If you’re one of them, you might like to know that I have a new blog for 2013, No Humiliation Wasted, which I’m updating every Tuesday. (The RSS feed is here.)

I’m also still tweeting and I spent the last two months blogging for Bitch magazine, typing over 20,000 words about single dads, stay-at-home dads, mannies, and gender stereotyping in popular culture. Fun!

Kim Brittingham begins Read My Hips by talking about a photo of herself taken when she was fifteen.

When she saw this particular picture, she was so revolted by the way she looked, in particular the size of her hips, that in a pre-Photoshop solution to body hatred, she used a black marker to drew herself a whole new shape.

Then, fuelled by self-disgust, she put herself on a strict new diet and exercise regime, which took up a huge amount of time and started an obsession with food and weight that continued for many years as she yo-yo-ed between skinny and not-so-skinny, peaking at 310 pounds.

In 2008, looking through a box of photos, she found her “fat picture”. She wiped off the black marker with a cloth and was surprised to find… she looked fine. Perfectly proportioned.

Thin.

She just hadn’t been able to see it at the time.

Boy, do I relate. I hated every photo of me taken in my teens and early twenties… until years later.

I was thin, too. But I couldn’t see it, either.

Losing it

At the time the above photo was taken, I was obsessed with the size of my hips. (If someone had told me that tapered jeans, calf-length skirts and flat shoes were making them look out of proportion when they weren’t, it would have helped a lot. Still: how fat could I have been and still fitted into a UK 12 (US 8)?)

I didn’t diet as a teen, but I had short-lived fads: I read my mum’s Weight Watchers books (she joined to lose 10 pounds) and tried to follow Rosemary Conley for a day, until I realised her exercise regime was punishing and she didn’t even allow for margarine. (I’m still not convinced that she doesn’t hate women.) I did step aerobics every week but always had a bag of Maltesers afterwards. My weight stayed more or less the same.

Then I went to university and lost my puppy fat: my face slimmed down as if by magic. A year later, I got a chronic illness and had to drop out of uni. Without regular access to alcohol, I dropped two dress sizes. Was I happy with how I looked?

Hmm. Let’s just say that when this next photo was taken, most of my clothing was UK 10 (US 6)… and I thought my thighs were unforgivably huge:

I was delusional.

Fat. So?

When I actually started to put on weight in my late twenties, it took me a while to realise it. I’m still surprised by it, the fact that my body doesn’t look the way I expect it to when I look in the mirror.

I hate my stomach, my thighs, and my hips. But what’s new?

I’ve felt the same way about my body since puberty. Like its this lumbering beast I’m forced to drag around. The thing that keeps my brain going. A side effect of my mind.

I’m much fatter now, but I’m only marginally more disgusted with my body than I was at 13 or 15 or 24. I’ve always thought I should be ashamed of how I looked.

But what if I shouldn’t? What if none of us should, no matter how much we weigh?

That’s the bold message Kim Brittingham wants us to take from her book. Read My Hips (subtitle: How I Learned to Love My Body, Ditch Dieting, and Live Large) is a call to arms — actually, a call to accept our arms, flabby bits and all.

So phat

She wants us to wake up to our conditioning, to the messages enforced by the media and everyone around us, and to realise that we can love ourselves regardless.

She also has some great (and alarming) insights into the diet industry, not least from her time working at “Edie Jejeune”, a weight loss company that sounds similar to Jenny Craig, and which was much (much!) more concerned with the bottom line than the size of its clients bottoms (thighs, hips, bums…) and even less bothered about their psychological well being.

Brittingham invites us to understand that the diet industry is just that: an industry, a conveyor belt. If it worked, it wouldn’t be an effective business model. (Luckily for those in the business, it fails at least 90% of the time.)

Brittingham’s anger is justifiable and her passion is really well communicated (there were times when I found myself shouting “Yeah!” and “Damn right, too!” as I read) but I felt a hint of bitterness creeping in to some of her stories. Although she was certainly jerked about by a website who changed their stance on covering dieting in order to get advertising and she was treated horribly by a PR firm who discriminated against her because of her size (despite loving her writing) these anecdotes felt more about score-settling than storytelling.

I’m of the (possibly outdated) belief that the best memoirs make the author look as bad as anyone else, because we all need to own our roles in stuff that happens to us, because a little self-deprecation is endearing, and because it’s more fair to the people you’re writing about (however mean they are) as they can’t answer back.

But on the whole, I found this an interesting read, and think it’s a very important one. It presented me with a point a view that is out of the ordinary, so different from anything I’ve heard before.

Yes, we can

It really made me think about things like how often I and other women say we “can’t wear” something. What we really mean is we think we’d look too unattractive if we did. And what that really means is we’re worried other people will think we’re too unattractive. End result: we don’t do the things we want to do because of what other people might possibly think or say about us.

The idea of wearing something or doing something and not caring about what other people think is something I understand in theory, but I’m not sure I’ve ever really grasped the reality of it.

And I don’t think this is an individual neurosis. I think it’s something we’re encouraged to feel. Even thin women are constantly monitored by society and in the media, to make sure they don’t transgress aesthetically, by sweating or not plucking their eyebrows or gaining a few pounds.

But the more people who question this status quo, the better.

In case you’re twitching with panic at the thought of this fat woman encouraging us all to sit around stuffing our faces, laughing as we watch the weigh pile on, that’s really not the point.

The point is that as women, we talk about food and weight so much (seriously, everywhere, all the time). This book is an escape from the same inane chatter. It’s not about losing weight. It’s not about not losing weight. It’s about loving yourself either way. And it’s about choosing for yourself, not letting society dictate how much you weigh or what you’re “allowed” to do because of it.

I want some more

I’m not a fan of the idea, often seen in TV shows and films, that someone can let go of long-held hang-ups or deep buried emotions just by changing something superficial, so I was a bit wary of the bits of the book where it seemed like Brittingham was suggesting this was possible. (One where she channels Marilyn Monroe’s sexuality and confidence and people stop to notice her for the first time, and one where she takes a sexy photo of herself, to appreciate her curves.)

But she goes on to talk about self-acceptance as a long process, and it becomes clear that these anecdotes are just two of the many suggestions Brittingham has for overcoming self-hatred. As hard as it was for me to read some parts of this book, to accept how much I relate to them, I feel more confident that I can get there one day, with people like Brittingham leading the way.

There are a lot of books about self-acceptance, whatever your weight. But a lot of those books seem end with the author losing weight, or encouraging the reader to, as if self-acceptance was a schtick, not a goal in itself.

What Brittingham preaches is truly radical, in both senses of the word.

More, please.

–

(Shorter) book review: Keris Stainton writes fast, funny, feminist YA romantic comedy fiction, and her latest book Jessie ♥ NYC is so makes-you-want-to-go-to-New-York yearny, I would have hated it if I didn’t enjoy it so much. Yes, she’s my friend and putting me in the acknowledgements didn’t hurt her chances of me talking it up, but I’d recommend it anyway. (I paid for my own copy and everything.)

Thanks to Three Rivers Press for my review copy of Read My Hips and to my overdraft for Jessie ♥ NYC.

ETA: Sorry! Forgot to mention: comments are still broken. More about that in my next post, but I have a solution, just need to implement it. It’s gonna take some time/energy…

Earlier this week, while I was putting my feet up and trying to shake off a multi-day migraine, my Macbook Pro mysteriously refused to charge. I unplugged it and plugged it back in a couple of times, but …nothing. It ran out of juice and went to sleep.

I have no idea if the problem is my charger or the (skin-clawingly-irritating) magnetic port it plugs into.

So I thought – wait for it, this is a good one – that I’d go to the Apple store later in the week and – hahahahaha – they would help me.

Genius!

The idea of making a Genius Bar appointment did occur to me. But last time I made a Genius Bar appointment, when I went to buy my laptop, I was treated really dismissively and had to wait around, standing up, for 15 minutes while other people who came in after me were served first. (I had to practically beg them to let me spend almost a thousand pounds in the end and found it a totally demoralising experience I vowed never to repeat.)

Plus, I read too many American blogs where people in New York sometimes do things like go to the Apple Store late at night when it’s empty and a nice Genius fixes their compy there and then.

I now realise how ridiculous this is, but I actually thought that if I went to the store where I bought my computer (nowhere near NYC) in the evening then it wouldn’t be too crowded and someone would help me.

No genius

As soon as I entered the shop last night, laptop bag weighing heavy on my arm, I knew I was going to be thwarted. There was a massive crowd of people sitting on stools at the G-bar and lined up in two queues on either side of it, most of them sighing, rolling their eyes, or studying their watches. I knew I had no chance of being served that day. I walked out of the shop and took a few deep breaths.

