Maura Magazine

would be curious to hear a maura's thoughts on this as i associate you with next-gen writing/publishing some kinda way
http://www.theawl.com/2015/09/dox-dox-dox-ii-the-doxxing

Mary H.K. Choi has a suggestion: “Nobody become a writer unless your side hustle is finance or your parents are rich.”

the other day i saw a bumper sticker that said "SURFING SUCKS, DON'T TRY IT"

^ this has become more or less the standard info regarding "i want to be a writer" that I've heard from more or less every writer i know and yet they're all still writers, go figure

― Meta Forksclove-Liebeskind (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, September 9, 2015 1:56 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well think about it, what ulterior motive might they have

they have a side hustle in finance?

tbh, i assume the reason most contemporary freelance pop culture writers write is because they enjoy having the finished product to look at / enjoy getting paid to be clever / enjoy the writing process to some degree / enjoy having their say
those have been major motivators for me when i dabble but i can't imagine writing for a living; freelancing is hard enough piecing together a budget when you have multi-month contracts

i respect the fuck outta anybody who does it; you're all astronauts to me

lol i definitely balance my freelance writing with a day job and suspect i'd die if i ever went completely freelance

I live by Wallace Stevens' stray remark about why he likes jobs: "After all, I like Rhine wine, blue grapes, good cheese, endive and lots of books as well as supreme fiction."

lol i definitely balance my freelance writing with a day job and suspect i'd die if i ever went completely freelance

I've done it for a few months at a stretch. Back in 2008-2009 I did it for almost two years, but that was back when I was able to collect unemployment for 96 weeks. That helped a lot. These days, forget it. I have a full time job that has nothing to do with either music or journalism, and I write about whatever I feel like, whenever the mood strikes (which it mostly doesn't).

i really hate pitching stuff. which is why i don't pitch stuff. and why i don't write more. i pretty much only write if someone asks me to. and that doesn't happen very often. but 85% of the good stuff i've ever done has come about because someone asked me to do it. so, it works for me. i'm like the slow food movement of rock crit.

i almost never pitch either, it feels awful

I do pitch but it does feel awful every time

i freelanced A LOT when i had a 9-5 which feels pretty crazy in retrospect, but i also didn't have a kid then. now, i have a non-9-5 job that ends up leaving me with lots of little pockets of free time to get writing done, but i also have kids, so i'm kind of handicapped a +1 and a -1 that even out. but now i kind of only write what i want -- the ideas i'm too excited to not see through, or the assignments that pay too well to turn down -- and i'm happy w/ that. bouncing between writing and a different kind of work makes me enjoy both more, i think if i only wrote i would enjoy it less.

Social media presence has def helped the reception of my pitches, but it's thanks to a full time job that I can do this shit. I will never underestimate having the sort of job with uninterrupted computer time for a couple hours a day.

related: http://priceonomics.com/the-priceonomics-freelance-writing-program-s1000

sorry to clog the maura thread up with "the difficulties and wonders and challenges of being a freelance writer in the aughties"; is there a better thread?
should i maybe make one?

do freelancers all have day jobs to provide their income?

side note: why is that site called "priceonomics"? That just seems like a weirdly redundant coinage, it's like saying "Relitheology"

thx for that curmudgeon, reposting.

Air Supply? Really? Haha :)

?

new issue in a week if everything comes together. thanks anyone who has held onto their subscriptions (they're going down in price bc of the intense delays i experienced all last year (and this year so far lol) in getting issues out)

Sorry for cryptic post. Maura was just on the CBC 20 mins ago discussing that particular Antipodean atrocity.

ah lol