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Episode 91—Mary Pilon’s Freelance Rumspringa and the Best Advice She Got from David Carr
132 Plays7 years ago
"Anybody who gets into journalism for fame for fortune or awards right off the bat I write off as an idiot," says Mary Pilon. So what’s the meaning of this? Mary Pilon again? For one I could listen to 52 episodes of Mary, but when we recorded I spliced the interview in two parts to shorten it and I’m glad I did at this point because my guest this week cancelled. What’s the lesson kids? Get interviews in the can. When I can it’s brilliant. Can’t always happen. Mary Pilon’s second book, The Kevin Show, is out now. She’s also the author of the bestseller The Monopolists. Her work appears in the New Yorker, NBC, the New York Times, Grantland. She’s been featured in Best American Sports Writing. She’s a boss. So for episode 91 of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to the worlds best artists about creating works of nonfiction, leaders in narrative journalism, doc film, radio, essay, and memoir, and tease out origins, routines, habits, key influences, favorite books and movies so that you can browse those tips and see what works for you, I’m sharing a bit of Mary’s origin story: How did she become one of those Best 30 Journalists Under 30? How did she get to the Wall Street Journal and How did she survive her New York Times layoff? How did she ignite her freelance career? What’s an anchor gig? And the best advice she received from the late journalist David Carr. We dig into all that fun stuff. Pair this episode with Ep. 18 and Ep. 90 and you’ll have the perfect Mary Pilon trilogy. Little bit of housekeeping: I’m still doing edits for reviews. Give an honest review of the podcast on iTunes—one to five stars, your choice—show me proof, and I’ll coach up a piece of your work of up to 2,000 words. You can also leave an honest rating, which takes quite literally less than 10 seconds to do once you’re in iTunes.
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Transcript
Intro: The Art of Recording Softly
00:00:00
Speaker
I think the benefit of recording intros before the sun rises, and there's a sleeping spouse or a dog or room over, is it forces you to talk in a damn fine voice. Am I right? No? No, right, I tried.
00:00:14
Speaker
Okay, so what's the meaning of this? Mary Pilon again?
Interview with Mary Pilon: Part 1
00:00:19
Speaker
For one, I could listen to 52 episodes of Mary, but when we recorded, I spliced the interview in two parts to shorten it, and I'm glad I did at this point, because my guests this week can't cancel. What's the lesson, kids? Get interviews in the can.
00:00:40
Speaker
married blonde second book the kevin show is out now she'll pick it up very very good of course she's also the author of the best seller the monopolist her work appears in the new yorker mpc the new york times grant lint she's been featured in best american sports writing she's a boss
Mary Pilon's Influential Career
00:01:00
Speaker
So for episode 91 of the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to the world's best artists about creating works of nonfiction, leaders in narrative journalism, doc film, radio, essay, memoir, tease out origins, routines, habits, key influences, favorite books, and movies, so that you can browse those tips and see what works for you, I'm sharing a bit of Mary's origin story.
00:01:27
Speaker
How did she become one of those best 30 journalists under 30? How did she get to the Wall Street Journal and how did she survive her New York Times layoff? How did she ignite her freelance career with an anchor gig and the best advice she received from the late journalist David Carr?
00:01:46
Speaker
We dig into all that stuff.
Podcast Reviews and Listener Engagement
00:01:48
Speaker
Pair this episode with episode 18 and 90 and you'll have the perfect Mary Polan trilogy. A little bit of housekeeping. I'm still doing edits for reviews. Give an honest review of the podcast on iTunes. One to five stars. Your choice. Show me proof and I'll coach up a piece of your work of up to 2000 words. You can also leave an honest rating, which takes literally less than 10 seconds to do what's your in iTunes.
Young Journalists: Perceptions and Realities
00:02:20
Speaker
At one point you were on that list of like 25 journalists under 30 or 30 under 30 and when you see these lists or outsiders see these lists these people they almost feel like that wonderkins are anointed in some way and it's
00:02:43
Speaker
Not often the case, there's a lot of work that goes into that. And I want to kind of retrace some of the steps that kind of got you to that point. We didn't talk about how you like your early nation stages in journalism. And I want to maybe we can go back to those, why you wanted to tell true stories and then how you sort of got onto that fast track that you were recognized at such a young age.