There were a lot of men in blue Apple t-shirts wandering the store with iPads, occasionally stopping to talk to shoppers then moving on. I walked back in, went up to one of them and explained that my Macbook wouldn’t charge and I wasn’t sure if if was the charger or the port that was at fault.

He listened and nodded, then told me he would help me in a few minutes and I should take a seat by the iMacs. A couple of minutes later, he came over and said he was sorry to mess me about but his colleague, S. would help me instead, if I could just walk over to the front of the store where he’d be waiting for me. (Of course I should walk to him. I am being paid to be there, after all. Oh, wait.)

So I went over to S, and he said “What’s the problem? Mac?” So I said yes. And he kind of grunted and pointed to his iPad and asked when I could make an appointment to see a Genuis about it. (Is this what you would assume someone meant by “S will help you?” ‘Cos I have to say, I found it a let down.)

I said, “When have you got free?”

And he said, “Nothing ’til Sunday afternoon.”

Say what?

Let’s just pause in the narrative for a second here. It would take what, five minutes, max, for one of these blue-t-shirted men to try plugging in my computer, to see if it is the charger at fault. They could then sell me a replacement, and be rid of me, or arrange to make an appointment to get the port mended. But no.

They can’t even deign to talk to me about my problem for three days. In the meantime, staff are literally doing nothing but wandering around tapping on iPads, looking for new customers to talk to. That’s what the Apple store is really all about: delivering their scripted spiel to potential customers while ignoring anyone who’s already ponied up for a product.

I’m no expert, but doesn’t it make sense to at least try to make existing customers happy so you can retain their business? Isn’t that easier than finding new customers all the time?

Yes, Apple’s hardware is so much more impressive than every other company, but I still wanted to run screaming to PC World.

It doesn’t take a genius…

And no. Sunday afternoon doesn’t work for me. My mum is meeting her friend so I can’t get a lift. (And I don’t want to miss the Wimbledon men’s singles final for the first time in 20 years, OK?)

I have a medical appointment on Tuesday, which means I can’t go anywhere Monday or Wednesday, because going out two days in a row always knocks me out. And no, that’s not Apple’s fault. But the fact that they couldn’t make time for someone to speak to me – not to fix my laptop,  just to listen to a word I’m saying about it – for three days is incredible.

I know. There are a lot of tragedies in the world and this doesn’t place anywhere in the top billion. But spending so much money on a computer is a big deal in this economy, and customers shouldn’t be treated like something Steve Jobs scraped off his shoe. If so many people need help that it takes three days to get a Genius Bar appointment, they you need more tech support staff. It doesn’t take a… er, genius, to see that.

Another weak

I don’t really want to play the “disabling illness card” here, beacuse I think this would be awkward and inconvenient for anyone. And there are people who aren’t lucky enough to be able to borrow a computer when they need to check email or impugn Andy Murray’s skillset after another dispiriting defeat.

But it is that little bit harder when you can’t get out of the house easily, and your computer is an essential part of your day, the one thing that keeps you in touch with the outside world and with your Dad on the other side of the world. The place you get your news and entertainment, and the thing you need to do business on those days you’re up to doing business.

I felt too weak and wobbly to try to argue my case, and I already knew that saying all this to S. would be useless. That his implacable disinterested hipster facade would just nod and say “Hmm,” and about Monday instead of Sunday? So I made an appointment for the only day that seemed possible: next Thursday. A week away.

As I left the store, S. called out to me, “Have a great week!”

It took every bit of restraint I have not to shout back, “How can I, without my computer?”

Comments are closed because… they’re not working right now. Long story. (Short story: me + tech = sadness.)

Oh, you had to have seen that coming.

Age six. I’m in the car with my mum, having been to the shops or something, when she gets the idea to go to her friend’s house. I completely freak out at the thought of having to talk to her friend and play with her friend’s kids on a day I thought I could just relax. I become hysterical, crying and begging her to take me home until she gives in. I feel relieved. Reprieved.

Age nine. We’re on holiday at a campground/caravan park in France. Our caravan shares a field with one other, and the family staying there has a daughter around my age. I expect we’ll start chatting at some point during the week (probably after I pluck up the courage to smile at her and she comes up and starts a conversation).

But my Dad bounds over and starts talking to her parents before we’ve even unpacked. I’m in the tiny caravan bathroom, composing myself after throwing up 14 times on the journey from Plymouth, when my Dad calls through the plastic window, “Diane, there’s someone out here who wants to meet you.”

“Oh no,” I think. I look in the mirror and take deep breaths. “It’ll be over soon,” I tell myself, faking a smile as I walk outside.

Age 29. My stepsister tells me she’s going to have a big reception when she gets back from her wedding abroad. I dread it for a year, can hardly sleep for a week beforehand and keep crying from dread. On the day, I don’t introduce myself to anyone, hide out in the toilets for a long time, gulp down vodka, and sneak out as soon as the cake is cut.

Later, my stepsister decides to cut off contact with most of her family, including me. Then her mum and my dad divorce and I know for sure that she and l will never speak again. My hurt feelings are undercut by indignation. I mean, this couldn’t all have happened BEFORE the big party?

Age 31. My friend invites me to her book launch. I’m thrilled for her and excited to be invited. I love the invitation. I adore the book. But as the launch gets closer, I start to metaphorically shit myself at the thought of having to meet a ton of people I only know from the internet.

I spend months trying to calm myself down and tell myself it will be OK. I plan to hide behind my mum, leave after an hour, and drink heavily. I literally worry myself sick: two days before the launch, I get a virus that makes me sneezy and wheezy and more lethargic than usual. I’m not faking, I’m really too ill to go. But I’m ashamed to realise it’s a relief.

It’s not about “shy”

Let’s get this out of the way early on. It’s not about me being an introvert. A lot of introverts feel nervous before parties; they don’t all hyperventilate. It’s not that I have Asperger’s, either: I don’t find it hard to read other people — more like I read them too well.

And it’s not that I’m shy. Social anxiety is something I suffer from, not part of my personality. I’ve had brief moments (seconds, a minute or two) where I’ve escaped it, and it felt like returning to the real me: someone who enjoys connecting with others.

It’s not a conspiracy

There are lots of people who think that making social anxiety a disorder is “medicalising shyness”: a triumph for big pharma; a codename for not feeling confident. That’s the equivalent of saying a diagnosis of depression “medicalises sadness”: ignorant, uninformed, inaccurate.

What the H-E-double hockeysticks is it, then?

It feels like constant dread. It feels hard to breathe. It feels like shame that I can’t do things. It feels like I’m missing out. It feels like I’m making a big deal about nothing and I just need to get a grip. It feels like I want to cry. It’s a constant low-level anxiety about everything and nothing that becomes stratospheric when I have to do something I feel I can’t cope with, like make a phone call, or have some kind of appointment, or meet new people. When I have to do those things, I literally picture them as hurdles laid out in front of me, and I can’t relax until I’ve jumped over them all then collapsed in a heap.

The main cause of the anxiety is how anxious I’ll feel in the future when I do those things, which sounds ridiculous, feels ridiculous, but can’t be calmed down by telling myself it will all be OK. Past experience has taught me it won’t be.

Maybe that's the answer.

What’s it all about?

My theory: stupid old low self-esteem. I fear rejection and feel bad about myself ‘cos of stuff that happened a long time ago that made me feel rejected and bad about myself. I’m sure I was born with depressive-prone brain chemistry that makes it harder to shrug things off.

I even think part of me wants to have M.E/CFS because it lets me hide out from the rest of the world. (I know: messed up.) But it also perpetuates the problem. When you go days without speaking to anyone apart from your mum and your cat and can count a year’s social engagements on one hand, you don’t exactly become accustomed to mixing with people.

Plus, there’s my thyroid. I can’t tolerate any of the available orthodox treatments (yes, even Armour, in case the woman who wrote in to tell me I “HAD!” to take it is still reading) so I’m taking a holistic (read: slow) approach to re-balancing my hormones. In the meantime, hypothyroidism is hell on the nerves.

How “feeling the fear and doing it anyway” has worked for me:

October 2008: After 10 months of trying to earn a decent living from freelance journalism despite complete exhaustion and raging social anxiety that means I can’t relax enough to eat until I’ve finished a day’s interviews (especially rough when they don’t start ‘til early evening), I give in; fall apart. I curl up on the carpet, crying, shaking, and saying I can’t go on.

My mum tells me to give myself a break, cancel the feature I have lined up, and rest. I do, but it’s too late. Panic has weakened my immune system and a couple of days later, I get Bell’s palsy. The right side of my face collapses and I can’t close my eye or move that half of my mouth. I’m hit with neurological pain which stops me sleeping and bothers me to this day.

