ALL MY USELESS ADVICE
Someday I’d like to maybe write an article on all the things a freelancer can do to drive an editor crazy. It would be an advice piece, for those people out there getting into the field, featuring all the pearls of wisdom I’ve gathered in my time on both sides of the fence. It could even include the alternative, a note to editors about what they may not understand about the freelance life. I’d do it now, but I'm afraid that everyone I work with would read into what I have to say and think it’s them. That’s trouble I don’t need. The fragile, eggshell egos of creative folks…the Napoleonic complexes of editors.
I have been working on my afterword for Days Like This, and it’s been reminding me of how long I’ve been out of the freelance music critic game…as well as how shitty I am at being a journalist. I’ve got no discipline for research, and I sit down with the vaguest of points and just run. I am the writing equivalent of a young child who has escaped from the bath and is running around the front yard naked. I think my biggest fault is that my brain makes connections too easily, and so the actual article doesn’t really spell out how these things hook up, leaving the reader confused. And most weekly papers don’t edit you to help you learn. In fact, if you ask them what you did wrong, what caused them to change it, they’ll give you the “You didn’t really do anything wrong, we just wanted it more in our style.” (My friend Christopher McQuain and I were just talking about this--style schmyle, we say!) So, whatever bugged them, you keep doing it, because how could you not?
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Super Confessions Pop Star goes to Andy Greenwald who may have a lead on Faye Wong! Andy is the real deal, a true journo. He got Pounded and Vertigo Pop! London in Spin, and he’s currently writing a book that I will plug here when concrete info exists, coz he deserves whatever small fame we can acquire for him.
Current Soundtrack: Depeche Mode, Ultra
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