Mary's Early Journalism Journey
00:03:05
Speaker
You know, first of all, those lists and awards, I think I have a very complicated relationship with because
00:03:10
Speaker
A lot of them are silly, like on the one hand, it's like an honor when someone gives you, so the Associated Press Sports Editor's Awards just came up this morning and like, you know, a project I worked on was on that list and so brought all that, you know, ahead of like, I've been on both sides of that. I've been on the losing side of awards many, many, many times. I've probably lost more awards than I've won them. And then when you win, it's nice, but like, you also can see what that does to people and how it turns their egos into this,
00:03:39
Speaker
kind of giant inflated hideous monster type of thing. How's that for scientific wording? So I take all of that with a grain of salt. And I think that anybody who goes into journalism for fame or fortune or awards right off the bat, I kind of write off as an idiot because there are certainly other fields where there's more fame, there's more money and more fortune. So if that's what you're getting into this for, then like that's, you know,
00:04:05
Speaker
It's a waste of everyone's time. So I always loved books and storytelling and reading. I grew up with my mom was a counseling psychologist and
00:04:17
Speaker
taught a lot and was fascinated by people and how they tick. She actually grew up in Lebanon, Oregon, about 40 miles away.
Pivoting from Law to Journalism
00:04:25
Speaker
My dad worked in radio, and he wasn't much of a reader, and he still isn't, but was a big teller of stories. He's kind of this physically large and has this big booming voice. And radio, it's a very intimate medium that's very much about conversing with people, obviously.
00:04:44
Speaker
So I grew up with a lot of that in the air. And I didn't really, when I was a kid, I loved English class and all of that, but I didn't really know that journalism was like a job exactly. And I actually started working at the Register Guard when I was still in high school. They had this really cool way that high school students could work for the paper. And so I was like 14 or 15. And that was an amazing experience because the Register Guard to me was the paper I'd grown up with. It was the one I knew.
00:05:12
Speaker
then and now, you know, it's independent. So they really, you know, cared about the work they were doing. And I remember as a kid touring the giant like printing presses and all of that and just thinking it was so amazing. And I remember the first time I ever had an article published and they paid me like $20 and I thought it was like unbelievable. And so the idea that like I went and it was about the youth prison actually in Eugene and the idea that I could go and learn about something
00:05:41
Speaker
write about it, have it published, and then get paid just seemed like this crazy boondoggle. I felt like I was committing some kind of crime of some kind. So I loved it, and I did more work for the guard.
College Experiences and Career Challenges
00:05:54
Speaker
And then when I went to college, I knew I wanted to go to school far away. I'd applied to have been accepted to the U of O, but I think particularly because both of my parents went there, I just thought, oh, God, I was kind of
00:06:04
Speaker
nerdy rebel if that makes any sense like I had good grades but I really wanted to I love the idea of traveling and going out of Eugene so I I went to New York and NYU thinking I was gonna be a lawyer I had my degrees actually in politics and journalism I was really fascinated and still am by how law and policy was impacting everyday people
00:06:27
Speaker
both in terms of my family and the community in Lane County, I was seeing how things like child custody and divorce law and community property and social security and all these things were just everywhere I looked and having real impacts on people's lives. And I think that ties into a lot of the work my mother was doing, actually.