Since at least the mid-’00s, I’ve forced myself to do stuff I was scared of, Eleanor Roosevelt-style.
But instead of feeling a sense of triumph from conquering a fear and going on to do more great stuff, I always ended up traumatised from the effort, vowing to never do that thing again — and really pissed off with myself.

I might be the only person with a smaller comfort zone than when she started.

So what do you do?

I’m doing some stuff, therapy-wise, that I’m not ready to talk about yet. I can say it’s on the woo-woo side and may be more helpful than anything more conventional I’ve tried. I have hope that one day I’ll feel free.

In the meantime, I’m learning how to be kind to myself. Reading Havi Brooks’ post Give me back my comfort zone! made me realise it’s OK to not bully myself into stuff anymore. In fact, it’s really better not to.

I’m trying to get back into meditation, because when I manage a few seconds of peace, it’s wonderful. (I just hate having to be still with my thoughts the rest of the time. My thoughts are MEAN).

And I’m trying to socialise a little in ways that don’t make me freak out (one friend every now and then, no big groups, no short notice).

I’m also being more honest about all of this. It never seemed like it would be acceptable for me to tell anyone how anxious I felt. (I’ve made a lot of excuses for a lot of years.) But bloggers like Jenny Lawson and Alice Bradley being so open about their social anxiety has helped me feel a little less ashamed. It’s also made me see that it’s possible to be honest about it and for the world to keep turning.

Fingers crossed.

–

I’d love comments, so long as they’re not of the “Have you ever tried…?”, “You really need to…” , or “You’re so weird!” variety. but they’re not working for me right now and I can’t figure out why. Is there anything more infuriating than good tech gone bad? 

On a semi-regular basis, people describe me as “politically correct”.

And I haaaaaate it.

I know that (mostly) they mean it in a nice way: they’re acknowledging that I’m against social injustices like racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia.

But “PC” has too many negative connotations for me.

There’s the Daily Mail-style “Political correctness gone mad!” connotation, of course, associated with stuff like the renaming of Spotted Dick and job ads “discriminating against” unreliable people.

But the connotation that PC was always meant to have is suspect, too: political correctness is founded on the idea that we have to watch every utterance in case it might offend someone, somewhere, whether they’re a member of a discriminated-against group or not.

“Being PC” suggests that instead of engaging with changing attitudes around gender, race, and disability, it’s enough for people to keep thinking offensive thoughts and retaining outdated notions, as long as they don’t say them out loud.

Not saying something because “it isn’t PC” just means you’re toeing the line of accepted behaviour. It doesn’t mean you actually care.

And political correctness actually makes it harder to discuss genuine issues of inequality, because any attempt to bust the kyriarchy can be shut down with “Oh, stop being so politically correct.”

Nor am I the language police

It’s not about political correctness for me. It’s about inequality. Yes, how people feel about women, gay people, transgender people, people with disabilities, and people of races other than their own is often a problem: words come from prejudice, not the other way round.

But they definitely perpetuate the problem.

I consider myself a person with disabilities (PWD). Is it coincidental that I’ve experienced a lot of ignorance, and that the ways language around ill-health and disability are used in our society is often ignorant? I don’t think so.

Still, my aim isn’t to slap down a mandate saying “You must not use these words!” The line between free speech and hate speech is a tricky one to walk and I’d rather err on the side of civil rights.

What I’d like to do instead is to offer some suggestions I hope will encourage you to wonder whether you’re using language in a way that contributes to ignorance and oppression, and to think about reducing your use of these words in future.

I realise it may sound like it, but I’m not suggesting I’m exempt. (See the “we” in this post’s title?) I use words I should probably question, too. I don’t use all of the following, but I’ve said most of them at some point. They’re all pretty prevalent, and thus ripe for further examination…

“Lame”

One of the worst things you can say about something is that it’s “lame”. Lame is like, the worst.

Why is that, exactly?

Because lame is weak. Lame is stupid. Lame is not strong, or normal, or cool.

Lame is disabled.

I know — no-one uses it that way anymore. But that’s how it started out. Like a lot of language, it moved from being used literally to being used metaphorically.

And you’ll notice that its metaphorical use isn’t complimentary in any way, illustrating exactly how people thought about PWD at the time its meaning shifted.

The reason it still resonates today? Physical weakness is still associated with being somehow less worthy. If we didn’t have that understanding somewhere in the backs of our minds, it wouldn’t work as an insult at all. (Bear in mind that unlike words such as “idiot”, which was once a medical diagnosis, the first definition of lame in more than one dictionary still refers to disability.)

That’s why the needs of PWD are so often ignored. Why we’re bullied and marginalised by individuals (Clint Eastwood!), corporations, and the government. We’re seen as “other”, as “broken”, as just not good enough.

I get that people who use lame these days are only using it to mean “pathetic”, and I’m not demanding they stop, although I’d like its use to fall out of favour. But I do think it’s useful to understand what you’re saying, where those words come from, and the impact they might have on other people.

Especially when it comes to words that are arguably even more offensive. Like, for example…

“Retard(ed)”

This is an immensely popular insult, especially in America. I see it almost daily on the internet and occasionally in young adult fiction. It rankles more than “lame” because while the latter is only rarely used these days as a term for someone with a physical disability, there are at least three concurrent uses of retard(ed):

1. A person with a learning disability. (“My son is retarded.”)

2. A person with a learning disability, who is therefore stupid. (“Wow, I’m acting like a retard today!”)

3. Stupid. (“Why did they do that? So retarded.”)

You can see the path of language change clearly, right there. Except we’re right in the midst of it, so unlike “moron”, which also went from a diagnostic term to an insult but which most people today wouldn’t consider a snub to people with learning disabilities, we all have knowledge of “retard” as meaning all of these things.

While the first use is certainly falling out of favour, I’ve read Martha Beck call her son (who has Down’s syndrome) “retarded”, seen someone on Facebook refer to having children as “something even retarded monkeys can do” and observed a blogger calling shop’s new layout “retarded” all in the same week.

I’m not saying that people who use “retard” or “retarded” simply to mean “stupid” intend to insult people with learning disabilities. But by using the word, they’re calling upon its history and being offensive all the same.

People who would never use racist or sexist epithets don’t think twice about the R-word, perhaps because they don’t mean it “like that”. They just mean it as a slur on someone’s intelligence.

But its other meanings hover too closely around us for it to just mean that. It packs a punch precisely because its original meaning was a diagnosis of learning disability — clearly you can’t get more insulting than that.

I worry that the reason this word is so pernicious is because its users think it’s a victimless crime: that people with learning disabilities won’t understand, or their friends and families won’t care. If so, they’re wrong on both counts.

“Blind”

I know. You help people with visual impairments cross the road and  sing along to “Isn’t She Lovely?” every time it’s on the radio. I’m not saying your use of “blind” to mean ignorant or incompetent means you hate blind people.

You probably don’t even think about people with major vision impairment when you call someone “blind drunk” or talk about how she ignored those really obvious signs a relationship was going nowhere, “What was she, blind?”

But the fact you didn’t even think about what you were saying is kind of the problem. When you really think about it, using blind as this kind of metaphor is profoundly offensive.

Would you use a word that described another minority group that way? He was gay to the consequences. He was black to the consequences. He was so woman to the consequences. Of course not. Because it would be insulting to any of those groups of people to conflate their existence with ignorance.

Yet it happens to PWD all the time. (See also: “What are you, deaf?”)

“Crazy” (etc)

If something unfavourable isn’t criticised for being lame or retarded, you can guarantee it’s being called crazy. Or one of those flattering synonyms for crazy: insane, nutty, loony, loopy, cracked. And these and other colloquial terms aren’t only used in casual speech, but accepted by and in the mass media.

When Leona Lewis was unfortunately hit in the face by a man who was later sectioned under the Mental Health Act, her assailant was described as “crazed”, “mad”, “a buck-toothed nut” and “a burly maniac” by the papers. (Yeah, I kept ‘em.) Is it surprising that people who have experienced severe mental illness often feel a stigma about discussing it, given that these terms are so mainstream?

Mental health has become associated with worth, logic, and common sense, mental illness with stupidity, incompetence, and ignorance. When Jon Stewart wanted to launch a public protest against the Tea Party politicians in late 2010, he knew calling it the Rally to Restore Sanity would engage people. It did: because one thing Democrats can agree on is that Sarah Palin is insane.

But she actually isn’t, as far as anyone knows. She has appalling, intolerant views which people should challenge. But that doesn’t make her insane. Anyone who truly matches the medical definition of insane deserves our support and compassion, not our criticism.

