Category: General Advice

Recent questions...and answers posed on AskMeFi regarding the topic of writing.

What do you like about your literary agent?

Does anyone hear have experience working with and/or setting up a synchronous online component for a college writing center?

Has anyone vastly improved -- or just changed -- someone else's already published writing by editing?

Pitching to TV: I'm a writer and used to pitching ideas for magazines (mostly print) and then writing the story, sending the invoice, and getting paid. I have a great opportunity to pitch ideas for a TV show (on public television). The show is already in production and has money for next season lined up. Has anyone transitioned from print to TV? How do I charge money for this?

I'm looking for books dealing with writers and alcohol, or writers writing about alcohol. I own four books on the subject: The Thirsty Muse: Alcohol and the American Writer Alcohol and the Writer A Drinking Companion: Alcohol and Writers' Lives The Muse in the Bottle: Great Writers on the Joy of Drinking

The most-discussed topics on the board today...

I wrote three short stories. Now, where do I have them published?

A friend and I run a small (very small!) gossipy blog and we posted a photo found from google or somewhere. We've just received a threatening email from the photo rights owners. Obviously we removed the photo straight away, but they are still saying we have to pay a $500 misuse fee. What are our rights if any?

I feel used after turning in a writing assignment as part of a job interview. And, is it possible the company is going to use my clip without me?

The ongoing featured topic: Say you're an editor applying for a new job and your hirer wants to see examples of your work. How do you present physical proof of your editing prowess?

The the dream company gives you a not-so dream job

Personally, I think if it weren't for the crushing discouragement, the joy of publishing your work wouldn't be so amazing. So, call me cruel, but I think it's good to have a little bit of failure in every writer's life. Just a tiny bit, though, to keep you humble. If you've been sending out those clips and working on those drafts and applying for those jobs and god knows what for god knows how long, though, and you're feeling like the man is just keeping you down, well, that's just stinkin' thinkin'. Scott Young has some tips on what you can do to overcome discouragement (I particularly agree with his advice about exercising, although I'd like to amend his advice to make yours an angry workout, so that naturally, while you're burning your calories and thinking of all the things that piss you off, hopefully as your endorphins kick in you'll think of productive ways to make them work for you (I got two or three ideas yesterday from a pissed-off workout last night, thank you very much.)

If I loved writing as much as I loved food, then I would be writing nonstop, but most especially when I was tired or happy or drunk. What? Anyway. The Paperback Writer investigates what snacks make for great brain food that don't poison you or make you fat. Gotta look hot for that author photo, don't forget.

The Renegade Writer chats with travel writer Ellen Barone, which can yield some good tips for those of you who want to be just like her:

Here's a question I hear a lot: Should you sell an idea and then go on the trip, or go on the trip and then sell the idea?

Unless it's somewhere I just really want to go without an assignment hanging over my head, my goal is always to sell the idea - as many times as I can - and then go on the trip. But, that is a financially driven decision. I simply cannot afford to take the trip and hope that it will sell. I need to know I have something lined up ahead of time.

That said, I know plenty of travelers with day jobs, spouses with day jobs, or independent means, who take the trip, write it up, then sell it to top name publications, usually large circulation newspapers, which pay very little, but feed the ego and help make a name for the writer quite nicely.

More here.

For those of you seeking cheap magazine subscriptions, I received the following warning from an anonymous reader/tipster:

Be careful ordering from BudgetMags.com, after 4 months I still haven't received my full order. Their customer service is a joke, no response to my emails, and my calls go to voicemail to never be returned.

If you've got a tale to tell that you think might help your fellow writers, share, share!

From the Upod Yahoo group I belong to, writer Bill Becher shared a great little capsule based on some recent experience of his, which he generously allowed me to share here:

After a few months on the other side of the fence editing the LA Weekly's OUT THERE adventure travel section, I've learned a bit about being an editor and thought I'd share a few observations with podsters. And yes, I try to respond to emails in the same decade they are sent.

Don't:

- Send in a "rough draft." I only want to see your best,
finished work.

- Send me a complete ms when I ask for queries (pitches) only.
I can scan a pitch quickly and tell if it's of interest and not
something we've already done or already have in the works. I don't
have time to read the entire story to figure this out.

- Send me a 1,200 word ms when I've asked for 650 and suggest I
cut it.

- Show AND tell. If you show a guy applying product and
carefully parting his hair and then rubbing wrinkle cream to his
face, you don't need to then say he's vain. We get it.

- Nitpick editorial changes when I send a story to you for a
backread. I expect you to spot any errors I might have introduced in
the edit process and stand up for important stuff, but we don't have
time to argue every comma.

- Miss deadlines.

Do:

Write clean, sharp, compelling stories.

Steven Ward interviews freelance writer Jonathan Miles over at Popmatters (where I used to write book reviews.) Miles, 35, has worked as a contributing editor at Men's Journal since 2001, where he writes features and book columns. Miles also writes a monthly cooking column for Field and Stream, as well as a column about drinking for The New York Times "Sunday Styles" section. His nonfiction has been published in the 1997, 1999 and 2000 editions of The Best American Sports Writing and he has a piece coming out in the forthcoming 2006 edition of the popular anthology. Miles' Men's Journal feature on bar fights appears in the 2005 edition of The Best American Crime Writing anthology. Miles shares insights from his exhaustive career to date:

Do you have to live in New York City to be a bigshot magazine freelancer?
No and maybe. (Disclosure: I do live in New York now. I have for the last five years.) No, because I think that, early on, it could actually be a hindrance. It's a difficult place to develop a singular voice, the kind of yawp that can be heard over the roar of the crowd. It's intensely competitive and often distressingly insular. And it's so fucking expensive! I can't imagine trying to cook up a freelance career from scratch with New York City rent hanging over your head every month. That said, I have no idea if I would be making the same living if I hadn't moved here. I got offered my first annual magazine contract (with Men's Journal, where I remain on contract) while I was driving the moving truck up north. Would that editor, who knew I was headed his way, have made the same offer had I still been planted in Mississippi? I dunno. I should ask. Living in New York puts you close to the heart of the beast, and I guess there's something to be said for that proximity. Hence my "maybe" up front. I know some folks who manage to do it tremendously well from points afar but most if not all of them spent some portion of their lives in the city.

More here.

Some of the topics people are talkin' about to close out your week!

"Say you're an editor applying for a new job and your hirer wants to see examples of your work. How do you present physical proof of your editing prowess?"

"What's the pay like for trade mags?"

I can't even summarize this topic but somebody has some questions regarding "W-2 Freelancing and Unemployment Benefits".

"Would you write for Aljazeera? Has anyone here?"

"Has anyone pitched or written for Mother Jones?"

Did you ever see the Seinfeld episode where Jerry writes down the funny idea he had while he was falling asleep, only later to realize he had no idea what he wrote or why it was funny? He should have checked out LifeDev's ideas for managing one's brainstorming and then he'd maybe have been in a better spot (although it would have been a very short episode.)