Archives: July 2005

I’m going to assume that the majority of my readers are writers, have written something before and are not completely new to the concept of writing (not to say publishing or editing or making money writing, etc.)
If you’re feeling a bit down about yourself, wondering whether you really do have what it takes to “cut it”, if you answer “yes” to all of these questions posed in this article, “you already have the nucleus of a powerful propensity for creating niche non-fiction in the shape of self-help and how-to guides.”
1. Do you like to read, be it fiction or non-fiction?
2. Do you enjoy writing letters, reports, or whatever?
3. Do you have a better than average vocabulary?
4. Do you strive at every opportunity to enhance your personal word power?
5. Do you persist with crosswords until you’ve solved all the clues?
6. Do you have an enquiring mind? Do you have special interests?
7. Do you have expertise in any particular subject(s)?
8. Would you undertake research to confirm and expand on what you think you know?
9. Would you be prepared to share this knowledge with others?
10. Would you be willing to make time to write about it for pleasure and profit?
11. Are you comfortable about committing your private thoughts to paper?
12. Are you self-disciplined?
13. Are you relaxed about working on your own?
I know I like writing letters or reports or whatever, so I keep that in mind when I’m prepared to share knowledge with others but am unsure about whether I’m really qualified.

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What’s everyone yakking about, this last week of July?

How do you deal with nagging PR reps? Do it civilly, for one.
On freelancing and working full-time, once again.
What’s life like over at Rodale?
AvantGuild members, please add to this discussion: how to make that transition to full time freelancer while giving up benefits?
Is it okay to write a thank you email? Sigh, YES.

Today I check in with Alex Ross, the music critic of The New Yorker since 1996. His work has also appeared in The New Republic, Slate, The London Review of Books, Transition, Spin, Lingua Franca, and Feed.
How is music criticism different at the New Yorker than it was at the New York Times or Spin?
I wasn’t really “at” Spin; I just wrote a few reviews for them. So I’ll just talk about the New Yorker vs. The Times, where I was a critic from 1992 to 1996.
At the New Yorker, I have the luxury of more space and more time. The columns are at least 1400 words, sometimes longer, and a few times a year I write a feature piece of 5000-10000 words, which is really why I love the job. Also, instead of making up my mind overnight about a concert, I can sit with my impressions for a few days. This may seem peculiar < I should know right away whether I liked a concert, right? But sometimes it takes a little while to sift through how I feel, to find the right mix of impressions. If I'm writing overnight, I tend to go to extremes of the positive or the negative. I'm like, "John Adams is the greatest composer EVER!" or "Lorin Maazel SUCKS!" And that's not the tone that the New Yorker cultivates, of course.
If there’s a downside to being the critic of the New Yorker, and there really isn’t, it’s that I don’t have as much impact on the business of music as I would if I were at the Times. The Times has huge influence, even if the critics don’t make or break careers as the drama critics seem to do. But that particular kind of power doesn’t appeal much to me. I don’t like to have too much weighing on my words. There’s another kind of pleasure in being the wrap-up guy, the one who muses over everything at the end, like Andy Rooney, though hopefully with more analytic rigor.
I learned much as Boy Critic of the Times, though. I had to cover things whether I wanted to or not: cast changes at City Opera, semi-amateur bel canto productions, bassoon recitals in Queens. I discovered just how vast my ignorance was. Often, readers got to discover with me.
What have you found more difficult, screenwriting or music writing?
I dabbled very briefly in screenwriting after college. I love movies nearly as much as I love music, and I’d love to find a way to ventilate that enthusiasm. But screenwriting isn’t it. It’s the most bizarre kind of writing because it has no value in itself; the better it looks on the page, the clunkier it sounds on the screen. I’m not a creative writer: I need something solid to bounce my prose against. The movie was a college romance comedy, by the way. “Reality Bites,” made a few years later, turned out to have a similar plot, except that ours was much worse, if you can imagine that. My co-screenwriter, Josh Goldstine, is now an awesomely brilliant and ruthless Hollywood executive.