I know: you (or your mother or your sister) have Bipolar Disorder or depression or had a  breakdown, and you don’t get offended by the term. You don’t think “crazy” applies to you. Doesn’t matter. It’s aimed at you, whether it offends you personally or not.

I’m not saying I’m immune. This is one of my most-used words. I like to think designating something “crazy good” makes me all reclaim-y because I have depression and anxiety, but it’s possible I’m just being lazy. “Crazy” is so often used as a metaphor and a modifier because its meaning is so intense. But that’s only because mental illness is so stigmatised and misunderstood.

Speaking of which…

“Schizophrenic”

One of the worst things about the use of this word to mean something SCARY is that I have so often seen it in writing by self-declared feminists and even feminist scholars. In other words, people who want to eradicate oppression, who are unthinkingly perpetuating ignorance against a minority group. (Stick that in your woolly hat, Alanis Morrissette.)

For example, I was reading Rosalind Gill’s Gender and the Media to help me build up a good head of feminist steam when I came across this sentence about teen magazines’ approach to personal grooming:

The emphasis on fun… can produce some almost Schizophrenic splits in which girls have no language to talk about their own experiences.

Are we supposed to be horrified by that? Are we supposed to think “OMG! Not duhn duhn duhn… Mental illness!”?

This was just a couple of weeks after reading a Huffington Post piece about feminism which contained the phrase:

“Is feminism schizophrenic or what?”

These writers seem to forget that Schizophrenia is a lived experience for some people, many of whom are women. Why do they deserve to be treated as the butt of a joke, or a metaphor meant to scare us?

And let’s not forget the most important point of all when people throw around the word “Schizophrenic”: most of the time (as in the examples above)…

They’re using it wrong.

Schizophrenia is nothing to do with multiple personalities (that’s Dissociative Identity Disorder). When I (politely) tried to say this in response to the HuffPo piece, my comment didn’t make it through moderation.

It’s clear these writers have never met someone with Schizophrenia or DID, preferring to think of these illnesses as reliably horrifying bogeymen rather than something thousands of people live with every day.

It’s true, they are serious disorders. But people who experience them are just that: people. Not punchlines or punching bags.

That feminists are so slow to grasp that fact is more disappointing than words can express.

And all the others…

People/things are called spastic, anything we don’t like is lunacy. People who don’t like to hug are “autistic”, or who like to tidy up are “OCD” as if that’s an insult, and as if that’s all there is to these disorders (nope, saying “no offence!” afterwards doesn’t make it OK).

We talk about crippling shyness and paralysing fear, and say people are “wheelchair bound” (many people use wheelchairs just some of the time and/or see it as a device that gives them more independence).

And on and on and on.

Maybe you think none of these things matter because you don’t mean any harm to anyone who has a disability when you say them. But they’re all rooted in ignorance of what living with a disability involves, and a refusal to see PWD as real people. And that’s not necessarily a conscious choice, but it is thoughtless, and what makes it worse it that it’s sanctioned by the culture we live in.

Just in case you think this is all theoretical, a few stateroos: Did you know that in late 2009, the Royal National Institute for the Deaf reported that 1 in 7 of its members believed their deafness had made them the victim of an assault? Or that PWD are four times as likely to be assaulted as able-bodied people? Or that women with disabilities are more than twice as likely to be raped?

The casual ignorance of disability exemplified in the use of ableist language is symptomatic of a general lack of respect towards PWD.

If the only metaphor we have for things that are damaged, broken, ignorant and incompetent is disability, are people with disabilities really ever going to be seen as having equal value?

I know some PWD don’t care that much about language use, which is totally their prerogative. But it doesn’t give anyone an opt-out.

There are millions of people who would like it if you would think a little more carefully about what you say and why.

I’m one of them.

(And I’m going to try my best, too.)

Images via: Not “shaw” | Loco pollo

after words:: There’s a lot of great stuff on feminist blogs on this topic, but two I particularly recommend are Bitch’s The Transcontinental Disability Choir: What is Ableist Language and Why Should You Care? (though the comments section gets pretty awful) and FWD’s Ableist Word Profile (a whole series of thought-provoking posts).

It’s only fitting that my first post back after an unintentionally long blogging break is about perfectionism, because one of the reasons I’ve been away so long is that I’ve been struggling not just with what to write, but with whether I have anything interesting to say at all.

And the longer I left it, the more I kept thinking I needed to find some really special topic to write about. And I couldn’t. So this one will have to do.

Take that, perfectionism.

Yeah, I’m still working on this one… But I have made some progress already, even if it wasn’t by choice so much as necessity.

Call me Monica

I’ve been a perfectionist for as long as I can remember. You know that episode of Friends where Monica leaves her shoes flung about in the living room to show how spontaneous and relaxed she is, and then lies there unable to sleep because the thought of her shoes not neatly lined up is killing her? That’s how I always used to be.

I’ve rewritten cards, letters and school assignments on several occasions (and each one more than once) because they weren’t neat enough or needed one word changing in order to accurately convey the right sentiment.

I’ve spent hours shopping for perfect outfits, primping in front of mirrors (three hours before I went out was standard), feeling virtuous when my room was dust-free, my pyjamas ironed, my towels folded so that the ends were touching in perfect symmetry. If I’d thought of having a Monica-style ribbon drawer, I would have. (I did once catalogue my films on index cards, as Harry mocks Sally for doing.)

Colour me messy

But when you get a highly fatiguing illness, you get a few other things as well: you’re forced to live with the inability to do things like shower every day, tidy up whenever you want, and be organised to an anal retentive degree. You have to lower your standards. Then lower ‘em again. And again. Finally your standards will be floating about half an inch above the floor, feet dangling on dust bunnies.

Now you’re talking.

Messy rooms, microwaved meals, clothes you probably shouldn’t wear one more time but you’re gonna. You make adjustments, or you make yourself more ill.

There are some things I’ve accepted, adjusted to, and have the ability to block out entirely — like the piles of old books, bags, and unsorted papers in my bedroom, which remind me of that bit in Will & Grace where she says her room is so messy, “At this point it would be easier to just move.”.

OK, perfect-ish.

Standard life

But there are other things I have really strict rules about. Standards I CAN NOT let go of.

Before Christmas every year, I like everything to be tidy. I like the table in the front porch to be cleared of junk mail, keys, and books, and preferably anointed with a poinsettia, even though I rarely go down there and we rarely have visitors. I like my bedroom to have no papers strewn around and no piled-up toiletries on my chest of drawers, and preferably to be strung with festive paper chains.

But this year, when I tried to do those things, I couldn’t. I got breathless, and my muscles spasmed, and I had to lie down for hours. I realised it wasn’t worth it.

But the effort of not making things the way I wanted them, the way I thought they had to be, almost killed me. I was like Monica when she lies in bed obsessing over her shoes: knowing it doesn’t matter, but being irrationally unable to stop wanting everything to be just so. I didn’t want to have to have a Christmas where my room wasn’t tidy. It almost felt like it wasn’t worth bothering at all. When I survived it, even enjoyed parts of it, I couldn’t quite believe it.

Control freakout

I realise this is ridiculous. That no-one’s enjoyment of an event is predicated on how tidy their house is. But I really feel that if things are superficially “perfect”, it will make me happy. I know this is an illusion I’ll have to drop if I ever want to have a better life. But the more ill I feel, the more I miss out on, the more I desperately try to control my immediate environment, to get it just right, as if that will actually solve my problems.

Even worse? Perfectionism is how I got so ill in the first place: I kept on pushing myself far beyond what I could cope with. I couldn’t even acknowledge anything was really wrong with me for a long time. I didn’t let myself rest, to be imperfect, in case people judged me; in case I fell apart.

That’s what it all comes down to, I guess. If I let all the superficial stuff I obsess over fall away, what’s left? Depression, disappointment, insecurity, fear. All those far from perfect feelings.

Ironically, this is really bad.

And the beat goes on

Even though I know it’s how I got ill in the first place, I can’t seem to stop pushing myself, beating myself up.

I’m doing a course in computer design software a couple of hours a week, and it’s not coming easily: partly because I have concentration difficulties, partly because this is not my natural skill set, and partly because I don’t have the energy to practice as much as I’d like or become as good as I want.

I keep getting frustrated with myself, wishing I was better, stressing over an upcoming test, even getting worked up about how hard I find it just to get to class in the first place.

I forget altogether that I’m only doing this for fun. Not for a grade, not for recognition. Just to get out of the house, do something different, learn a little something. It’s not supposed to make me unhappy.

But my innate perfectionism makes it really hard for me to have the appropriate amount of perspective.

A change will do me good

I know I have to let go of my rigid ideas of how I think life should be in order to actually appreciate how life is; to be open to surprises; to let happiness in. I’m trying. And in small ways, I’m succeeding.

