A Little Unpaid Ranting*

As a part of my continued job search, I scan over the ads of various open positions, including the "gigs" on Craigslist in the area. And I'm just wondering: why is it that, when you're a writer, you're expected to accept unpaid positions with start-up companies for doing straight-up work? I'm pretty sure start-up banks don't wait until they get going to pay the tellers, and construction workers expect compensation for their time whether your building houses a money-maker or a flop. It seems that only "creative" careers can expect to work without compensation until the company they work for makes good.

Sure, a start-up can't pay as much as an established business. They can't afford to. But why should writers get paid nothing to provide the content for a magazine, whether online or on paper. The company which hosts the site still gets paid, and the printers get paid, whether or not there are readers in the end. But the writers, the people providing the actual words, are left to hope that enough funds are produced that they might just trickle on down to us. Doesn't that seem wrong? The point is, it shouldn't matter whether the company is starting out or going on 20 years. Work is work, and it should be compensated as such. Promises and hopes are about as good as Monopoly money, and experience and references only go so far.

Everyone can write. Well, most people can write. And I think it is because of that basic fact that writers are constantly undervalued. Because not everyone can write well, and not just any writing is going to get you the results you are looking for. Why do businesses realize their need to invest in their building, their computers, their accountants, but fail to see the value in words?

*This rant brought to you by Craigslist, and Friday afternoons.

2010: Where's My Flying Car?

Happy New Year, everyone! I still can't believe that it's 2010. I just have no context for this particular year. What does it mean to be starting this year? What's going to happen? I have no idea.

It is, yet again, based on school for me. In high school, everything was about graduating in 2005, and then, far away, was 2009. I always thought about those years. Then, maybe I would consider certain age milestones, but that was much more theoretical and didn't involve anything I could really imagine. Now I find myself with no graduations left, no simple milestone markers to reach for. There will be my first day in an office, hopefully doing something I love for the long-term, but there's no hard and fast date I can count down to for that. Which makes morale a little harder to keep up, when nothing seems certain (except those pesky death and taxes). It's not as if I know that I only have a month or six weeks until something comes up. Could be tomorrow, could be next year. God, I hope not.

Anyway, 2010. What does it hold? Mostly, I'm just hoping to get through the year and make it to 2011 with all the things I thought I would have at the end of 2009, like a job and a place of my own. I'm looking forward to seeing what will happen, and I'm going to try my best to make it all good.

As far as resolutions go, that's about it. Maybe try to post a little more regularly here, and with a little more optimism!

Confessions of a Burnout

I've been remiss in posting, I must apologize. But at least I can write about my reasons, vague and slim though they may be.

This past week or so, I've been slowly losing steam. It feels like I just need a little extra motivation to get things done. I still write my Examiner articles every day, but it's the other things that are starting to feel tedious and like more work than they actually are. This blog, for instance. I have three other drafts for posts as I type, that will most likely never see the light of day. I get an idea, I begin to write, but before I can perfect it, I move onto to something else and it falls by the wayside, never to be touched again. And I second-guess myself constantly, wondering if anyone really cares that I moved a cat from my dad's house to my mom's, or that I made a new friend. With two followers, I'm buckling under expectation! Ridiculous. More than likely it's the growing fear that I've run out of interesting things to write about because I spend most of my days writing. Does that make sense?

There's also my television info logging. I dutifully watch 'Project Runway' and input all the interesting data on Saturday morning, when the episode is posted online and I can time out all the scenes. I enjoy this quite a bit, and have gotten into the habit when watching television of picking out what would and would not be an info item, or trying to discern a particular product brand. Unfortunately, I have been lax in my coverage of the defunct show 'Roswell.' Perhaps as a reaction to working on Saturday, it takes some initiative on my part to actually pop in the DVD and watch another episode, cataloguing scene times and info objects. It isn't that I don't like it, it's just that I'm in such a strangely unmotivated funk.

It didn't help that yesterday, despite constantly creating new content, my Examiner page views dipped dramatically. Three page views for the entire day. Very special. Still plodding along, but I'm going to need a little more than three reads to feel as though my typing is worth something.

Perhaps, like caffeine, small amounts of recognition and even smaller amounts of pay can only sustain you for so long. Eventually, you're going to have to sleep, or take something stronger. I'm still on the lookout for a position that is both financially and personally satisfying, though at this point anything would be welcome. I don't want to stop writing, and I do enjoy the work I'm doing, but thinking down the road, this is not a situation I can handle long term. Maybe it's the capitalist influence, but I need to know that my skills as I writer are worth money and benefits. In my head I know they are, but in the world all I see are ads for experience or something not down my alley.

I don't want to sound self-pitying, or give the impression that I'm not a go-getting, self-starting catch of an employee. It's just that a daily grind that doesn't seem to be getting anywhere is immensely frustrating, if not paralyzing. I'm the kind of person who likes to see the results of their work, and to know where their effort is getting them. Studying leads to good grades, which leads to good college, which leads to more studying, which leads to good job. When something in that linear frame of thinking gets skewed, it's hard to keep believing that hard work equals compensation. How many months can you get by on putting yourself out there before you just want to crawl back in, wave the white flag and become an accountant?

I know this will pass. I know because I still get excited when there's a new topic to discuss and a new comment on my articles. I just need a deep breath, maybe a day off, and to not get another bill in the mail.

Joining the Ranks

For my latest part-time job, I'm working with another writer to launch a company's website. It's been an eye-opening experience, as I see someone very much like me out there in the same field with many of the same aspirations. Working together I'm gaining a concept of my own worth in the job market, and learning a few tips on how to get out there.

Before, I had worked with other students who planned to write, but we weren't in the real world yet. Even now I have a hard time accepting that I am a writer, and not just hoping to grow up to become one. I'm naturally very bad at taking compliments and find it difficult to believe in myself as a professional. And then in the real world with a highly-paid internship over two summers at an office, my job was only tenuously related to my true goals, and so I felt that my successes there, while a boost to my confidence, couldn't necessarily be applied to my writerly goals.

After a few hours working on our project, I felt that this was right. I can do this, it's not so very different from what I did in school or in previous internships. Writing copy is all about finding the right words, which just happens to be one of my favorite past-times. And this newfound confidence was only aided by the fact that I was receiving positive feedback from my colleague, who took my comments and additions as if they were coming from an equal. I began to feel validated, accepted, and all those other things I struggled for when going through high school. I felt I was being handed my writer's card. "Go on, young one," I heard in my mind, "Go on and do what you were born to do. You are a writer now. Make us proud."

Of course then the next day I felt the stress of another project breaking into my schedule, and grumbled as I thought about the meetings to come. And I will continue to grumble when I have to wake up early or stay up late working on various things, unsure of how good the ultimate product will be. But in the back of my mind I'm still smiling. Because I'm in the club now. I've joined the ranks of writers. Lowly, underpaid writers. And I couldn't be more proud.