Chapter 2 • 1972-1973 • Instant Editor

Who hires an inexperienced freelance writer to run a city magazine? Obviously, no one in his right mind. And who takes the job when she knows nothing about magazines except how to read them when they are already published. Same answer: no one in her right mind. And there you have a combination doomed to failure.

Actually, I wasn’t hired to run The St. Louisan; I was hired to be a warm body when the editor stormed off in a fit of pique, which of course he did shortly after I walked in the door. “I’m going to lunch,” he said and never came back. Who could blame him? He knew me, and he probably thought the whole thing was a bad joke.

After a suitable amount of time, the publisher (who was not in his right mind) called down and asked, “Is he back yet?” I said, “No.” He said, “OK. Change the locks, clean out his desk, and send a press release announcing that you’re the new editor. Congratulations.” I think they call that a meteoric rise in job stature, or just plain loony.

The hardest part was cleaning out the desk, which was a pigsty. Yuck. I needed industrial-strength chemicals to get through the accumulate filth, but I didn’t have to sort piles of paper or files because there were none. Those he had managed to clear, take, or destroy, leaving me absolutely nothing—no plans for the next issue, no manuscripts, no names or phone numbers. This man was thorough in his sabotage. He even blacked out every entry on the daily calendar. He might as well have left a note saying, "Ha! Now let’s see how far you get.”

The staff—one space salesperson, one secretary, who actually set type, and a designer whose hand shook so badly he could barely hold a pen—was in shock. Apparently, no one had any idea what to do, how to do it, or when it was supposed to be done. I did have an electric typewriter, which gave me hope that I could write the whole magazine if I had to, but that was the only amenity. The office itself was a concrete box in the middle of an underground parking garage. I guess when the publisher, who owned a bunch of restaurants and the hotel above the garage, decided he wanted a magazine, he just marked off a bunch of parking spaces and said, “Let’s put it here.”

The office was either too hot or too cold, depending on the weather, noisy, and full of exhaust from all the cars. The designer, whose hand shook because he drank, also smoked. Between the fumes and the smoke floating in the air, I’m surprised everyone hadn’t already died. We attempted to solve that problem by installing an air filter over his desk, but that still left everything else. And everything else seemed insurmountable.

I called a locksmith, though it was apparent we would never see Harry (my predecessor) again, and figured out how to write a press release. Then, I called my little crew together to see what could be salvaged. “What do I need to know?” I asked, “And how are we going to keep this ship from sinking?” I guess they realized if they didn’t help me there would be no magazine, and we would all be out of work. Harry had run the place with tyrannical control, so no one had been expected to think creatively.

They told me what they did and where it fit in the grand scheme. Of course, with no plans, names, or phone numbers, there was no grand scheme. But the press release had an instant effect; the phone started ringing. “Are you looking for articles, writers, photographers?”

“Yes, yes, and yes. Come on in,” I said. “I will talk to anyone, read anything, consider any idea.” In a town where no editor had ever uttered such blasphemy, the news traveled faster than I would have though possible. I was deluged with visitors who seemed not the least put off by the location or ambiance of the office. The first few weeks were truly surreal. I didn’t know enough about running a magazine to ask intelligent questions, so I stuck with the one that had worked so far: “What do I need to know?” People were only too willing to tell me.

The first time a photographer handed me a contact sheet, he had to explain what it was and how to read it. The next time he came by, he brought me a magnifying loop so I could see the tiny squares. Another photographer went even further. He handed me a camera and said, “Go take pictures so you know what we’re talking about.” The printing salesman’s opening gambit was, “Do you want to be billed accurately or the way Harry wanted us to bill him?” Then, they had to explain what was written on the invoice.

One of the perks of being the editor was getting to pick the articles I wanted to write, and there were plenty of opportunities. If there was a hole in the schedule, I plugged it, sometimes with important topics but often with pure fluff.

Sidebar

“My dog is a an obedience school dropout, a fact of which I am not very proud but which nonetheless fills me a certain, undeniable sense of relief. It isn’t that he actually flunked; he simply didn’t finish. Though I accept full responsibility for the decision to quit, I suspect he is as relieved as I am about the final outcome. For some, obedience school becomes a way of life. For novices, such as our family, it became a weekly trauma with no relief in sight. We came COLD, having no inkling of what was in store for us.”

1972 • The St. Louisan

This was journalism 101 through graduate school with lessons, insights, information, skills, and secrets coming at me so fast it was almost impossible to absorb them. I meant to write down everything I was learning, but I didn’t have time to go to the bathroom let alone write a textbook. Now, I have to time travel to recapture some of those early lessons. But a few of them have stayed with me in stereo and Technicolor, building a foundation for my unknowable future as a writer and editor.