It was my birthday last week, and I wanted to have nicely painted nails. I felt like it was compulsory, in fact. But I couldn’t do it. I was too low in energy and had more important things to do in the days beforehand, so I ended up being bare-nailed on my birthday.

I felt like I could have looked better, like I should have been able to be “perfect” and it made me a little sad (I know, I’m pathological) but I survived, and I didn’t beat myself up about it.

A couple of weeks before that, I was having a nice weekend of nothing pressing to attend to. (Don’t you love those?) My plan for the day was just to watch TV and sleep.

Then, as I was sitting on the sofa, heart rate slowing, eyes glazing over, I was hit with the sudden realisation that I was behind with my course work and should really get in at least an hour’s revision even if I didn’t feel like it. I sighed, reached for my notebook, and then thought… FORGET IT. (All right, it may have been another F word.) Sure, I could do with catching up and revising for the upcoming test, and I will do some work on that soon, but it’s not important enough that I can’t let myself take time off.

In the past, I’ve had a tendency to quit when I got to this point: when I realised I wasn’t doing well at something, and couldn’t be brilliant at it, at least not without a lot of pain and disappointment along the way: ice skating, tap dancing, Italian, disco dancing (oh shush, it was the eighties)… I attempted and abandoned them all.

There’s a high chance I won’t do well in the upcoming test, that my pride will be bruised, that I could even fail and have to admit that it doesn’t really matter, that self-esteem shouldn’t come from external success, tidiness, or arbitrary personal standards.

I still hope I don’t do badly, of course, but if I do, I know I’ll survive. In fact, it could be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

Images via: Losing it | Messy/perfect | Movie poster

—–
after words:: I’ve decided to use this space (The Bit At The Bottom™) to write stuff. I’ll share recommendations, suggestions, obsessions and opinions. Kind of like those cards at the end of Chuck Lorre’s sitcoms, but you don’t have to sit through an episode of Two and a Half Men. First up: if I wasn’t losing my perfectionism, I’d call this this short smart post from Danielle LaPorte the p-word.

In case you missed it, here are the posts that brought us here:
How to become a freelance journalist (maybe) part 1: Is it for you?

How to become a freelance journalist (maybe) part 2: Pitching: who, what, when, where, why, and how

OK, on with the finale.

FAQ:

Some of these are questions people have asked me, others are things I needed to know when I started out, clueless and confused…

Where do I start/how do I structure it/how the hell do I write this thing?!

This is one of those “how long is a piece of string”-type things. It depends on the piece you’re writing and whether it’s supposed to be objective or all your own opinion.  Really, the only way to learn is by doing it and seeing what works. Expect your first features to take longer than later ones, as you don’t yet have the confidence or skills to do a great job quickly. But practice really does make perfect you improve.

Reading some good books on structuring your work (see anything involving Wynford Hicks, below) can expedite the process and it goes without saying (well, almost) that reading the publication you’re writing for should give you some hints.

How do I find people to quote?

Most articles need quotes from someone apart from yourself — one interviewee per 500 words (and maybe one more for luck) isn’t a bad rule to write by — but finding people to talk to can be a challenge. I wouldn’t recommend pitching real-life stories (“My boyfriend ran off with my Dad”-type stuff) until you have a bit more experience or you know loads of chatty people with weird and wonderful true stories. (Although this can be lucrative, it’s difficult to find genuine people who are willing to talk.)

If you need people to quote for a story (whether “ordinary people” or experts/academics) Twitter and Facebook are now great ways to put feelers out (tag tweets with #journorequest in the UK) and use Response Source (UK) or HARO (US) to find contacts. Careful, though: you can expect to be flooded with emails (some of them completely irrelevant) using this method — many writers set up a separate email address to deal with the volume of responses.

For experts to quote, you could try Response Source/HARO again, or try Expert Sources, a directory of people happy to be contacted by the media. (The US equivalent is probably Profnet.) Universities are also a good source of potential interviewees: Just Googling a topic can often get you a shortlist, or you could even search the “invisible web“.

Remember charities too: for difficult topics they often have media case studies who are willing to be interviewed, and they obviously have official spokespeople as well.

Also try journalism forums and networking groups. And it pays to be friendly to everyone you meet online and off. The bigger your network, the more access you have to interesting people to interview. Oh, and it’s nice to be nice, of course.

Linda Formichelli has more ideas.

It’s important to check if the person you’re interviewing has been featured in a magazine or newspaper recently — this is especially true for case studies (i.e. the non-experts). If they’ve been in a woman’s glossy recently, and you’re doing a piece for a woman’s glossy, that’s going to be a conflict, as they’ll want something exclusive.

Usually you won’t find people to talk to until you get a commission, but some journalists find interviewees first, and it’s definitely worth doing so if you’re covering a sensitive issue — to reassure both you and the editor that you’ll actually pull it off.

Can you pitch the same idea to more than one place?

Yuh-huh. In my experience, it’s better to approach, say, a weekly mag, a glossy, and a newspaper with an idea than to send out the same idea on the same day to three glossies — although there’s nothing to stop you doing so and then taking the first offer that comes back (although I wouldn’t make it the exact same pitch in all cases — no publication is exactly the same as another, after all).

If they’re all interested and the angles are different enough, it might not be worth mentioning the other commission(s), but it’s often better to err on the side of caution and clue in the editors involved. When I had a piece on crafting published by The Telegraph, Prima was still happy for me to write a similar piece for them, as long as I used different interviewees (which I would have anyway).

Do most freelancers make money from journalism alone? (Thanks, Kat!)

This was something I was pretty naive about at first. I joined a journalism forum and some of its members seemed to be doing really well at freelancing. I assumed their earnings were just from journalism, but as time went on I discovered that was rarely, if ever, the case. The majority of the freelancers I know make money by other means than journalism: they offer copywriting (which is much better paid), they blog for companies, and they teach writing.

Quite a few freelancers are life coaches or counsellors, too — which has to help with all the soul-crushing rejection. Getting sub-editing shifts on magazines or newspapers is another way journalists make money, and it is a great way to get your foot in the door, but you’ll need the right skills (understanding InDesign is a start).  There are a lucky few who make their living just from journalism, perhaps a regular column that keeps them in three holidays a year, but it takes time to build up to that stage (not to mention a lot of luck and a fair amount of networking…).

How do I invoice?

I was so green when I got my first commission, I didn’t even know that writers sent invoices. (Thankfully my friend Keris was kind enough to email me one of her old invoices for me to copy.)

The essential elements are a reference number (I usually go with something simple yet informative, e.g. WW1 for my first Woman’s Weekly invoice), the date, your name and address followed by the name and address of the publication, plus what you’re invoicing them for.

I also include my terms (“Payment is due within 30 days of receipt of this invoice. Many thanks!”) although (in the UK, at least) this is covered by law so you don’t have to say it; it’s already implied.

If you’re being paid by money transfer rather than cheque, remember to include your bank account number and sort code. You can see examples of invoices online, but they’re mostly PDF, so I can’t link. (Search for “sample invoice”).

What if I’m having trouble getting paid?

Oh, money. The bane of every freelancer’s life. You can work your butt off for a month, happy in the knowledge you have five grand coming your way… and then wait a year for the last of it to trickle in. (Not exaggerating.)

The most important thing for anyone who’s self-employed to remember is that you haven’t earned any money until it’s actually in your account. (I know, duh. But it’s so tempting to go overboard on stuff like food and rent when know you have money due to you.)

Check the payment terms before you write a word, so you know what you’re getting into – while most magazines pay within 30 days, a lot of newspapers pay on publication and that publication can take a while. Or never (in which case you should always fight for the full amount you’re owed).

I firmly believe you should never accept a kill fee unless your story is just not up to scratch (an editor saying “thanks, this is great!” and then turning around and offering you half what you were promised? Not happening here). I’ve only been offered a kill fee once, when a piece wasn’t used through no fault of my own. (I fought against it, and won.)

However, some US publications are more hardcore on this issue, and include acceptance of a kill fee in their contracts. It’s your choice whether you choose to write for them or not. The plus side is US glossy mags for example pay much more than UK ones, so the kill fee may be pretty generous. At the very least,  try to sell the same idea on to another publication so your hard work isn’t wasted.

Sometimes your piece is published, you’re expecting to be paid in 30 days, and a publication is sluggish about it. Give them a couple of weeks’ grace period, and then chase, chase, chase that money. Be polite, but firm. If the editor you dealt with isn’t helpful, call and ask to speak to the accounts department. And remember for every 30 days they’re late, you can charge interest. (See the NUJ website — in the links section — for details.)

