelance full-time; I don't have the luxury of agreeing that this isn't the right project for me. I have to do better, which means working smarter, avoiding websites that suck the life out of my day, and allowing for the kind of rest that makes me work better, not worse. 

Good to know! Of course, I knew it already, but... Good to re-know! 

Back to freelance?

It is conceivable that I could go back to full-time freelancing. I'm up for that Holy Grail of freelancing, the permanent part-time gig, which would give me a reliable base-salary equal to what I made in my worst year of freelancing. (About half what I make at my day job.)

I could pile work on top of that and approach a reasonable facsimile of my current income.

So why am I so petrified at this idea?

1. It seems irresponsible. The regular paycheck, the 401K, the absolute knowledge that the work is there: How can I give that up?

2. Fear of running out of work. True, my friends have been almost literally banging down my door to hook me up with amazing contacts, and the work has been coming in. And the only reason that I fell out of freelancing before was that personal crises of various sorts made me less than dependable. But how do I know that won't happen again?

3. It's shitloads harder. When I freelance, I have a keener sense that any wasted time is money I'm not making, and I don't have a good constitution for that; I am the worst, meanest boss I've ever had. I remember the extreme, amazing relief I felt when I graduated college and started my first job, and realized that at the end of the day, I was done. Done. No looming deadlines, no worrisome unfinished business, nothing stopping me from sleeping at night: Done. You cannot put a price tag on something so precious; I'm bad at compartmentalizing, letting things go.

As each of his daughters moved out, our dad's empire expanded. He likes to have a separate workspace for every project, and he now has desks, piles of books, and stacks of folders piled around the house. I get it: I'm envious, and I also get the shudder-horrors at the idea of reaching total saturation on one article, getting up to clear my head, and wandering into another room, only to be confronted with an alarming amount that needs to be done on another one. I think that's what the inside of my head is like.

Well, but that's what they call a tangent. The point is, I'm weighing my options. Right now, my job is fine, but as I've noted, they're none too fond of pregnant ladies or mommies there. And I don't know how I could explain to my baby that what took me away from her was... the holiday promotion. I'm going to be working essentially two full-time jobs in the runup to this baby-happening; what happens after the fact is anyone's guess. Eeeeeek!

McFly? Bueller?

What do I do if an editor responded to a query, but never sent a contract or followed up on my follow-up questions? Eh, I'll probably just write it, because it's interesting to me either way, but I so hate when this happens.

I got a huge contract -- the per-word rate isn't so great, but the full amount is nice and hefty. This seems to happen every autumn -- I get a nice, fat project that allows me to pay my taxes for the year (hi, I'm disorganized) and keeps me on the "yes, I'm an active freelancer" map. 

The trouble is, when I moved, I set up my office in a room that just isn't mine anymore. Don't ask, it's annoying and complicated -- but I have to create a new office somewhere else in the house. So far, I've identified (a) the kitchen and (b) the bedroom. Either way, I need this workspace to have enough room for files and research materials, AND to close up when I'm not using it. Because again, somehow, after the move, my computer ceased to be mine (along with my workspace), and I am feeling really territorial about it all.

Anyway, I've been in the market for hideaway desks. I'm a bit tormented, because the armoire style might be annoying with the big ol' doors... but the Ikea Alve secretary-with-add-on is twice as expensive, not so pretty, and - you know what? I should just get the cheap armoire and leave it at that. 

It'll be a huge relief to have my own, private workspace, even if it is in the middle of chaos. Just to know my files will be where I need them, and my computer will have a safe spot away from the teeming masses... and I'll put a fricking lock on it if I have to! 

Oh! And my iPhone story will be in the September MacLife. Man, that thing was fun to write, and the perfect excuse to get an iPhone. and yes, iLove tYping all pOstmodern like that. Next up: getting a Get. 

Grandparents.com

My debut on Grandparents.com is posted, over there on the left! It's a funny story about what grandparents should do if they are uncomfortable with their grandkids being blogged about. Oh, how I desperately would have loved to interview Neal Pollack for that article! Instead, I talked to Stephanie Klein and Ben McNeill and their respective parents, who were great. But you know: no fuss, no recriminations, no fun. 

(Stephanie's having a tough time, by the way, so send her happy thoughts of her husband's recovery if you have any laying around.) 

The article was fun, right up my alley. And I got to work with my old parlor-games pal, Gary Drevitch, who's easy as pie to work with and a terrific editor. 

Now I'm off to revise the iPhone story. Watch for that soon! 

Posted on 28 Jul 2008 at 05:23 UTC

I'm posting this from cellspin. For a story! I'm so awfully tired and there is so much to write.

blank page

I hate that feeling when you first start researching a story and think, "God. Oh God. I'm such a fraud. I will never understand any of this, and I should not be in charge of anything!" 

The same thing happened in high school when I would buy a  new album: "I only know two of these songs! And they're both on Side 1! How am I ever going to get the whole album under my belt? How long will it take for me to know all the songs? Augh! Why did I buy this album? I should have just bought the greatest hits, I can't DO this!"

Or, you know, when I start a new relationship: "Who is this person! In what way will he disappoint me? This can't really be as fun as I think it is! I must be co-dependent!"

It doesn't happen when I start a work of fiction. Those start in an orgy of joy over some amazing paragraph I just came up with, most likely in the shower. It's three pages later, like clockwork, when I say, "Oh! God! Come on! What the hell am I writing? I don't know how to structure this. How long is a chapter supposed to be? This isn't shaped right. It's boring. I can't. I just can't, stop it, don't make me!"

Isn't it fun to be a writer? Barrels of monkeys AND laughs. I'm telling you. 

High Anxiety

And so the cycle begins again. In the wake of the wedding, I got behind on two deadlines. Know what doesn't help keep me up-to-date on those deadlines? Waking up at 2:30 am and staring at the ceiling, silently berating myself for not having done the research required for either story. It's not like I can work when I'm all bleary and hysterical. 

I'm annoyed with myself. And, of course, heading out to a lunch date with another potential client, because what makes a gal more inclined to make deadlines than more looming deadlines? Actually, I'm feeling really great about my freelance life these days -- things are really looking up, and I need to start saving up again, now that the wedding's over. 

If I can just get a decent night's sleep, I'll really get rolling! 

I said-a mony mo-mo-mo!

Oh, this is a ridiculous and cool chain of events:

I have a website for my recent wedding. Apparently, the accounts-payable department of my books' publishing company has been looking for me, and this made it easier for them. (I thought this blog came up when you searched for me, but... eh, I had a big burrito for lunch and don't have the energy to self-Google.) So I got a comment thru my wedding site that they're looking for me. I drop them a line and lo and behold, my books have been translated into German (??!!) and I have "monies" coming to me. Any bets on how much it'll be? My guess: $350. 

But I love monies, they're my favorites! So I'm happy for all of those monies to come my way.

I'd get a lot more of them if I'd just get my new iPhone and write the two (2) articles currently looming over my head.