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fizzawritesYes, it is 10:30 on a Saturday and I am doing homework. I guess if you know you're going to have no social life, you might as well commit to it.
I bring you tonight, ye flist-ers, a writer for Esquire who has shown up on our Ethics reading list:
The piece is about the "falling man" photograph, an AP image of a man falling to his death after jumping out of the North Tower on 9/11. As you might imagine, the article leads with that photograph.
I think you should read it anyway.
Why? Because after years of reading this stuff, and yes, attempting it, I can be impressed, but not mystified about how someone writes. I know I'm nowhere NEAR there, but I get, at least on a gut level, what the hell kind of effort and skill that gets put into a lot of professional, long-form stuff.
This? I have no clue how he did it. I can only tell you that I read the last paragraph and gasped, out loud. A sound of sobbing without the tears.
*
In a completely unrelated and possibly tone-deaf addition to that last part, I finally got to watch last week's Mad Men, literally the only show I'm keeping up with this fall (which is funny, because it's largely new to me, but honestly, if you only got one show for a year, what would it be? Mad Men = So thankful I have a DVR, so I can rewind *that part* and see the look on everyone's faces.
See? Tone-deaf. Also, I'm really really not kidding about the one show this year. It took me from Sunday to Thursday to get to one hour of television - that's how the schedule is.
*
Things accomplished tonight (so I can look back and feel better mid-week when I go through another round of "I'm a hack! I need to lock myself into this bathroom and cry instead of interviewing people!" Um... yes.)
1. Wrote rough draft profile of our interview this morning
2. Figured out and sent rotating deputy editor assignments to RW1/ my minions (um, no, power is not going to my head, why do you ask?)
3. Send bonus email asking for actual, breathing real life interview subjects for our "Meet the Experts" podcast, which is actually a cleverly disguised ruse for my co-editor and I to interview Brian Greene. I plan to ask him about time-travel, of course.
4. Talked to possible 2nd profile - surprisingly open to interviewing on Sunday, which officially means 7 day work week! even if it's only for a few hours tomorrow. Maybe I'll be good and go out to Bay Ridge tomorrow. OR, I COULD SLEEP.
5. Finally got a filing system in place for the notes I've taken so far, although what I'll manage to use consistently for reporting is still up in the air. I can't find any size notebook I feel comfortable with yet - perhaps it is not the notebook's fault. You try taking out your tiny moleskine in front of a woman who's been on unemployment for 2.5 years. Immediate douche-feeling! Oh, but I do love that moleskine. Sigh.
6. Made dinner. Came up $60 under my budget for the week, which will help immensely when offsetting iPod cost/make me feel good about my much higher rent.
7. Bothered sources on a Saturday evening, even though it's zero to none they'll get back to me before Monday - at least I'm not starting on Monday.
8. Have NOT sent a snarky email to vaguely-associated reporter friend who, instead of responding to my email about possible interview profiles with silence or possible leads, TOLD ME HOW TO DO MY JOB, I wouldn't be so pissy about it if I didn't know she wasn't a super-great reporter, at least not good enough to work the national news magazine she does.
9. Finished weekly Ethics response that I totally botched up last week and remembered to do only 8 hours after the deadline (at 3am)
I bring you tonight, ye flist-ers, a writer for Esquire who has shown up on our Ethics reading list:
The piece is about the "falling man" photograph, an AP image of a man falling to his death after jumping out of the North Tower on 9/11. As you might imagine, the article leads with that photograph.
I think you should read it anyway.
Why? Because after years of reading this stuff, and yes, attempting it, I can be impressed, but not mystified about how someone writes. I know I'm nowhere NEAR there, but I get, at least on a gut level, what the hell kind of effort and skill that gets put into a lot of professional, long-form stuff.
This? I have no clue how he did it. I can only tell you that I read the last paragraph and gasped, out loud. A sound of sobbing without the tears.
*
In a completely unrelated and possibly tone-deaf addition to that last part, I finally got to watch last week's Mad Men, literally the only show I'm keeping up with this fall (which is funny, because it's largely new to me, but honestly, if you only got one show for a year, what would it be? Mad Men = So thankful I have a DVR, so I can rewind *that part* and see the look on everyone's faces.
See? Tone-deaf. Also, I'm really really not kidding about the one show this year. It took me from Sunday to Thursday to get to one hour of television - that's how the schedule is.
*
Things accomplished tonight (so I can look back and feel better mid-week when I go through another round of "I'm a hack! I need to lock myself into this bathroom and cry instead of interviewing people!" Um... yes.)
1. Wrote rough draft profile of our interview this morning
2. Figured out and sent rotating deputy editor assignments to RW1/ my minions (um, no, power is not going to my head, why do you ask?)
3. Send bonus email asking for actual, breathing real life interview subjects for our "Meet the Experts" podcast, which is actually a cleverly disguised ruse for my co-editor and I to interview Brian Greene. I plan to ask him about time-travel, of course.
4. Talked to possible 2nd profile - surprisingly open to interviewing on Sunday, which officially means 7 day work week! even if it's only for a few hours tomorrow. Maybe I'll be good and go out to Bay Ridge tomorrow. OR, I COULD SLEEP.
5. Finally got a filing system in place for the notes I've taken so far, although what I'll manage to use consistently for reporting is still up in the air. I can't find any size notebook I feel comfortable with yet - perhaps it is not the notebook's fault. You try taking out your tiny moleskine in front of a woman who's been on unemployment for 2.5 years. Immediate douche-feeling! Oh, but I do love that moleskine. Sigh.
6. Made dinner. Came up $60 under my budget for the week, which will help immensely when offsetting iPod cost/make me feel good about my much higher rent.
7. Bothered sources on a Saturday evening, even though it's zero to none they'll get back to me before Monday - at least I'm not starting on Monday.
8. Have NOT sent a snarky email to vaguely-associated reporter friend who, instead of responding to my email about possible interview profiles with silence or possible leads, TOLD ME HOW TO DO MY JOB, I wouldn't be so pissy about it if I didn't know she wasn't a super-great reporter, at least not good enough to work the national news magazine she does.
9. Finished weekly Ethics response that I totally botched up last week and remembered to do only 8 hours after the deadline (at 3am)