00:06:50
Speaker
So I won't have to do that, but I realized that I was more interested in the stories about those cases than actually the idea of representing people or litigating them. So I was interning still in newspapers and magazines throughout college, but again, I didn't think it was like a real job. I had to pay my way through school and NYU is not cheap. So I was nannying to subsidize a lot of these now illegal internships that weren't paid. And from there I ended up at the journal and then the rest was, you know, I was kind of off to the races at that point because
00:07:18
Speaker
I kept telling one of the editors of the journal, like, oh, well, you know, I'll do this for a few years and I'll apply to law school. And he was like, Mary, I've deferred Stanford for 10 years. Like, you're never going to go. And so, so I think for me, it was the right path, but I was very resistant to it in a lot of ways because I just felt like not that it was like a dilettante job, but I didn't know because I had to survive and support myself at a very young age, I didn't know how I was going to like feed myself quite
Freelancing Realities and Financial Struggles
00:07:46
Speaker
literally. Like I didn't, I had this very primal
00:07:48
Speaker
need to take care of myself. I didn't have a safety net and a creative profession, especially to see New York, you see people working as writers or painters and there are some folks who are hustling and bartending and I was nannying through college to make, I mean that was my life raft.
00:08:08
Speaker
There were also people with these huge trust funds and immense amounts of wealth that I just didn't understand. And I was like, well, how does that work? What do you mean your parents just bought you an apartment? I don't understand. Yeah. So it was like this really interesting, like way, way into it all. And I loved it. I mean, I think that I, you know, now that I'm, you know, been at this for a few years, I just feel like I don't know how to do anything else.
Joining the Wall Street Journal and Gawker
00:08:32
Speaker
Like, I don't know what else I would want to be doing.
00:08:35
Speaker
it's finally right out of college and you you you're able to get to the wall street journal is your first gig and uh... firstly say full-time gig if you will a lot of people have to go through the very very small newspaper circuits uh... something north carolina you know any anywhere to get their bylines and um... you know you you're able to strike it at you know wall street journaling and top three papers in the country um... so how did you get
00:09:03
Speaker
What were some of those initial steps that put you on that path to where that was your first gig instead of some regional newspaper in somewhere a smaller city in the country? Sure. Well, I would argue I did start at a regional paper. I think that the two or three years at the register guard that I was working were huge and so, so helpful.
00:09:28
Speaker
And then before the journal, I'd worked at Gawker for two years. And this was in 2006 or so. So, you know, Gawker and blogging was so different then. It was a bit more Wild Westy. And I think what both of those gigs gave me on top of a couple other internships, I'd interned at USA Today, New York Mag, a few other places.
00:09:47
Speaker
they gave me a ton of experience because when your gawker at the time was really small so you just always had to be doing something and you could throw something on the wall and see what sticks in a way that you couldn't do at the journal or the times or a larger newspaper so I think I got that experience and you know it's interesting
00:10:05
Speaker
Because now I think when I talk to journalists who are younger and kind of coming up, the pipeline has changed. And you're seeing more folks who come up through blogging and kind of their own independent journalism versus traditional newsrooms.
Navigating Career Milestones and Imposter Syndrome
00:10:19
Speaker
So I don't know if I'm kind of the last of that era, but my training was very much a hybrid of the two. And, you know, I remember at Gawker at the time, it was such a like,
00:10:28
Speaker
kind of like dirty secret kind of thing to be doing that I didn't really tell some of my journalism school advisors it was seen as kind of but they were paying me and I felt like I was getting experience to write and it ended up being this huge blessing because not only did I make a lot of contacts and friends through that experience but I also learned so much about how the internet was changing storytelling and changing journalism and that wiring has like stayed in my head all the time and I'm not an
00:10:56
Speaker
I'm not a strategist, I'm not an editor, but I think about that all the time, how stories land online versus in print versus in a book. So it's funny, I think that sometimes the accidental experience ends up being the thing that can really, really help you. But I loved My Time at the Guard, and I think that I had an earlier start because I was still in high school.
00:11:21
Speaker
I was able to get that experience. You can't just show up at a place like the journal. I had through my internships and stuff some clips and things that I'm sure now if I reread them I would be terrified by.