It should go without saying, but I know several people who’ve done this and paid the price (literally) so I’m saying it: don’t keep working for somewhere that owes you money. Bankruptcy might be beckoning (for them and for you, if you’re not careful).

How can I get some kind of cool regular columnist gig, so I can work from home in my pyjamas and still have some money coming in?

If only there was a foolproof answer for this one. It’s worth checking out Gumtree, Craigslist and more standard job sites, especially for web writing work, but usually the best writing gigs aren’t advertised, so contact the places you’re interested in working for with your brilliant ideas, instead.

It’s unlikely someone will want to take a gamble on a column unless you’ve written for them at least once already, so do that first, then write at least a couple of sample columns and pitch your heart out. It’s harder to find long-term work in this economy, but staying positive and trying hard still work sometimes.

There’s also (eek) networking, which deserves (but er, isn’t gonna get, ‘cos I’m rubbish at it) a whole post of its own. I know of writers who’ve got commissions via skillful (i.e. subtle, non-begging) use of Twitter, and others who’ve asked features editors to meet for coffee (instead of trying to “sell” those eds on their ideas, they asked them what they were looking for, and focused on building a relationship, instead.)

More questions? Let me know, below.

On to the resources:

Links for you

Blogs:

The Renegade Writer One of the most helpful writing blogs out there. Think you’re too old to start out? You’re not. There’s also a book (deets below).

Rachel Hills An Aussie journalist in London, Hills’ website deconstructs gender stereotypes and provides awesome insights into life as a freelance writer, including answering reader questions about journalism. This post is great: Turning work experience into a J-O-B

Lena Chen Another fabulous young feminist who features (featured?) fellow freelancers on her blog as part of her Freelance Friday series, asking them frank questions about how they got started, what they get paid, and what the downsides of the freelance life can be. Check out Former Marie Claire web editor Diana Vilibert.

Allison Winn Scotch is best known as the author of books like The Department of Lost and Found (which I LOVED) but she’s a freelance journalist, too. She offers great insight into this (and other) aspects of the writing biz on her blog, Ask Allison. Some posts I think are especially great: On cracking women’s magazines | On never sending in a finished piece instead of a pitch | On the importance of understanding the places you pitch to | On the (lack of) value of writing on spec

Write You Are (by Anne Wollenberg) One of my online journo-pals, Anne is a very talented writer who has just gone back to full-time work after a really successful few years as a freelancer. Her posts are always written with passion and insight. Check out her misconception myth-busting.

Dollars and Deadlines Kelly James-Enger is a journalist, author and ghostwriter whose blog is for “nonfiction writers who want to make more money in less time”. (Sounds good to me.) It’s full of great advice, like The Best Place for New Writers to Pitch.

Diary of a Mad Freelancer I just discovered P.S Jones’ blog thanks to her post about Legally Blonde being a freelancing inspiration, which spread across the Twittersphere like wildfire. (Note to self: work on your metaphors.)

Write Around it All A newish blog written by US journalist Maureen Salamon. Read this post if you have any lingering romantic notions about the glamour of the writer’s life.

Getting Ink Sally Whittle’s blog about being a freelance journalist and copywriter, especially dealing with PR people. No longer updated, but the archives are a great source of info (and entertainment).

Freelance Writing Tips Again, no longer updated, but Linda Jones had some great insights while it was. Again, there’s also a book — see below.

Jennifer Mattern’s blog is full of freelance info and she is launching a 30-day Marketing Boot Camp e-book for freelance writers on Monday.

Keri Smith is an illustrator but her Secrets of the Self-Employed is worth reading for writers, too.

Sian Meades’ post on what it’s really like being a freelance journalist hits the nail on the head.

Meanwhile Ruth Stokes wrote about her first year as a full-time freelancer…

Stacy Lipson gave some advice based on her experiences over the last six months

…And here’s what Priscilla McClay has learned since getting her graduate journalism qualification.

A couple of cautionary videos (kinda) from Xtranormal: So you want to be a freelance journalist?

Adventures in Freelancing, Part I: The Trend Story (so painfully true non-journos won’t believe it).

Websites

Women on Writing interview: Author, journalist, and writing teacher Susan Shapiro shares advice and info on getting started writing for magazines. She also had column on this topic for a while in Writer’s Digest, which I LOVED. Here’s a great one about writing opinion pieces.

Journalism.co.uk Jobs, articles about all aspects of journalism, training courses, and news. Good stuff.

Journobiz A great journalism forum frequented by some very talented people. Don’t go pestering ‘em for contacts or asking stupid questions (better to lurk for a bit before posting, in fact) and you should find them a supportive virtual water cooler.

Ed2010 NYC-centric advice, job leads, and interview help from magazine editors, aimed at newbies.

The NUJ’s Freelance Fees Guide (UK only)

Gorkana Journalism jobs, and an email service updated with journalism news (great for finding out who to pitch to). You can also send media requests for info/experts. I don’t use it much, but lots of journos swear by it.

Books

The Renegade Writer and The Renegade Writer’s Query Letters that Rock by Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell. UK types should note that the advice is US-based, but still hella useful, not to mention fun to read.

The Greatest Freelance Writing Tips in the World By Linda Jones. Out of print but worth trying to get secondhand, especially if you want tips on finding sources, networking, and breaking into copywriting.

Writing for Journalists by Wynford Hicks, Sally Adams, Harriett Gilbert, and Tim Holmes. A classic guide to well, writing for journalists, focusing on how to create a really good story. Hicks is also the brains behind English for Journalists and Sub-editing for Journalists.

Interviewing for Journalists by Sally Adams with our old friend Wynford Hicks is great stuff, too. (Could save you from that awkward sense that you’re not sure what you’re doing… Not that I ever felt like that, of course. Ahem.)

McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists by David Banks and Mark Hanna. Make sure you don’t libel anyone! This is the bible of British media law.

Only as Good as Your Word: Writing Lessons from my Favourite Literary Gurus by Susan Shapiro. Part-memoir, part self-help for writers, Shapiro genuinely wants to help others succeed and her own story is inspirational.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr and E.B White. A US standard, but contains great advice for anyone writing in English. As does Bill Bryson’s Troublesome Words.

Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights by Ariel Gore. Sometimes you need a joyous book to remind you why you got into all this in the first place. No, not fame (despite the title); the love of writing.

Cupcakes and Kalashnikovs: 100 Years of the Best Journalism by Women ed Eleanor Mills. Everything from Kate Adie on War to Julie Burchill on Thatcher, with cupcakes thrown in for good measure. A great read.

The Best American Magazine Writing 2010 [or any other year]. Shows just how brilliant and important well-researched long-form journalism can be.

Magazines

Writer’s Digest Great US publication with heaps of great fiction and non-fiction tips. (A lot of their old features are on the website, so search it and see.)

Writer’s Forum Aimed more at beginners (some of the readers consider having a letter published a writing goal…) and wannabe novelists but sometimes includes tips on  journalism.

Mslexia The magazine for women who write. Mainly aimed at fiction writers but when it does feature journalism advice, it’s always useful. (When I started out, I had an old Mslexia article on freelancing as my sole guide, and it served me well.)

Press Gazette Monthly media news. There’s also a free email newsletter.

Not exactly a magazine, but The Guardian’s Media section is in the paper every Monday (and you can read it online).

Courses

Mediabistro I did a great course on personal essay-writing with MB and I recommend them wholeheartedly. They do all kinds of journalism-related training in New York and online.

UK journos Johanna Payton and Olivia Gordon provide training for people who want to get into freelance journalism: both one-day workshops and online courses in ideas and pitching. I don’t have experience of their teaching, but I know both of them via a journalism forum, and can vouch for the quality of their work and what passionate and successful writers they both are.

Linda Formichelli of The Renegade Writer runs a course on how to write for magazines. Her website has a great journalism FAQ section and details of how to get free info, like her packet of sample queries (pitches). Read and learn.

Check out Journalism.co.uk for courses, too. Or there might be a college or university offering something writing-related near you. Get Googling!

Let’s make this the most resource-tastic post possible: what websites, books, and courses do you think it’s essential for  freelance journos to know about?

Image via Flickr/dbdbrobot

This is the first time I’ve taken part in an ARC tour. I wasn’t even sure what that was, but basically I get a free book on the basis that I write about it (and no, I don’t have to say I liked it) but I can’t keep the book (instead I send it on to someone else who’ll review it and send it on, etc). Which is ideal for me, because I’m all about decluttering these days.

Thanks so much to Holly Taylor for letting me participate (and to all the women before me for sending the book on and not pretending it got “lost in the post”).