· Never pretend you know something when you don’t. Chances are the person you’re trying to impress knows more about it than you do, and you’ll look like an egotistical fool. Corollary: don’t be afraid to sound stupid. You’re a novice; you know it; they know it; you might as well admit it.

· Respect writers. Yesterday, you were one (before you became a big, important editor), and you hated it when editors treated you like a second-class citizen. Remember, you need writers unless you want to plan, research, write, and edit the whole magazine single-handedly. You need ideas. You need different viewpoints. You need writers as much as they need you, probably more.

· Your job is to keep what is good and fix is bad, if possible. Not every story that comes across your desk will be good. Some of them will be pretty bad, in fact. When you get one that you can’t possibly publish as it is, you have four choices: (1) rewrite it completely, (2) fix it, (3) work with the writer to fix it, or (4) send it back. If you rewrite it completely, it’s hard to justify paying the writer, but it is his story, no matter how badly written. If it just needs a little tweaking, do that because that’s an editor’s job, and it’s the most efficient solution. If it needs a lot of work, and you think the writer could fix it with a little direction, offer to provide it. If you send it back, that’s a hole in the magazine; but if it really is hopeless, you are out of options.

· Don’t be overly impressed by the little nameplate on your desk that says EDITOR. It’s a job title; not a divine right. All that genuflecting by aspiring writers and photographers is not about you; it’s about your perceived power to get them published. Write this down. You have no power. If you doubt it, spend an hour with the publisher who will be happy to remind you that he has the power.

· Never, never lie. To anyone. If you do, the person you lie to, and anyone that person tells (and she will tell everyone in town) will never believe another word you say. Trust is fragile. It takes forever to build it and mere seconds to destroy it.

· Be lavish with praise, understated with criticism. When you read something that makes you tingle or see a picture that takes your breath away, stop what you’re doing and reach for the phone. Tell the person how unbelievably great her work is. When you read something that makes you groan or see a picture that looks like a 12-year-old took it, try to explain why it won’t work for the magazine, not why it is beyond redemption.

Despite all the valuable lessons, life at The St. Louisan was indescribably stressful. The publisher, who didn’t know much more about running a magazine than I did, seem to feel he was in the same league as the Hearsts and Pulitzers. I would bring him the entire finished layout for approval, and on a whim, he would start pulling stories out or wanting the whole thing rearranged. This was in the era of manual typesetting (one agonizing line at a time) and pasting up boards. Our designer was not the world’s most dependable person, and often someone had to climb through his window to wake him up and drag him down to the office on layout days. We never actually knew if he would make it.

The person who sold adverting space was from an old St. Louis family and had all the right connections. She played tennis at the publisher’s club (Did I mention that he also owned a club?) and occasionally went horseback riding with him. She knew business; I knew writing. As the months went by, she began to exercise more and more influence, while I was slowly sinking in quicksand. Frankly, I was either too naïve to see what she was doing or so relieved at getting rid of some of the responsibility, I didn’t understand what was happening right under my nose.

While I was hanging on by my fingernails, I lost my grip and came down with pneumonia. That was 37 years ago, and I still remember what that cough felt like. Bad. Very bad. I ended up in the hospital with a raging fever that went on and on and on.

One day, the publisher called—not to ask how I was feeling, but to tell me he was considering hiring my replacement. (Why was this a surprise? It was what he had done to good ole Harry.) What did I think? he asked. I wasn’t having many coherent thoughts at the time, but I do remember saying, “Well, if you want a February issue, I suppose you should hire him.” He did.

The bad news: I was out of a job. The good news: my resume looked a lot better than it had 14 months before. I packed up my issues of the magazine and my Rolodex of writers, photographers, illustrators, and suppliers and tried to figure out what an ex-editor of a city magazine does for an encore.

If every stage of one’s career has a defining moment, I don’t have to think too hard about what mine was during that year. Back when I said, “I will talk to anyone, read anything, consider any idea,” I began a practice that would come to define my professional life. A handful of glossy magazines were impressive, but they didn’t come close to my real accomplishment at The St. Louisan: being in a position to recognize, encourage, and launch talented people, many of whom have become very successful over the years.