00:11:34
Speaker
And the journal hired me as an intern. And then from there you had to work your way into a staff job. So, or at least nothing felt handed to me. I think, I think you can have these doors open and if you're not ready to like sprint through them, you're in trouble because those doors opening are so rare. But I think because I'd been rejected by 10 other places and had no safety net, I just felt like by the time I got to the journal, I was like, I have to put everything I have into this. Cause there's just no, I have no other options. I mean, now I can joke with my,
00:12:02
Speaker
editors there about it but at the time I remember just thinking I was so like electrified by the work but also completely desperate and terrifying did you find yourself wrestling with that imposter syndrome like oh my god how the hell did I get here but now that I'm here I better I better hustle my I still do I still do and there's
Transition to Freelancing and Book Launch Journey
00:12:23
Speaker
You know, there's a little bit in the Kevin show where that came up because David Foster Wallace writes about imposter syndrome and that term I learned in reporting was
00:12:32
Speaker
coined, I believe, by a woman at, I can't remember if she was at Harvard Business School or where she was, but it was originally being seen in women in Wall Street. So when women in Wall Street would get promoted or do really, really well or get a great bonus, which as we know statistically isn't as common as it should be, they would have this feeling of like, oh, well, I don't, this isn't really me. There's no way this could actually be happening.
00:12:59
Speaker
And I think, I've talked to athletes a lot about that. And I think in writing, in journalism, it happens all the time. Particularly if I'm on TV, that for some reason just feels really weird. I'm like, why am I the person on TV yammering about something? Or like, why is my book, like somebody other than my dad bought my book? That's amazing. So I don't know if that ever goes away.
00:13:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, and so at what point did you feel comfortable making the break to go more freelancing versus the staff writer route? What was the sort of inner dialogue you were having at that time?
00:13:38
Speaker
Oh, that's really easy. I got laid off, so I wasn't a choice. But I also think that in journalism and media, it kind of becomes this really weird... I wouldn't wish a layoff on anybody. It's a horrible experience, but it did become this really weird badge of honor. I got all these emails from friends like, oh, it's your first layoff. Congratulations. What kind of ice cream did you eat with this one? At the time, you're devastated and you're crushed, and it's kind of like a breakup, and you feel like,
00:14:07
Speaker
You replay the whole thing over in your head and then after a while you realize like this industry is changing so rapidly and there's so much going on. So in December of 2014 I walked into a little I walked into the Times building you go to work. I was in the middle of a story and then I got pulled into a little conference room handed a packet.
00:14:27
Speaker
and was told that 100 of you will not have jobs by the end of the week. And I was completely shocked. I had no idea what to do. I, like a lot of that 100 people, really thought I was going to die in the New York Times building. I was a few weeks out from the monopolist coming out.
00:14:46
Speaker
And I have to say that that window was probably the most vulnerable I've ever felt in my career, because on the one hand, you know, I was laid off by The Times, it was written about, so getting laid off is bad enough how public it was, felt particularly, you know, hurtful.
Freelancing: Benefits, Challenges, and Independence
00:15:01
Speaker
Um, and then the book was coming out and I thought, Oh my God, you know, my whole butt is on the line here. If this book does poorly, it's over. I've lost my staff jobs and I will have written a bad book and a really bad book stays with you for a long time. It's not like you can just move on to the next day's paper and start working on your next project. And so I told myself, you know, I'm going to freelance for a little bit and do this book and really make sure it gets launched properly with like all the loving care it needs and then see what happens.
00:15:30
Speaker
And I interviewed a lot of places, to be honest, and it was this fascinating window because I'd gone straight from one staff job to another into our profession and what people were doing, where they were doing it, how serious people were. And then there was kind of this other level of like, well, what do I want to do? What kind of storytelling do I want to do? How do I want to do it? Who do I want to do it with?
00:15:51
Speaker
Um, so my freelance rum Springer, um, to use the term, the Amish use, um, I thought was going to last a few months, but it's been a two or three years. Um, and along the way, the Kevin show stuff came up and I've been really pleased with it. I feel like once I kind of got my infrastructure set up and my feet on the ground, um, and a good rhythm that I really enjoyed, you know,
00:16:14
Speaker
Today I'm at NBC working on something that's going to be very TV. Tomorrow morning I'm going to work on a screenplay and then in the afternoon do stuff for business week that's very traditional business reporting. And I really like that mix of things every day. And now I'm kind of at the point where staff jobs might be limiting in terms of
00:16:34
Speaker
different opportunities. But it's changed. It's really changed me in terms of my attitude about the business, my approach to the different kinds of stories I take. And, you know, you negotiate every gig and I'm not by nature someone who enjoys that. So it's taken a lot of work to embrace stuff like asking for more pay and
00:16:55
Speaker
you know, saying yes or no to projects or figuring out when you actually can take a vacation, all of that. Like it's just totally turned my relationship with work kind of upside down and inside out. And I think ultimately in a way that's been really, really good.
