16 essays
Or: Julia Zlotnick Rides Again (We Hope)!
When I was in the swim of freelancing, I was moving through a luxuriously liquid environment of assignments all around me; a leisurely and steady sidestroke of work that, at its high-water mark, netted more than my graduate stipend (more of a psychological than financial milestone, mind you). Now that I'm out of the pool, though, it looks so vast...cold...nasty -- with the wet German "nass" and the disparaging "tui!" of unimpressed editors. Plus, I've heard of people drowning.
Oh, sure, I've stuck my toe back in, with conveniently endless research as to where might be the best place to start.
Enough. With grad apps done, and marooned in that very indoors season I like to call "SO much fleece!" I'm out of excuses not to head for the diving board.
My favorite internet freelancing site, mediabistro, recently put together a handy list of publications accepting essays -- my favorite form (I'm too lazy and self-involved to interview people, quite frankly).
Naturally, I've printed out the list, cut out and taped each entry to its own file card, weeded out the inappropriate listings, and gone through all the sets of writers' guidelines and made notes on the cards. Then, figuring I'll learn by doing, I reordered the remaining sixteen by their level of dauntingness, beginning with the indies and low-status dailies, progressing through the Conde Nast women's titles, and then on to the literaries and the A-listers, culminating in the NYT's Modern Love column. I've got them stuck in an "assignments" folder (currently labeled "Tongan pro-democracy movement," but never mind).
And now I -- or, for reasons of compulsive anonymity, Julia -- is going to go through them, in order.
I fully anticipate accumulating sixteen rejections. Along the way, I will balk and complain that this is an exercise in masochism and futility. No matter. The point is to write sixteen finished pieces.
And you, Dear Readers, have a role to play as the mast to which I bind my intention; the flame to which I hold my feet (try not to burn the mast down, though, 'kay?). I'm giving myself a maximum of three weeks per essay, else I need to make a blognote of the failure, and you are invited -- encouraged -- to heap scorn upon me (Bill, I'm talkin' to you).
The clock starts now. I can't actually tell you the first target -- it's the only one in the folder that explicitly doesn't allow professional names -- but it's a mundane daily. I'll keep you posted.
When I was in the swim of freelancing, I was moving through a luxuriously liquid environment of assignments all around me; a leisurely and steady sidestroke of work that, at its high-water mark, netted more than my graduate stipend (more of a psychological than financial milestone, mind you). Now that I'm out of the pool, though, it looks so vast...cold...nasty -- with the wet German "nass" and the disparaging "tui!" of unimpressed editors. Plus, I've heard of people drowning.
Oh, sure, I've stuck my toe back in, with conveniently endless research as to where might be the best place to start.
Enough. With grad apps done, and marooned in that very indoors season I like to call "SO much fleece!" I'm out of excuses not to head for the diving board.
My favorite internet freelancing site, mediabistro, recently put together a handy list of publications accepting essays -- my favorite form (I'm too lazy and self-involved to interview people, quite frankly).
Naturally, I've printed out the list, cut out and taped each entry to its own file card, weeded out the inappropriate listings, and gone through all the sets of writers' guidelines and made notes on the cards. Then, figuring I'll learn by doing, I reordered the remaining sixteen by their level of dauntingness, beginning with the indies and low-status dailies, progressing through the Conde Nast women's titles, and then on to the literaries and the A-listers, culminating in the NYT's Modern Love column. I've got them stuck in an "assignments" folder (currently labeled "Tongan pro-democracy movement," but never mind).
And now I -- or, for reasons of compulsive anonymity, Julia -- is going to go through them, in order.
I fully anticipate accumulating sixteen rejections. Along the way, I will balk and complain that this is an exercise in masochism and futility. No matter. The point is to write sixteen finished pieces.
And you, Dear Readers, have a role to play as the mast to which I bind my intention; the flame to which I hold my feet (try not to burn the mast down, though, 'kay?). I'm giving myself a maximum of three weeks per essay, else I need to make a blognote of the failure, and you are invited -- encouraged -- to heap scorn upon me (Bill, I'm talkin' to you).
The clock starts now. I can't actually tell you the first target -- it's the only one in the folder that explicitly doesn't allow professional names -- but it's a mundane daily. I'll keep you posted.
2 Comments:
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Anonymous said...
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- 6:36 PM
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esquiver said...
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- 11:20 PM
Post a CommentTo the Editor:
What? ME? I am not any where NEAR the heaper of scorn that say Ted is.
But I have to say that your careful organizing of the Gang of Sixteen file folders reminded me of the beginning of Douglas Adams's 'So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.' Arthur Dent had just came home from hitchhiking across the Horsehead Nebula, and was sorting though a large stack of mail. Dent collected a small pile of letters that actually meant something, and placed the letters in a cardbord file labeled 'Things to Do.' But because 'Things to Do' didn't seem important enough, he added the word 'Urgent!' That made Arthur feel better, when he placed the file on a shelf, never to open it again.
I remain:
A scornful heaper.
Bill Abendroth
In re scorn-heaping:
Wait for it, Bill. Wait for the failure first.
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