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You’ve posted your mini-bios at the MB Freelance Marketplace in hopes of snagging a great freelance – or full-time – gig. But, are you completely satisfied with your listing? Do you think you’ve described your accomplishments, specialties and skills in the best possible light? Let’s check in with our expert, Jane Ashen Turkewitz, the premiere resume writer for MediaBistro, in our weekly segment where a real Marketplace profile, just like yours, is critiqued to give its owner insight on how to make it even more effective. As a former media recruiter, Jane has reviewed thousands of resumes and has successfully placed candidates at Time Inc., Hearst, Hachette, Primedia and other major media companies. Turkewitz has written hundreds of resumes for writers, editors, publishers, sales executives, marketers, graphic designers, business managers, technology executives, public relations professionals and others.
The critique of the week belongs to Sarah Belk King, whose profile begins:

Food, wine, travel, health, home design, collecting, and lifestyle have been my editorial focus for 25 years. I’m a writer and prop stylist and I also produce photo shoots. A Master’s degree in Art History and a culinary degree from L’Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne in Paris helped shape my future. After paying my New York dues, I lived in Virginia for 10 years and am now located in the Northern Rockies.

Jane says,
Sarah, it’s not that your profile is bad, I just feel that it’s not the best it could be. The “Professional Overview” is so very important drawing the reader in. It really needs to highlight your most salient sell points. The fact that you were nominated for a James Beard award for “Best Book of the Year” certainly puts you in a class above others. Get it up top. I am also a big believer in name dropping. Your work at Bon Appetit and other mainstream publications should also be listed in your summary.
I also think you should be consistent in your voice. Re-read the content you have in the “other” area. You state: “I reside in the Northern Rockies and am familiar with the locale. Let me be your eyes, ears and palate in the West!” I like this tone and suggest you build on it in your summary.
Finally, where are your clips? You need to have a well-rounded sampling of your work attached to your profile. Good luck…
If you’d like your profile critiqued by Jane (and really, if you took the time to create one you should have the best one possible), drop a line to the Marketplace people.

Q: I’m filling out a contract, and I want to know: what is the difference between a TIN and a Social Security number?
A: I asked my friend and sometimes guest-blogger Ann Logue, who knows this stuff: “TIN is taxpayer identification number, and it is issued by the IRS as an alternative to the social security number to track corporation tax payments. There’s also an EIN, employer identification number, that employers use. I had one when I had a nanny, briefly, and it was really simple to get. You just fill out a form and sent it in.”