You can’t pick your family…

The Kid Table is the perfect book for the festive season as it’s based around five family get-togethers over the course of a year. Our narrator is Ingrid Bell, who at seventeen, feels too old to be stuck at the kid table at every event, especially as her older cousin Briane has just graduated to sit with the grown-ups.

Ingrid certainly doesn’t feel like a child anymore: she’s sharing a secret flirtation with Briane’s boyfriend Trevor, and keeping a dark secret about her other cousin and best friend Cricket. Plus, her parents (and aunts and uncles) aren’t exactly acting like adults.

Over the course of a year, Ingrid copes with her first love, learns more about her family than she ever wanted to know (there’s alcoholism and eating disorders and cheating partners, oh my) and discovers that becoming a grown-up is about a lot more than where you sit at dinner.

(And neither can I)

As soon as I read the description of this book, I knew I wanted in. Whenever we went to my grandparents’ for dinner when I was younger, my cousins (and later my stepbrothers) and I were all shoved on a small table in another room. This had its advantages (the chance to chat without adults overhearing us) and its disadvantages (feeling excluded). We weren’t as close as Ingrid and her cousins, but I could relate to her feelings of cosiness as well as of claustrophobia about always sitting in the same place, always being considered a kid.

There’s something about spending time with relatives that makes us revert to childishness, so I totally understood how hard it was for Ingrid to assert herself and be seen for who she really is. But she’s not an entirely reliable narrator — she doesn’t take her parents’ problems seriously, finds it hard to understand that Briane isn’t out to get her, and has an unrealistic view of Trevor, Briane’s boyfriend, who is unworthy of either cousin.

…But you should pick up The Kid Table

The book tended to tell rather than show (I never quite got the sense that Ingrid was as charismatic as she kept telling me she was, plus the way the book was organised lent it more to flashback than to action) but I really liked Ingrid’s voice, and her off-centre way of looking at the world, so it wasn’t a hardship that most of the book was her inner monologue.

I was drawn in right from the opening paragraph:

My earliest memory is fuzzy, not because of time, but because I’m looking out of a full-body jumper. It’s sea foam green. My mom has cinched the hood so tight that my vision is a fleecy porthole.

…and the pace never let up or left me bored. Andrea Seigel has a great snappy writing style that’s perfect for YA and snarky enough for older readers, too. (I’ve been in a reading lull for a while, especially with fiction, and this is the first novel I’ve managed to finish in months.)

This is Seigel’s first book for teens, but I hope it won’t be her last — and I hope it won’t only be read by a younger audience, as I think anyone with even a slightly dysfunctional family (and isn’t that all of us?) will relate.

Plus, how totally rad is the cover?

You can buy The Kid Table at a shop near you (probably), or via the internet: I like The Book Depository. (Free worldwide delivery, people.)

See all the stops on the ARC tour here.

Once you’ve faced the realities of writing for a living — or what you need to think about if you want to think about writing for a living, at least — you can move onto the good stuff: getting published.

Ya gotta pitch

If you want to get published, you’re going to have to approach editors with your ideas. As you probably already know, this is called pitching.

You should always approach a publication with an idea, never a fully-written article. This is because the majority of pitches are rejected and even those that editors like will probably be tweaked a bit to their needs. (“Can you make it 600 words, not 1000, and drop the bit about Batman?”)

The only exception is when you’re submitting a personal essay to a regular slot (this is why it’s hard to make a living from personal essays unless you’re David Sedaris).

Before you pitch:

Read at least one, preferably two or three recent issues of the publication cover-to-cover, and take a look at their website. What is their tone/style? Who are they aiming at — women in their late 30s and 40s with kids, educated professionals with tons of cash?

Lower your chances of failure by understanding what editors are looking for. Appreciate how far in advance most publications work (suggesting a Christmas idea as late as October will get you laughed at), never suggest something similar to a piece that’s just run, and always spell people’s names right.

Never pitch a column or section that one writer does every week/month, even if you think they need a change, and never pitch a topic the publication wouldn’t cover in a million years. They’re not unaware that it exists, they just know their audience.

Look for sections that seem to be written by freelancers (usually features but sometimes smaller sections, too) which can often be easier for newbies to break into (my first piece for a glossy was 200 words on podcasting for Essentials).

Who to pitch:

For smaller publications, you’ll deal directly with the editor. Otherwise the features editor is usually the person to contact. Their name should be in the “flannel panel”, the part of the mag which lists the staff. Their email address may be next to it, or you might have do some sleuthing to find it.

Members of journalism forums often share contacts, but don’t be one of those members who only posts asking for contacts, or you’ll quickly erode their patience (and always do a site search first to see if that answers your question).

For newspapers, you can phone the switchboard and ask who deals with health or finance (or whatever) or you can Google the name of the publication (in quotes) + “education editor” (or whatever) — use the advanced search option to make sure you only get recent results.

It’s worth trying to find the right email, because those general email addresses (e.g. on a magazine’s letters page) are rarely if ever checked by features eds, and sending a pitch there will mark you out as a complete amateur.

Where to pitch:

You can’t always write for places you know and love. Linda Formichelli is an expert at this stuff, and her post on trade magazines is a must-read for anyone who thinks they can write exclusively for glossy mags and national newspapers and still afford to eat. (That might be possible way down the line, but not straight away.) Finding new markets is a big part of a writer’s trade. Try Writer’s Market and Mediabistro for US publications, or Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook in the UK. The author of the Pitching The World blog is approaching every magazine in the latter with ideas. (Kind of.)

What to pitch:

Finding good ideas, or fresh new ways to present old ones, is half the battle. Anne Wollenberg’s post on finding non-crap inspiration has lots of great ideas, and also consider the news, your friends, blogs (and Twitter and Facebook), and your own life.

It’s worth subscribing to all manner of RSS feeds that might give you ideas. When I wrote for Popgadget I’d often write about things I’d read in hard-core science magazines, as they gave me a fresh flow of things general publications had yet to cover.

To get people to send you info that might spark ideas, create a profile at freelance journalist databases like this one and choose what kinds of press releases you’d like to receive (go cautiously, soon you’ll have more than you bargained for). Ask charity press offices to put you on their mailing lists, and if it’s relevant to your interests sign up for one (or more) of the News 4 Media weekly email newsletters.

How to pitch:

The key to writing a good pitch is to have a great idea and communicate it well.

Write your pitch in the same style/tone as the publication you are approaching — but so that it sounds like something that belongs there, not like a parody. (If you have disdain for the place you’re trying to get published, this will probably come across.) This is where your research and reading comes in handy.

To stand a chance of getting commissioned, make your pitch as good as possible.

An editor needs to know:

What the piece is about
I know, duh.

Why it’s timely NOW
Every freelancer has sighed to see an article that’s not at all timely written by a staffer when they were told their idea wasn’t zeitgeisty enough, but this is one of those things freelancers have to suck up: you’re asking an editor to spend extra cash on you, so you need to offer something special. Which isn’t to say that evergreen ideas like new ways to lose weight aren’t commissioned on a regular basis, but you do need to think of a new way to angle it, perhaps using new research or news that hasn’t been widely written about yet.

Editors want to know why they should run a story at this point in time, and your ideas are much likely to work if you provide a strong  reason. Don’t make the mistake of tying your piece to an awareness day no-one cares about (sorry to sound harsh but every day is an awareness day for something; it doesn’t make it news).

Maybe an X-Factor finalist wobbled at the weekend, so you pitch the health section of a national paper a piece on beating performance anxiety. Or it’s the Olympics in three months, and you’ve just taken up synchronised swimming and want to write about how it’s harder than people think. (I’m not saying these are great ideas, and it can be a pain when you have ideas you think are good but aren’t “timely” but the more you can tie a great idea to an important news debate or upcoming event, the greater your chances of success.)

Why you’re the best person to write it
If you’ve been published elsewhere mention it — but only if it’s impressive or relevant. When I got that Essentials commission, I mentioned that I’d covered podcasting for two charity newsletters and was an avid listener myself. Not a lot of people were back in 2006 (not a lot of people who wanted to be freelance journalists for women’s magazines, at least) so that made me stand out.

If I’d had better clips, or had written about something not relevant to my pitch, I wouldn’t have talked about the charity newsletters. If you don’t have much writing experience, for god’s sake don’t say that. Play up something else an editor will like, instead. For a piece on keeping kids entertained you might say, “As the mother of four children under ten, I know school holidays can be a challenge…” or something. Some editors will ask where else you’ve written for, and some won’t commission if the answer is “nowhere” or “my blog”, but be honest, keep getting clips, and keep plugging away. If your ideas are good and especially if you start with smaller pieces, editors will give you a chance sooner or later.

Don’t forget the basics:

Use “pitch” or “feature pitch” in the header of your email, along with a working title, like: Feature pitch: Are you too needy?