00:17:08
Speaker
You said that was a particularly vulnerable time and the monopolist went on to become a best seller and it appears you've come out of it very strong, lots of work, lots of gigs and the fact that a staff position now feels like it could actually be limiting. So what was that feeling like to come out of that vulnerable situation with options and with strength and power?
00:17:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. Well, I think it took me at least two years to be really like, oh, I'm comfortable freelancing. I think that New York in particular, as much as I love it, I also spent a lot of time out of it in those two or three years. Last year, I went to Mexico for a fellowship for a month. I went to Southeast Asia for
00:17:56
Speaker
for five or six weeks. I went to Brazil for a month. I really tried to distance myself from kind of the New York media scene because I think that
00:18:07
Speaker
A lot of people, when you say I'm a freelancer, they just assume you're unemployed, sitting in your pajamas all day doing nothing. I actually felt like, God, I've never worked harder. I'm really fighting to build what I need to build and do work I really care about and keep the engines humming. I just felt like that social climate was a little corrosive. I feel like I learned more about freelance journalism from my friends who are actors and musicians.
00:18:35
Speaker
painters because that's kind of the default setting in a lot of those jobs and they understood, they could explain to me more kind of how to set that up and how to embrace that. Whereas with staff jobs, I would interview places and be really impressed, but then think it was kind of like speed dating. It's like, you're really great and we can go out for dinner, but we're not supposed to get married. It doesn't mean you're a bad person, but we're just not,
00:19:03
Speaker
We're not supposed to get married. That's crazy. And I felt that way about a lot of the places that I had interviewed at. So I think the insecurity of also leaving the times was another thing. I don't like the idea that the first sentence of my biography was used to or a past tense
Managing Freelancing as a Business
00:19:22
Speaker
verb. And I think what the monopolist did, now that I look back on it, is it gave me a platform and it gave me an identity beyond being
00:19:29
Speaker
a staff reporter. And it gave me something to talk about that it was exciting and, you know, kind of more forward thinking. So I think that getting laid off is like a it's a journey for anybody who goes through it. But there were a lot of things that were kind of set up in my favor.
00:19:46
Speaker
Even if oh, I forgot that that January before the monopolist came out I had the worst food poisoning in my life Like I was just physically just like violently it was terrible like everything about that month in January New York City is also awful It's like cold and so when that the good thing about that set up though is you're like I hit bottom, you know It's all a pill from from food poisoning waiting for book reviews and being laid off like it's all and sure enough It was or mostly uphill. So I
00:20:13
Speaker
There's a lot about freelancing that I think is great in terms of like the lifestyle. But there's also I think this myth of it's easier and I have trouble with that. I think it's kind of about the same. I think you work.
00:20:25
Speaker
the same number of hours and you do a lot of the same kind of work, but it just depends. I think some people, it would give them stomach aches to have to send invoices and pitches out and all of that. And then some people, it would give them stomach aches to be in an office 60 hours a week. So it's tricky. There's no one size fits all.
00:20:47
Speaker
Yeah. When I was talking to Susan Orlean about this, she was, she was always saying like, you know, you have to see it as a business you're running, but you're also the raw material the business is producing. And that's a really hard thing to get your head around in, in a lot of ways, because there is the, you are, you are the administrator, but you're also the CEO and also the foot soldier.
00:21:14
Speaker
So it's like, how did you start to cobble together jobs and then let that create its own momentum? Because as you know, as a freelancer, you're only getting paid when you're working and you're not when you're not working. So, right. So how did you create your own momentum around that premise?
