Class Status

Last week I got to head into Seattle to watch part of a photo shoot for an article I’ve done for a local magazine – very exciting! But I wanted to talk about what it took to get to that point, because I think it underscores some of the problems with freelancing. It would be lovely if all a freelancer had to do was sit on their rear and spew verbiage onto the page. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of other stuff that gets in the way.

So how did this article come about? I’d picked up a couple of copies of the magazine in question and thought about what they might like. I came up with a topic that I had a lot of information about and wrote a pitch – three or four sentences that explained my idea and (important) why I thought their readers would be interested. I included information about my writing credentials and why I was particularly qualified to write about this topic. I put a good bit of time into that pitch, trying to make it interesting enough that the reader would want to know more about the topic. I made sure the e-mail was professional and error free, as well as showcasing my ability to craft a sentence. Once it was ready, I poked around on their masthead and found what looked like the logical editor to mail my pitch to. And I did.

To no reply. A month later, I sent a nudge asking about the pitch. This time I got a reply from the publisher saying that she liked the idea and that they would discuss it at their editorial meeting and get back to me.

More time passed. I sent another nudge asking about the story and mentioning that if they weren’t interested, I’d love to pitch them a couple of other ideas. This time I got an actual assignment, with word limit and due date. It was on.

I mention this because I’ve found that the most important characteristic a freelancer can have is tenacity and a willingness to keep nudging when necessary. The reply to a pitch is, more often than not, silence, and it’s easy to get discouraged by that. It’s important to not assume that silence is a hostile or negative response and to be willing to keep on flinging e-mails into the void until you get a reply. People are busy, editors have five million things on their to-do list – being patient and professional when dealing with that fact is crucial.

Editors don’t have a stack of story assignments that they’re ready to hand out to freelancers, unfortunately. They want story ideas and they want to know a) why that story will appeal to their readers and b) why you’re the person who should write it. Figuring out what might work as a pitch involves looking at the publication and also at your qualifications, trying to find an idea where the two overlap. Pick publications where you have some expertise or unique experience to offer, rather than making the mistake of trying to write about something you aren’t interested in or don’t know much about.

And then be prepared to be persistent.

Not sure if this is the very beginning, but it’s definitely in the first chapter.

The rub of metal around her wrists was what bothered Shyra the most. Not the standing with the others, chained on the back deck, exposed to wind and cold. Or the catcalls of the sailors, appraising each Dryad in terms of beauty and body. Or the pull of her home grove, dwindling with each mile of river the boat achieved. She wouldn’t die of that, at least until she rooted and became vulnerable. THe lack of food didn’t’ bother her either, as long as there was plenty of sunshine and water.

They all managed to send their hair down along the boat’s side, down to the water line to drink there. But when the captain was cranky, he would shout that they might tangle the paddlewheel and would order one of the boys to clear it.

The boy would come with machete and apologies to hack away their hair. It didn’t hurt, any more than cutting his own hair would have hurt, but they pretended that it did, in order to use their reproachful cries to make him wince.

They had little enough to amuse them. The Dryads knew they were as good as dead. Dryads and Naiads captured and taken to Tabat never returned. If they wanted to escape, they all agreed in their whispered conversation, relying on the great engine’s noise to mask what they were saying, it would be best to get away before the boat reached the city.

She suspected that the Captain, if not all the crew, knew exactly what the Dryads chained there were plotting. They were not the first Dryads the Swan had carried. The railing was matted with fine, greenish root-hairs, layers upon layers of them in the spots where the boys were too lazy to scrub.

And all along the side of the boat, on the inside of the railing, were pictograms scratched by former prisoners. Some were easy to decipher: Six Flowers, Sun and Rain, Riverfern. Others were harder, lacking an established alphabet. A clamshell might be that, or some other concept, or food, or the sea, and coupled with what could have been a candle or eel or sprout, who was to know the precise name of the former prisoner, fate as unknown as Shyra’s, who had scratched that, in letters no more than a fingernail high, in the space beside the hasp to which Shyra had been secured for the duration of the journey?