Today is the fourth in a series of posts by San-Diego-based writer named Thomas Shess who has decided to keep a journal on his journey to find a publisher for his novel.
WEEK FOUR
Networking. Last week Cathy Anderson, chief of the San Diego Film Commission reminded readers here that good old-fashioned networking-person to person-is important in getting any creative project in front of the right set of eyes. In my four-week search for a literary agent that point came across very clearly last week. I was not expecting valuable input when I emailed friends, colleagues and relatives suggesting that they take a look at mediabistro and the new on-line journal with my byline. Out of about 50 names on my friendship tree, I received memos back giving me a personal introduction to two agents and a book publisher in New York. Plus, many others shared insight and pats on the back. The point here is to go beyond your good friends for networking. Those good acquaintances are surprisingly valuable as well. The most encouraging note came from one friend, who e-mailed an introduction directly to a publishing source.
Lending Library. The aforementioned Cathy Anderson kindly loaned me the following books: (a) “Write the Perfect Book Proposal” by Jeff Herman and Deborah Levine Herman. Page 43 was an eye-opener on writing a first rate query package. (b). “Literary Agents/Revised and Expanded” by Michael Larsen. Both were published by John Wiley & Sons. (c). “2005 Writer’s Market” [Writer's Digest Books]. I almost turned down the loan of Writer’s Market because I had one at home (1994 version-how time flies). Anyway, on page 30 of WM there’s a quick and effective primer on writing query letters. The big message I came away was something like if you want to be clever don’t be clever.
I digress but is there anything more painful than reading a year old query letter? And just when I’m ready to give up on my novel, I recall Great-grandfather Adkisson going cross country on the family covered wagon. Gee what’s a map? Gee, part 2 what’s a road? Onward.
Redirection. When a kind agent asked to view 50 pages of my novel my initial thought was “piece of cake.” But when it came to sending it, I froze at seeing my first two chapters. This past four weeks has been invigorating because I’m learning each day how to be a more succinct writer. I’m seeing my work with fresh eyes. Last week, a major revelation slapped me silly: I stared into the forest and noticed written on the trees was the fact my main plot and a sub plot were opening at the same time. How can a reader decide which is which? As the author it is my job (not the agent’s or an editor’s) to make the story work. I took a hard look at the subplot and realized it was novella all its own. I put the guillotine to the subplot and came away with a crisper opening. When I used the forest for the trees cliché my editor pal said while you’re at it I think your protagonist is lost in the woods, too. Sigh.
Fine Tuning. Because I was asked by an agent to see my work, I did not send any queries out this week. In the meantime, I dove back into my 65,000 words to fine tune the novel one hour, one day at a time. If I spend an hour early in the morning I make the work stronger by pulling out those literary weeds. By doing so, I found a fragment of a sub plot I thought had long been discarded. And, I found my lost protagonist and rewrote him back into chapter one, paragraph one.
Good Day, Ray. I’m thinking of signing up for Publishers Marketplace thanks to a tip located on Ray Rhamey’s website called FloggingtheQuill.com
Ray says his experience with Publishers Marketplace has been worth the $20 per month. He found an agent thanks to PM. Ray says, “…you gain access to a gem-studded database and tools to dig with.” Go to Ray’s website for a complete essay on how to use Publisher’s Marketplace to find an agent. He says by using PM to hone his search technique he received positive responses from eight of the next ten agents he queried. Worth a try, eh?
Notes from my day job. One of my major freelance duties is to write articles for San Diego Magazine’s home/style/architecture section. I’m also free to commission a few articles. Recently, I liked a publicist generated idea and worked with the PR type to produce an article that mentioned her client. A couple of days after the magazine hit the newsstands I received a steamed e-mail reporting that the press agent had just been in contact with her client and “what happened to the article that we had been working on? How come I didn’t publish it?
I ignored the PR type and called the client directly. The client had been reading an other magazine entirely. Readers often mistake one city magazine for a home/garden magazine and I have no problem with that, however the press agent should have looked at the magazine first before moaning to me. If she had, the article would have smacked her retainer.
* …because it’s a jungle out there.

The guide on pitching Wired has been updated, yo.

No, it’s not Portland, Oregon. “Pitch anything as long as it’s about something relating to Maine,” associate editor Amy Louise Barnett tells Kristen Elde. Anything between “Chower” and the columns at the back of the book are open to freelancers (also, no restaurant reviews.) Send ‘short and sweet’ email pitches, not long, drawn-out ones.

This sounds familiar, doesn’t it? “You’re in line at the grocery store, waiting to check out, when it hits you. It’s a fantastic idea for an article. It seems like it came out of nowhere, but you know the idea is perfect. You quickly begin brainstorming possible leads, and as soon as you get out to the car, you start scribbling your thoughts on the back of your grocery receipt.
On the way home, the idea turns over and over in your head, and you get more and more excited about it. No sooner have you turned off the ignition than you rush upstairs to your computer (hey, don’t forget to unload the groceries from the trunk!) and start typing. In a few minutes, you have a query letter pounded out.”
But hold on just a second. Before excitement gets the better of you, this article has tips on how to perfect your query before you send it out.

What are they gabbing about today on the bulletin boards?
Can you hold down two internships at the same time? Sure, as long as you manage your time correctly and you won’t get in big trouble.
How to improve your food writing? Go back to school!
Some tips on not letting your interviewee run all over you.
Is a company trying to control you by making you sign a non-compete clause? Uh, yeah. That’s how it goes.
How to soften the transition from full-time to freelance.