New post. Good.
Now the writing deal. I'm thinking a lot about the writing deal.
Two things happened today.
One, I'm writing reviews for this business site. I'm writing reviews of business books. I used to do that for the Kurson's zine, Greenmagazine - and pause for a moment in memory, please. And I am a regular autodidact when it comes to economics. We are the worst kind of cranks, the Henry Georges, the Hobsons - but hell, it isn't like economics is really a science. I could - in fact I will - post away about the ways in which economics is moved by motives that are more Glasperlenspiel than profit and loss, but that is neither here nor there. I was talking about working for this site that shall be nameless, for this editor who shall be nameless. It looked like a great gig - I got a message while I was down in Mexico, this January, that M. was going to be editing this site. It was for some consulting firm or something, and M. wanted to use a review I'd already done for Green, and she wanted me to do reviews for her, and I thought, they are coming to me now.
This is what you want to happen, when you freelance. You want the e-mail or the phonecall that says, hey, we want you to write such and such for us, and damn, you will do it. A study of bloodsplatter for a hockey magazine, get intimate with your margarine, who cares? Just do the piece. However, I must admit I am stuck up. I don't just do content. I don't just get intimate with the margarine. I have my views, and I put them in my work. That is me, that's how I write.
Well, from the beginning I discovered that M. was more theoretically interested in doing these business book reviews than in reality. This didn't surprise me. So she tossed me some topics, but she never sent me any real galleys to review. In order to do this, and make my cool hundred a review, I had to go out and find some books.
I do, I go out and find some books. But nothing seems to happen. A couple of reviews are published, and then I find this book, I do the review, and I get editorial feedback two months ago, and then nothing. Then it is up again, and I think okay, minor changes - no, I'm sent a draft with all these editorial comments that I thought we had already gone over. By this time, of course, the book is fading in my head - how many books have I reviewed, ten? - maybe ten since the first draft of this thing. And remember, this is for one hundred dollars, I'm not working in the New Yorker zone. Okay, lately my motto is, if it pays, do it - just bend over and do it. So I send in another draft. And then, today, what do I get - another editorial revision, these with what I consider to be pretty ignorant comments. Like M. spent three minutes reading this thing. What I'm describing here should be familiar to any freelancer - it is that dreaded thing, the editorial process with no direction. I mean, if M. doesn't like my writing in general, fine - let's just part. But that she expects me to swallow these comments and do something about them - well, I blew my top. Wrote a nasty, farewell e-mail about the whole thing. This pumped me up. I left this morning, did some research, came back around five, and couldn't wait to see if she had replied. She did - she was amazingly polite about the whole thing. Still, this is one of those incidents that remind me why I want to get something, anything, stable.
Ah, I've written that up in one big rush and still haven't even given you, who read me - haven't given you any picture of why I write, or who I am, or where I come from. And that was what I was planning to do. But it will have to be the next post.