Sidebar

“Commuting is a word that means different things to different people. To the thousands of St. Louisans who inch their way twice daily along our various highways systems, it means the ordeal of stop-and-go traffic, stalled cars, slow downs for accidents, next to impossible conditions in inclement weather, and expenditures for gas and parking. For those not “fortunate” enough to own a car, but who live on a bus line, it has a different meaning. To them, it means waiting at bus stops in all kinds of weather, constant stopping to pick up passengers, delays as their vehicle fights city traffic and endless stoplights, increased fares, and occasional discomfort. Though their problems are different, their needs are the same. What they all want is to get where they’re going as conveniently and rapidly as possible.”

1972 • The St. Louisan

Chapter Summaries

For some reason known only to the blogging gods, this post fell out of cyberspace and never appeared on The Writing Life. Thus, it is out of order unless I can figure out how to magically put it where it belongs, which is after the outline and before Chapter 1. If you are confused, I don’t blame you, and I do apologize.

When I teach people how to write a book proposal, I always link the outline to the chapter summaries. I attempt to make it a seamless process, but I realize it requires much thought and wordsmithing to go from bullet points to well-crafted paragraphs. The key is that outlines and chapter summaries are based on intentions—this is how I envision my book and what I intend to write. But a book is fluid and alive and may be quite different at the end than it was in the planning phase. Think of it this way: Your outline is the skeleton of your content, and the summaries are your first pass at putting some meat on the bones.

1. 1968-1972 • You’ve Got Talent

It began innocuously in a night school class taught by a newspaper reporter. I remember only one thing from that class: the teacher took me by the shoulders and said, “I know talent when I see it. You’ve got talent. You’d better keep writing!” I believed her and I struggled to learn to write, get published, and fill one small portfolio. It took me four and a half years.

2. 1972-1973 • Instant Editor

All it took to go from obscurity, writing at a picnic table in my basement, to being a sought-after edit or of a “city magazine” was someone crazy enough to hire me. I was barely a writer, and suddenly I was running a magazine. I knew nothing but was willing to learn from anyone who would teach me. The good news was that I launched a lot of talented writers, artists, and photographers. The bad news was that I never learned to read a profit and loss (P&L) statement. That’s a failing in someone who runs a publication.

3. 1973-1978 • The Making of a Writer

My next job was at St. Louis’s well-established business magazine. My title was a comedown (assistant editor); the salary was a joke; the working conditions were abysmal; my boss was an old-school patriarch; but I did become a “real writer.” I was a one-person writing staff, and in the six years I was there, I built a strong reputation in the community and filled volumes with my articles. However, I was treated like a secretary and didn’t make enough money to go to the gas station and the grocery store in the same week.

4. 1978-1980 • Corporate Culture Shock

I was not born with the corporate gene, and my first job in “big business” was a constant, often painful, reminder. The whole department was comprised of women (a mistake); the general environment was a political nightmare; but the writing and view of the park from the 17^th floor made it bearable. The corporation owned 120 small companies, so the subject matter was all over the place. Eventually, there was a coup in the executive office, and our department was disbanded. We were out by 4:00, just before they locked the file cabinets and wallpapered over the door.

5. 1980 • Fear & Freelancing

I never liked job-hunting, but being a single mom with two daughters made it an urgent matter. While I was circulating my resume and making sure my interview suits were clean, I was landing lucrative freelance projects and making some great contacts in the St. Louis business world. It was a heady experience. I think I knew then that freelancing would be a great life, but I needed a real job with benefits. The prospects were not looking good.

6. 1980-1982 • Disappointed & Dejected

When I was just about losing hope, I had three job offers. I took the one that was the least chaotic and had the best salary. My boss made it seem like I was the best thing that ever happened to him … until the day I started the job. Lesson learned: interview your predecessor and check out your workspace before you accept the offer. Mine office was dismal, but it reflected the general mood of misery that pervaded the department, which was run by a paranoid, petty tyrant (I sure had a way of finding them.) Everything about the job was depressing except for the writing and photography. Once again, I was the whole staff, and I produced so many publications I could barely keep track. I was stressed out. I had to join a gym.

7. 1982-1989 • The Best of Times, the Worst of times

I was hired away by a company that seemed too good to be true, which, of course, it was. I had multiple job titles while I was there—writer, editor, account executive, and marketing manager. The crux of the matter was some doubt on the part of the top man that I could really write, despite having hired me because I was considered to be the best writer in town. So, I spent six-and-a-half years proving I could write, produced the best work of my career, and filled in the remaining gaps in my experience and education. I lost the battle, cleaned out my office, and spent the next few weeks trying to decide what to do. I was getting good at this.

