The pitching process

What’s worse not knowing what you want or knowing what you want and not being able to get it?

Yesterday morning, a friend of mine observed, “It must be weird to feel that you have the most to get accomplished on your days off.”  It is.  I’m generally very excited about the challenge of spending my days off balancing writing, visiting with friends and family and trying to catch up on errands.  However, it can also make for a very discouraging Wednesday back at work. Everyone systematically asks how my days off were and what I did, and I systematically tell them, “I caught up on some errands, hung out with so-and-so and did some writing.”

That generally initiates the question, “Well, what did you write?”  “What did I write?” I think.  Often it’s not even that I physically wrote so much.  I mean, obviously, this blog is getting me writing more words, literally, each day, but most of the time, I spend my time trying to better market myself and pitch stories.  This means countless hours scouring LinkedIn, updating my resume, googling publications and dissecting their “contact us” pages, etc.  This takes up time and patience.  Patience is not a quality I posses, as MUCH as I long to.  I want to, it’s just extremely difficult to have to wait for something you want so badly.

My happy place.

The part I love the most about writing is hanging up the phone from an interview.  I’ve just furiously typed everything my subject has to say in a word document that only I can decipher.  I have this crazy level of energy from the thrill of not missing any good quote.  My hands are shaking from too much caffeine and nerves. I vaguely remember the good quotes that I typed while the interviewee was talking and start freaking out trying to find them in the hundreds of jumbled words I just typed.  I can feel good ideas forming based on those quotes and I can hardly contain my excitement to start typing them down.  I open another word document and start hacking away at the quotes and intertwining them with my own words.  That’s the part I love.  The part that I want to be able to spend my every day doing. Sitting in my writing chair, sipping tea, tapping my feet to Lucero radio and pounding my little fingertips away on my MacBook Pro (which is covered in childish stickers) – in this space, I am sufficiently satisfied.

Trying to become a freelancer with no actual connections is NOT what I love doing.  Even a little bit.  But, I’m starting to realize as I grow up that sometimes we have to do what we don’t love in order to get what we do love. I know, ma, you’ve been telling me this since age 5.  Most people learn this very basic lesson of life early on, I have just always been very stubborn and spoiled.  Due to my lack of making connections I’m constantly trying to catch up.  I feel as an almost-25-year-old I should have been a little better at it.  Maybe because I didn’t want it BAD enough before?

Anyway, now that I do, I find it’s hard to actually DO something about it when some days all I want to do is throw a temper tantrum. I have the story ideas and they are good. I know I can write good stories from them.  But everyone thinks that about their ideas.  How do you get an editor to believe you?  To give you a chance at publication?  I currently have three stories I’m working on and have been pitching them at various local and even national levels.  I’ve had a few leads but nothing promising.  No more then a “this is a great idea I’ll forward it to my friend” emails, with no response when I follow up.

Why is it that editors don’t write “sorry we’re not interested” emails?  That literally took me 3 seconds to type.  I know, I know how could anyone expect editors to do that for every pitch they get?  They’ve never done it before they aren’t going to start now.  That’s something I have to accept.  It does not help to harp on the tactics and lack of courtesy of editors either.  What I need to be focusing on is how to market myself so that someone else believes in my ideas as much as I do.  Brainstorming session beginning…now.

I wanted to write…

I grew up like most middle class American children.  I wanted to be a ballerina, then a doctor, then a vet, then a movie star until eventually, a little more “grounded,” I landed on the desire to be a journalist.  I was infused with encouragement and belief from my senior English teacher. He told me I was a decent writer, so, I figured, why not? I could make a career out of reporting. The fact that I had horrific grammar and spelling skills never occurred to me to be a problem.

(photo from MSNBC.com)

I picked a college without even touring it.  Northeastern.  Boston.  Cooperative education program.  Good journalism department.  Big city to get lost in but still be close to home.  Done. Decision made.  In the fall of 2005 I was living in a concrete box on the top floor of Stetson East.  I was 18 and was going to conquer the city of Boston and become a great journalist.  When in reality I didn’t even know what that meant, most days, I still don’t.

Six year later, I am a waitress/ manager at a restaurant in the largest city in Maine, Portland, struggling and striving to get my ideas published and find a general healthy balance to life.  Which, in a society where my generation is suffocated with too much choice and technological distraction daily, turns out to be pretty difficult and confusing.

I succumb to the challenge of too much choice daily.  I over-analyze everything.  From what color underwear to wear, to what to put in my coffee at the local, overpriced coffee shop, to what to do at the gym: treadmill or elliptical …and this is just in the first hour or so that I am awake.  You can see where it starts to become a struggle, especially when asking the bigger questions like; “Am I happy?” ” What am I doing with my life?” “Do I like living in Portland?”

Despite my ability to make concrete decisions, I am starting to become pretty aware of what brings me joy.  More than anything I like good human interaction, be it comical, frustrating, hilarious, sad, aggravating or touching.  Human interaction that evokes any kind of emotion is what reminds me we’re all actually alive. I guess that’s why I’ve been able to mentally handle being a waitress for so long.  Whether someone’s treating me like a second class citizen because I’m “only” serving them their generic California wine and well-done steak frites, or the crazy art gallery owner from down the street is telling me I got it “going-on,” bright red lipstick, ridiculous hair accessories and all, at the end of the day, I find joy in it.

Besides human interaction, I have strong passions for music, traveling, my family, photography, and, of course, writing.  What I’m good at, besides killing it with my time management and multitasking skills, is having a good time.  I’ve mastered the ways of having fun. I get that from my momma.  A 56-year-old party girl who recently started rocking a leather jacket and knee-high, fur, 3-inch heeled boots.  True story.

This blog is about my endearing and enduring quarter-life crisis.   About my often cynical, and almost always confused actions to find a way to financially, physically and mentally support the life that, ultimately, will leave me leading a life of bliss.  Hey, life, liberty and the pursuit, no?