00:21:35
Speaker
Sure, well the book tour helped a lot, right? Like what better way is there to launch a freelance career than be like, I am traveling to all these states and you can read about my, here's 300 pages of my material.
00:21:46
Speaker
I so one of the first things I did so I covered businesses at the journal and I've always been actually personally interested in it. So I think a lot of the stuff that people think is really horrible and I thought was really interesting like I love talking to my accountant about how taxes work for people who are self employed and the different deductions and that like I actually truly thought that was and still do.
Balancing Creative Projects and Avoiding Burnout
00:22:06
Speaker
really interesting. And, you know, he became a more important person in my life because I wanted to make sure that I was invoicing properly, that I was taxing things properly, that I was, you know, doing all of that. So that was like a sharp end of the learning curve. And then once I had that set up, I could spend more time on the creative sides of things like what kinds of stories do I want to do? Who's actually going to pay me for stuff? How how is that actually going to to work? And I also had
00:22:34
Speaker
You know, I think that everybody, a musician would describe it, and my friend Bob Sullivan talks about this, who's a musician and a journalist, of like having an anchor gig. So if you're like a jazz musician, you play at a certain, you know, club every night at Thursdays, and maybe that covers like your rent or something. And so after a year or two, I kind of figured out who the publications were that I could regularly return to. For me, that also ended up being a book.
00:23:00
Speaker
Um, the good news about books is that they, there's a certainty to it, right? It's here's your advance. Here's when it's due. Here's what the book is going to be about. The bad news is it moves really slowly and you're by yourself and that can be kind of an isolating process. Um, so I like having one big fat really long-term project and then a bunch of little things because I also made this mistake. I never took a book leave to do the monopolist and it took four or five years and I was working on it at nights and weekends.
00:23:27
Speaker
in addition to my work at the Times and the Journal, which was exhausting. And so when I sold The Kevin Show, I thought, oh, this is going to be amazing. I'm a freelancer now. So I can only write, you know, this book. This is the ultimate dream as a reporter to just work on one project. And, you know, after two or three weeks, I just was going crazy. I just felt like the Unabomber in my cabin, like not having seen anybody and just focusing on one story and
00:23:52
Speaker
I think it was one of my editors at the New Yorker was like, hey, do you have any New York marathon ideas? And I was like, yes, yes, for the love of God, please. I would love to cover the marathon on a Sunday morning. Send me, yes. So I think that you be careful what you wish for and that balances. Some weeks it's more on than others. And I have had the instance where, or the problem where all of a sudden five different editors who obviously aren't talking to each other,
00:24:21
Speaker
fact-checking done right at once. And I've actually found that with these longer lead, what's happened too for me freelancing is the nature of the pieces I write has gotten longer and the lead times have gotten longer. So you have a little bit more sponginess to say, hey, three other people are chomping at the bit right now. Can this wait a day or two? And I've found that, especially once you establish yourself at a publication, people understand that you're not slacking, that it's a
00:24:46
Speaker
they want quality work. So asking for stuff, which again is something I mean, I read the Amanda Palmer book about it because I was so like befuddled. But that's something again, musicians get is like you pass around the hat, you say what you need, you say what you don't need. And in a place like a newsroom, even like the Times, the journal where I feel like I had really great bosses, it's a different grind. Like you would never dream of saying no to an editor when they call you for a story.
00:25:12
Speaker
to work on something, whether it's a Sunday morning or you're in the middle of dinner, that's the job. That's part of the team aspect of being at a place like that. When you freelance,
00:25:21
Speaker
It's a little different because if you're a ringer and you agree to do something, you're doing a favor for somebody. And they're like, oh, we're so glad you can fill in. And you also have the power to say no, because you're not obligated to do it.
Mercenary Work vs. Passion Projects
00:25:33
Speaker
So that dynamic I eased into a bit more. But yeah, I think I throw a bunch of stuff on the wall and see what sticks. That's kind of my entire freelancing strategy.
00:25:43
Speaker
Right. And when I was speaking to Louisa Thomas, who's going to be interviewing you in Boston, I believe. Oh, I love Louisa. Yeah. Oh, she was wonderful, getting a chance to talk to her about her work and her biography on Louisa Adams and her best American sports writing piece of the last volume.