Never send attachments. The pitch should be in the body of an email, with links to relevant clips if you have them, or just to your website. (Also: you should get a website with samples of your work as soon as you have some.)

Don’t ramble on, but do include everything relevant. Don’t ask loads of rhetorical questions without providing answers. There are lots of opinions on length, but two-three paragraphs is probably about right for most markets.

When you’ve worked with an editor before you may be able to get away with shorter pitches and with sending more than one idea, but I’d avoid both with a new editor.

An example:

Honestly, if I had all the tips and tricks for a perfect pitch, I wouldn’t have time to blog because I’d be too busy knocking back appletinis with Anna Wintour and Graydon Carter. But just to show you what I’m talking about, here’s a pitch I had success with at The Guardian:

Hi [relevant editor]

I enclose a feature idea for you below. I’ve also written for the arts
blog and Guardian Education, as well as on technology for Easy Living,
Woman’s Weekly, The Telegraph, Popgadget, and more. My website is
http://www.dianeshipley.com

Do let me know if you might be interested in a commission.

Many thanks,
Diane

[Sometimes I've included the pitch in the email, sometimes enclosed it below like this.
Here I wanted to foreground my tech-writing experience and the fact that I was a Guardian regular, online at least.]

Blindingly good tech? [Hate this working title SO MUCH, but it's what I used]

Most of us think of touch-screens as a handy convenience, chip and pin
cards as a secure way to pay for stuff and captcha codes as a
necessary annoyance. But to the visually impaired, these handy
technical innovations actually make life more difficult.

Isn’t new technology missing a trick if it doesn’t make things easier
for all of us?

I’d like to look at some of the latest innovations which the visually
impaired find difficult to use, and suggest solutions for visually
impaired people, as well as asking what tech manufacturers can do to
make sure their innovations don’t shut out sections of the community.
I’m in contact with an experienced technology journalist and author
who has a lot of opinions on this and would be a great interviewee. [I should have mentioned here that she is visually impaired herself. I also should have added e.gs of further problems + simple ways they could be overcome.]

I think it’s an interesting subject for those who have visual impairment
as well as those who have never considered the ways gadgets may make
life more challenging for those without 20:20 vision.

Because I’m not a doom-and-gloom merchant, [why did I use this phrase? Oh, 2008 me, no.] I’d also ask interviewees
for suggestions on how tech companies can take their needs into account without forgoing their design goals, and look at some new inventions (such as transcription tools) that may make the world more accessible for the visually impaired.

Always be chasing

If you send in a pitch and never hear anything back, don’t assume the editor hated it and is ignoring you. Editors go on holiday, emails end up in spam folders, and sometimes editors mean to get back to you but get caught up in the million other things they have to do. I once chased up a pitch three times and had success, and at least half of my commissions are the result of chasing up, a quick email to say “Hi, I sent you a pitch about X three weeks ago (details below), and just wanted to check if you might be interested.” Or words to that effect. Three weeks is the soonest I’d chase up, by the way. Some writers like to chase up by phone; I think most eds feel email is less invasive. But do it if you have a great phone manner and it feels right to you.

Rejection (and success)

As I’ve said before, success usually comes slower than we’d like. But hang in there. If this is what you really want to do, you need to be determined. You might get a commission straight away and then nothing for months, you might do brilliantly straight out of the gate, but more likely, success will come in fits and starts. It’s like a marathon, except it’s not a race. You need mental toughness and a lot of protein (probably).

Approaching editors can be nerve-wracking, but remember the worst thing anyone can do is say no, and at least it’s over email so you can be humiliated and depressed in the comfort of your own home. (Seriously, it does get easier. Every time I’ve been knocked back by a bunch of rejections in a row, something good has come round the corner. You just have to keep at it.)

Good luck out there!

But don’t worry, I haven’t finished with you yet: the third and final (phew) part of this series is coming next week, and will tackle some FAQ about actually writing the article, and what can sometimes feel like the most challenging part of this whole shebang: getting paid. It will also include a lovely link-y list of resources. (Yes, I am too good to you.)

In the meantime, I’d love your comments, below. And if you’re a wannabe journo yourself, is there anything else you’d really love to know? (If you get in quick, I can answer your query in my next post, so hop to it!)

Image via

Nick Hornby writes a column for The Believer called “Stuff I’ve Been Reading”. But it only features some of what he’s been reading, because the magazine’s editorial policy is not to slag anything off. If he doesn’t like a book, he can maybe make reference to the fact that he opened it (as long as he doesn’t reveal its title or any identifying details) but that’s it.

I’m sure a lot of authors would like to live in a Nick-Hornby’s-review-rules-world where everyone with a negative opinion of their book keeps it to their own fool self. A world without Amazon one-star ratings, where every newspaper reviewer says “brilliant”, or puts up and shuts up.

A case of the boo-hoos

I’ve seen blog posts from authors where they dwell on bad reviews, wondering what they’ve done to deserve it, moaning how misunderstood they are. I’ve seen tweets from writers who feel the Goodreads community shouldn’t be able to just give star-ratings with one easy click (and without a degree in Comparative Literature). Don’t we know how hard they worked on that thing?! And I’ve seen authors comfort each other with “Oh, what do they know!”-style messages.

I reserve the right to be a moody author

I know I’m one to mock. I haven’t had a book published, but if someone criticises something I’ve written, even if their critique is unintelligent or unintelligible, I feel hurt. You can tell me a thousand times that it’s my writing they didn’t like, not my personality, but if there’s a way to prise the two apart, I haven’t found it. Is there any writer who is even halfway decent who doesn’t pour their soul into their work?

So I get how hurtful it must be when a book you’ve slaved over for years is dismissed with a one-star rating (not even a review!) or some hastily typo-ridden type on a book-selling site that shows the reader didn’t understand what you were trying to do at all.

But should people really never write anything negative about a book, in case the author is hurt by it?

Criticism is stigmatised

Some people think so. You’ve probably heard that old quote about how they never erected a statue to a critic. Maybe your parents told you that if you didn’t have anything nice to say then you should, to quote Shaft, “Shut yo’ mouth.”

Author Don Miller goes as far as saying that those who criticise someone’s work should go and make something themselves instead:

Perhaps we should not put our energy into criticism, we should accept the challenge to squash what we do not like by creating something better. And when we have done so, we will realize how hard it was to create the thing we dismissed so easily.

I totally disagree.

Sure, it’s stupidly easy to lay into someone’s work without taking the time to consider the person behind it, the hard work they put into it, and how well it does what it sets out to do (as opposed to whether it’s your cup of tea or not). It’s not really fair to lay into a book or any other creative endeavour without having some respect for its creator.

But overall, I think negative reviews are a good thing.

Criticism rocks

When you ask someone to read your book, watch your film, or listen to your album, you’re asking them to give you time and money — two of their most precious resources. They have no reason to want to do so. But if you get a great review from a source they trust (whether blog, newspaper, or word of mouth) they just might.

Reviews perform an essential function: they help us to understand what we might like. They also make us think about why we appreciate some forms of art more than others. And we shouldn’t assume that just because someone doesn’t want to or isn’t capable of creating something similar, they couldn’t possibly appreciate it. Some readers are fabulous at divining the intentions and impact of a book without being authors themselves (or ever wanting to be).

Any review which seriously considers what a writer was trying to say and deconstructs how well they do so is a gift. Whether it’s positive or negative, it’s a worthwhile engagement with that writer’s work, one any author should be grateful for. I’ve even bought books after a negative review, because on reading it, I realised the writer’s tastes and mine were completely opposite.

Sure unfair and unconsidered reviews stink, but it’s still a few seconds someone took from their life to express their feelings about your book. You affected them, even if not in the way you hoped. Plus, that’s the price we pay for freedom of speech. When you get criticism you don’t like, it’s always worth considering the source. (And maybe seeking therapy for your self-esteem issues if it still crushes you.)

“Reader, I hated it”

I started my writing career as a book reviewer. I have to be honest: it wasn’t because I loved books (although I do), it was because I thought it was a good way to become a freelance writer and get free books in the process (it was).

Early in my time as co-editor of Trashionista, I realised that people were actually taking what I said seriously. That’s an enormous priviledge.* It also means that although I would only give what I thought were valid criticisms of a book, my responsibility wasn’t to the author, it was to my readers.

I wish Nick Hornby’s editors weren’t so afraid of being thought mean that they’d let him discuss which books he doesn’t like, and why. I think his readers would appreciate it. And (sorry authors) I think that’s what matters most.

Don’t you?

*My mum pointed out that I can’t spell. Thanks, Mum!

Images via: 1, 2, 3.