8. 1987 • AMA, The Biggest Break

Hooking up with the American Management Association was the beginning of big things that created the perfect link between a full-time job and full-time freelancing. A colleague recommended me to write three “little books,” and they were little—only 50 pages each. They were like training wheels for being an author, and they led to much bigger books and many cassette-training programs. It was a great gig, while it lasted, but AMA eventually fell upon hard times.

9. 1990 • Going Solo

I had dreamed of being a full-time, independently employed writer since 1980, but it took being “terminated” to make it happen. After 20 years of loving what I did but not necessarily where I was doing it, I hung out my shingle. The freelance life in the ’90s was wonderful. There was plenty of work and plenty of money. Corporate magazines were paying $1.00 a word! I landed steady corporate clients, some of which lasted for years. My motto was, "You need it; I can do it.” And I did. It was an exhilarating time, despite no understanding of how to run a business. I still had no idea what a P&L statement was. That’s also a failing in an entrepreneur.

10. 2001 • The Bottom Drops Out

What goes up must go down, and life as I knew it ceased to be with a loud thud. The economy tanked in 2001; my clients (all very large companies) panicked and fired all their outside consultants; and I found myself with no work. That is not an exaggeration. I was already in shock when September 11^th forever changed the world. The next four years were sort of a blur. I had to start over again, and this time it was going to require ingenuity and imagination. I started writing a training program on how to write a nonfiction book. The training program never materialized, but the material evolved into a workbook I used to teach classes at the community college.

11. 2005 • Reinventing Myself, Again

I was finding work again when life gave me a gentle nudge in a new direction. I was hired to write a book for the CEO of a large hospital system that had won the Malcolm Baldrige Award for Excellence. I knew nothing about the CEO, the hospital system, or the Baldrige; but I took a six-month crash course in all three and wrote the book. Suddenly, I was a ghostwriter, albeit one who didn’t know what she was doing. My little workbook got fatter and fatter; I landed other ghostwriting and editing assignments, and I began to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. The right person came into my life at the right time—a web-marketing guru who taught me the ropes. For the first time, I was truly marketing my business, and clients were finding me on the Web. It was finally coming together.

12. 2008 • Helping Writers Write

Defining one’s mission in a single sentence is not easy. Yet, in a way, I have always known mine. For most of my 40-year career, it was, I want to write. But as I find myself in a new and different place in life, my mission has evolved. Now, in addition to writing, I want to help other writers write. As a teacher, a book coach, and an editor, I have come full circle since my first real job as an editor that allowed me to publish talented writers. My students and clients are publishing their books, and one by one, they are being added to the “friends-of-Bobbi shelf” in my bookcase. I am prouder of those books than of any that bear my own byline.

Biz Basics for Writers

I just found some notes from a presentation I did a while ago for a group of aspiring writers. I shared the stage with my accountant, Jonathan Becker, CPA. The notes, taken in my particular brand of shorthand, are filled with great advice for owners of “creative” small businesses. That definitely includes freelance writers. The suggestions are still relevant, so I’m going to pass them along without embellishment.

• Bill by the hour. Bill for every single hour you put into your business.
• If a client isn’t willing to pay you for what you do, you probably don’t want that client anyway.
• When you raise your rates, don’t grandfather your old clients. If you do, you will begin the resent them.
• There’s a rule in accounting that every three years you should dump the bottom 20 percent of your client list.
• When you figure your hourly rate make it three times your expected or hoped-for income. Add to that 40 percent for what it costs to run the business. Divide that figure by 2,080 hours (working hours in a year), and that is what your hourly rate should be.
• Set up your books. Get help from your accountant if you need it.
• Creative people need to know how to reconcile a checkbook.
• Creative people should have a feel for what’s going on inside your business.
• If you’ve been business for two or three years and are going nowhere, it may be time to look for a job.

How to set up your business entity:

• Sole proprietor (on your own and doing business)
• LLC (Limited Liability Corporation limits your personal and family exposure) Set up your LLC with an attorney, and register with the Missouri Dept. of Revenue.
• Add umbrella protection to your homeowner’s policy.

Income tax:

• Fifty percent of incomes goes to taxes.
  
• Deduct anything that pertains to your business: Internet access, website, magazine subscriptions, supplies, equipment, consultants, accountants, attorneys, and so on.
• Any items deducted reduce taxes by 50 percent.
  
• Work with your accountant on what to deduct.
  
• The IRS does very little auditing at the small business level.

Marketing:

• Get on TV or radio to talk about what you know.
• Follow up on every lead.
• Return phone calls that day.
• Respond to e-mails.
• Identify your market. Network. Join groups.