00:26:01
Speaker
you know she talked a lot about mercenary works and stuff that she wasn't like yeah she's not necessarily putting it right on her portfolio but it's stuff that helps kind of spackle in the holes while you're doing a longer pieces like you know for with you you you know I think the pieces that you love and the pieces you gravitate towards are like the what was it tomato can blues was that the name of the one
00:26:23
Speaker
uh, you had for best American. That was at the time. Yeah. So yeah, that one, you know, the prefontaine piece, these, these longer, you know, these 5,000 word pieces that are a lot of work, a lot of reporting. Um, but you know, a lot of lead time in between when you're writing it, when you get paid for it and blah,
Ethics in Freelancing and Ghostwriting
00:26:42
Speaker
blah, blah. So did you cobbled the, do you have like those mercenary gigs that kind of help as you're doing these longer pieces that are more your, your passion project, so to speak?
00:26:54
Speaker
Totally. And what's funny about the prefontaine piece, which ran in May of 2015, is that that's a great example of a story that sat on a file folder on my desk at the Times forever. And I just never was able to get around to it because I had all this other stuff I was working on. And I knew I wanted to do it in a really weird way. And then the minute I got laid off and I flew back home to do a book event in Portland, I thought, oh, now I have no excuses. Now I have to do this story because I have nothing else to do.
00:27:23
Speaker
And then being able to do a grant land, rest in peace, Louisa actually edited that story. Was great because Louisa Thomas edited that story. Yeah. And it was the first time we'd kind of worked together on something and you know, since become friends, but she immediately got it. She understood exactly what I wanted to do. I said, I want to do spoon river anthology with runners. And she was like, great, that sounds amazing. Like let's do it. And I had this police report and I just wanted to report it out. So anyway, I,
00:27:53
Speaker
That's a great, that's a like a freelance win when you can finally get that thing that's been sitting on your desk for years, you know, out into the world. Um, but to go back to your original question, um, which was, I'm so sorry, kind of like that mercenary work work that you're like, not necessarily like super proud of an advertised, but stuff that kind of has to get done so you can fuel the work you really want to do. Yeah. Yes.
00:28:19
Speaker
Places like the New Yorker, and I still do some work for the Times and the Journal, both of those places have really strict codes of conduct for staffers. And that relates to everything from speaking fees to gifts to not taking on junkets. And I was kind of amazed. And I assume that for contributors, the same deal. So I just continue to live my life as if I was on staff there in terms of
00:28:49
Speaker
I don't take gifts, I just do the same things ethically they would on staff. And so the mercenary gigs I've been approached with were such clear violations of ethics policies, in my case, I don't know about anybody else, but that I could easily say, you know, thanks, but no thanks.
Exploring TV and Film Freelancing
00:29:07
Speaker
But I was kind of amazed when I started freelancing how those doors just sprung open and how the minute I stepped out of the times building a lot of very questionable characters would offer me things that
00:29:19
Speaker
Like we're obviously, you know, in violation of that. So I just think like, depending on what kind of freelancing you want to do, you know, you have to be really, really cautious. I think what we kind of bring to you more is like the ghostwriting world, which is fascinating and a lot more clear cut because with ghostwriting, you're almost more like a writing coach and you're helping someone tell their story better. And the setup is pretty transparent. I did a teaching job last year, which I actually had a blast doing that felt kind of like a mercenary gig. Like I wouldn't,
00:29:49
Speaker
say naturally that that was something I'd be inclined towards. But a colleague of mine teaches investigative reporting at CUNY, and it's so good that there was a glut of students. And I just couldn't say no to not only helping him out, but working with a bunch of grad students who were pumped about investigative reporting. And it was such a fun experience, fun way to mix up my week. Because again, it was stable. I knew how much I was going to make. I knew what they needed of me. And it was a total change of pace from slogging through a draft
00:30:19
Speaker
a big project. I think TV and film has filled a lot for me. It's more lucrative. I don't think that's a secret. I happen to be fascinated by it. I really love working on scripts, and I love TV production. For the last few weeks, I've been working with NBC News on a project, and the outcome of it was
00:30:39
Speaker
It was doing very old school investigative reporting and then figuring out what makes the good TV story and what makes the good written piece. And that was super fun because I felt like I could use both parts of those both parts of my brain and then they weren't going to overlap, that we were going to give TV audiences and online readers different experiences. So, you know, those things that come up are great because
00:31:03
Speaker
And that window of time was great because I wanted to do something related to the Olympics, but realistically going to Pyeongchang ahead of the book was probably not a great idea. So I was able to, you know, everybody won, right? Like NBC was able to bring somebody on who could geek out about figure skating. And I also won because I got to like get paid to watch figure skating, like nerd out about curling.
