Doing The Work — mnchrm vol. lv
Hello friends. We're now a week into December, which is prime reflection time as far as I'm concerned.
This year, I achieved and failed my goal, which was to be published. I was published, so I consider it a success. However, when the goal was written, it was referring to my fiction work, which I hoped to find a home for, if not a publisher for my completed novel manuscript. Well, I didn't get any short fiction published, and barely sent any pieces out. I also decided to rework my novel, so that's not done, either; and certainly not in the hands of an agent. There's always next year.
(I hate to admit this, but it had been a goal of mine to be published extremely young as F. Scott Fitzgerald was [not at all a role model, but getting published that young was still a cool achievement] had been, but I guess 25 is as good an age as any.)
This year, I sent off roughly 50 pitches, primarily for book reviews, and had about seven accepted. (I have a spreadsheet for 2019 going, but only reason this is not exact is a few were casual pitches from a follow-up email, and a few didn’t make it to the list.) This also doesn’t count exactly every piece I had published, since some of them were pre-existing relationships I developed this year with editors. Still though, that’s around a 14% acceptance rate, which I’m pretty damn happy with.
To cap off the end of the year, I just found out a week or so ago that I’ll have a piece run in the LA Review of Books, probably in January. It’s a piece I wrote based on an interview I conducted with an author, and something I’m really proud of, so I’m really happy to have it run in a publication as good as LARB.
I took a course on writing cultural criticism in March at Story Studio in Chicago, which was really the start of my writing career. They covered pitching, and a little bit of craft.
During the course, the instructor, Adam Morgan of the Chicago Review of Books, distributed a sheet with a list of different publications that host cultural criticism, for us to pitch. He’d grouped them into tiers based on payment rate (if any) and rough prestige, and asked us to write a timeline next to the tiers based on when we’d like to be published in them. I’ve still got a long way to go, but I’ve moved ahead of the schedule I set for myself, so I’m happy about that.
This is sort of a surface-level overview of my writing year, because it would be so easy for me to just fill these newsletters with writing progress, advice, etc. Let me know if you’d like me to go more in-depth on something, though!
I had a very strange thing happen to me a few weeks ago. The day after Thanksgiving, I went out to dinner with my parents. As we got settled into the booth at the restaurant, I had that strange feeling you get when you think you recognize someone, in this case the server. I couldn’t quite remember his name at first, but as it went on, I became more and more certain I knew him.
So once I remembered his name, I asked. “Hey, you’re _, right? I know you from _ ?”
And he said no. Nope, sorry, you’ve got the wrong guy; I’ve got a brother, but it isn’t him either. I looked at him again. I hadn’t met anyone else with the same tattoo; I was certain, but now was feeling doubt. “Oh, my bad. Must be mistaken.” Maybe I was wrong. But on the receipt, his name, the one I thought.
Maybe he was embarrassed to be working in service, though I certainly don’t think there’s anything to be ashamed of there; and in fact often long to experience being a line cook. Maybe he didn’t want to have to go through the whole conversation of recollection, of catching up, of small talk. Maybe the name I knew, and he went by at the restaurant otherwise was a cover, and he was on the lamb.
For whatever reason, he didn’t want to be the guy I knew that day, and I had to of course grant him that. Have you ever denied your own name to someone?
Here’s the perfect lo-fi hip hop playlist, on YouTube. Hit shuffle.
I just bought a new camera, sort of a Christmas present to myself, which I’m super hyped on. It’s a Fujifilm X-Pro3. I think this is my fourth Fujifilm camera, so I’m no stranger to the system, but I haven’t used the X-pro line, which is styled like a rangefinder camera (like the Leica M6 I used for about a year!) Ever since I started using Fujifilm, I’ve always wanted to get into the X-Pro line. It seemed like the perfect camera for me. Rangefinder style, flagship specs, and access to an incredible library of lenses? Sign me up.
I’m not sure what made me want to get this one; maybe it was just the newness of it, having some extra cash after a good year. But I think it’s also philosophically aligned with my artistic intention, and how I want to proceed going forward.
The X-Pro3 is a great tool, a camera made out of titanium so it will last, designed to get out of your way and let you make the photos you want to do. I definitely want to spend a lot more time in 2020 making photos I find artistic or interesting, rather than primarily client work, or photos I was hired to take.
Basically, want to focus less on establishing myself, and more time on just Doing The Work, which I didn’t do enough of this year.
Anyways, I spent the weekend setting it up and making some photos which I’m already pretty happy with. Take a look at them here.
Well, I think that’s all for me this week. I’ve got one more thing I wanted to talk about, but I think I’ve got to sit on it for a bit, and let it simmer. Maybe next time.
Right now, I’m trying to focus more on input than output, but making sure the output I do is the work I want to do. Trying to get a head start on a creative and productive 2020!
Thanks again for sticking with me, and forward this to a friend or share the link on social media if you appreciated it.
As always, fight on, friend.
Your faithful commander,
— I