Basic? Yes? Important to your financial success? Also yes.

Another Class; Another Magic Moment

I’ve been teaching a class in how to write, publish and promote your nonfiction book for several years. I have taught it to individuals and groups, for the University of Missouri-St. Louis, the Lindbergh School District’s Adult Education Program, and the St. Louis Community College. Every class is unique, of course. The students are adults of all ages and backgrounds. They have lived lives before they walked into what could be “just another noncredit course.” It might be fun, or it might be a complete waste of time. They don’t know, but I think I do. By the end of the first two hours, I hope I have convinced them that this is going to be a different kind of class, not what they expected, and perhaps even a life-changing event.

I hope that doesn’t sounds arrogant. I say it because I have experienced the incredible dynamics and personal transformations that take place in these classes, year after year. It is difficult to describe the synergy that occurs within a group of strangers who mesh in some inexplicable way. Someone has a question; two people offer answers. One person is stumped on which direction to take; another responds with compassion and insight. And I stand at the front of this high school classroom, transfixed, yet again.

My new class met last night — the class I had wondered whether to teach at all because of the low enrollment. Ultimately, I decided to “trust the process” (see sweatshirt on my last blog) and am so grateful for that decision. The process worked (it always does). Somehow, we ended up with 10 amazing people. I do not use the word “amazing” lightly. It is a wonderful group of individuals who are writing about subjects as diverse and substantive as I could ever hope for.

Some had their sentences nailed: “My book is about _________________.” Others were not so sure, torn between two good ideas and trying to get in touch with their real passion for one of them. This is the exciting part — when everyone is turned on by the possibilities. It is my job to keep them turned on and moving forward toward their completed books. I have no illusions that anyone will write a book in six weeks, unless he or she works on it every waking hour, but I do know they can learn what it takes and get a good start on actually doing it.

I emerge from each of these classes greatly enriched by the people I’ve met and the things I've learned from them. This semester promises to be one of the best ever!

Suffering from Burnout? Here's what to do.

The word burnout was not even in my vocabulary when I first started writing. I knew that I would never tire of it, never want to do anything else, never stop. I wrote at every opportunity; and most of those were after work, after the dinner dishes were done, after the dog had been walked, and after the kids were finally in bed. Looking back, I don’t know how I did it, except that I was young and obsessed. I ran on adrenaline and addiction to writing, I suppose. All I wanted in life was to write full time.

Fast forward to 2001. I have now been living my dream for 40 years, either as an employee or as a freelancer, which I have done my whole career. In the beginning, I freelanced while I worked at an unrelated job; in the middle, I did it in addition to being an employed writer; and, for the past 20 years, I have done it full time. And, yes, I must admit that I have been worn out, exhausted, and burned out more than a few times over the years.

Here is what I have learned that may be of help to you when you see BURNOUT in neon on your computer screen:

Never say never. This advice applies to everything in life. It is the one word that is guaranteed to trip you up because we never (whoops) know what life is going to throw at us or how we will feel when we must deal with the unexpected.

Admit it. You’re tired. You’re sick of what you're doing. You hate your editor/client. You’re uninspired. You have writer’s block. You wish you were a carpenter. You want to scream. The point is, don’t deny it, and fight your way through it. Stop, and be aware of what’s going on inside of you. The body never lies, and, if it’s turning into pretzel knots, there is a reason.

Don’t panic. When you feel yourself burning out, getting tired, writing mechanically, or feeling too blocked to write at all — and you will — take a break. (Oh, but I can’t; I have a deadline!) Yes, I know, but whatever you’re doing or not doing isn’t working. So, stop and take a walk, a nap, a movie, a meal, or a vacation. Read a book, veg out in front of the TV, put on your favorite CD, wash the floor, fix your car, do yoga or tai chi or karate. Do anything but write.

Know that it will pass. You are still a writer, a good writer, in fact. You haven’t lost your skill or your love of the craft. It’s probably premature to throw up you hands in defeat and job hunt. Be a Taoist: go with the flow. You don’t beat yourself to death when you have the flu. Why do it when you are suffering from temporary malaise? Chalk it up to a passing phase, and get on with your life.

Think it through. If it’s serious, if it’s continuous, if it’s painful, and it won’t go away, you may have to do more than go to a movie or roller-blading. You may have to examine what is going on and whether it is indeed time to move on to something else. My guess is, that given time, you’ll find some way to refresh your mind and your creativity. But if that doesn't happen, you have a right to switch gears and find another outlet for your talents. You did not sign a life-long contract to be a freelance writer. If it’s time to do something else, go for it.