00:31:26
Speaker
So, and I got to stay in New York and, you know, get Kevin show stuff teed up the way it needed to be. So things like that are really wonderful. And I, I, you know, I, I've been, I, for the first time in the last month or two, I've had to turn down some stuff because I realized my bandwidth was getting like a little limited. And that felt really good. But I think that those, the mercenary gigs are important because they also give you the confidence to be able to take on a big investigative project or out of box.
00:31:56
Speaker
thing or something that you might not get paid for right away. So I think that that's not a bad strategy. And what did you learn from book one to book two? I think my first book, and maybe this is the nature of the beast, I was just a nervous wreck the whole time. I felt like I didn't know how this was going to work out. It was a very litigious topic. It was the little engine that could. I had a few people who really believed in the project and really
00:32:24
Speaker
cheer led me. And I had so many people who thought it was a nut job writing about board games. And that's a really, I was also just younger, you know, obviously, but like, that's a really intense force to have to tune out of your head. And you're waking up at 7am on a Saturday and you're
00:32:40
Speaker
thinking about, you know, Milton Bradley and patent law, like it's, you know, you're, you really find out who your friends are, right? And with this book, you know, I, so around the time, so shortly after I got laid off from the times, a dear friend and mentor of mine, David Carr died. And I am among the many who he mentored and just loved the hell out of the guy. I think he was just such a force for good in
Writing Books and Podcast Conclusion
00:33:06
Speaker
this world. And
00:33:07
Speaker
you know, the night of the gun, I think, aside from being just a tremendous read, I have always been interested in that idea of like, how he went back and read, which I would highly recommend if you haven't read it, read it, he goes back and reports some of his episodes of alcohol and approaches as a journalist, like an outsider looking in, like looking at his former self differently. And the last time I saw David in person, we had lunch and was asking
00:33:34
Speaker
about, oh my God, the monopolist is coming out in a few weeks, what do I do? How do you sell books? I don't know how to do any of this. And he just said, you've done all the work, Mary. Go have fun with it. Just enjoy the ride. Go to these events, and if two people show up, or 200, or whatever, have a blast. And then he passed away the night before the monopolist came out, and I was at his service. And I just remember the next day waking up and getting on a train to go to Boston to do an event and thinking, I gotta have fun with this. He's totally right.
00:34:03
Speaker
And I think that this book was the process was so much more like I had that wisdom of his in my head of like, you know, I got to enjoy this process and it has to be a little bit more playful and a little bit more loose in terms of my relationship to it because
00:34:20
Speaker
I've got one under my belt, but also, what's the point? What's the point of doing this? This is a luxury profession in a lot of ways, and it's a huge privilege. But it doesn't need to be a root canal. And I'm the one who made it that the first time around. So I think that that was a thing that I just kept trying to remind myself of as much as I could. And yeah, I think we should all be so fortunate to have mentors who say these things that rattle in your brain for so long.
00:34:50
Speaker
That's it, friends. If you dig the show, consider subscribing wherever you get your podcasts. And if you head over to BrendanLomera.com, you can easily subscribe to my monthly reading list newsletter, four books, and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast. Once a month, no spam and you can't beat it. I'm at Brendan Lomera on Twitter and Instagram. Feel free to say hi. Until next time, have a seat and have some great reading.