Here we go then

Six months of writing, narrated

A few days ago, I started on six months of writing. In January, I quit a finance job of three and a half years — a time in which how little I was writing was constantly gnawing on me. Between now and grad school in the fall is a span that is as good as any for giving it an honest go.

What am I trying to do? I want to practice, to be edited, and so to undo the damage of those years away from writing. I’m also trying to get published, to find the connections, the background, and the confidence to be able to carry on freelancing alongside whatever career I end up in after school, which unless I have a major epiphany this year, won’t be writing itself. Perhaps more than anything, I want to re-experience, consistently, the fleeting moments where I felt that what I was doing was art.

I have sent a few pitches already. I’m still holding out hope that I might actually get to write one of them, especially a guide to soccer in East London that I pitched to AFAR Magazine, but my more immediate hope is simply for feedback.

I’ve already received two lovely pieces of rejection. Here’s one:

“ Thanks for getting in contact! The problem with the type of article you propose — for me at least — is that the journalist is only more knowledgeable than the reader by dint of having just come back from the destination.”

I think this is a question of preference, but theirs is a damn valid one. My favorite travel writing — Matt Gross’s or Paul Theroux’s, for example — is impulsive and under-researched, and at its heart about the act of discovery. I guess I care more about how people travel, and how they perceive and connect with a place and a people the first time. Nonetheless, the editor saw a poor fit, and made me think about what it was I was actually trying to say. I’ll take that, happily.

The other, from easily the best blog about life in London:

“Daytrips from London is an idea we’ve toyed with before, but we’ve decided that we’re sticking with a focus that’s 100% London for the time being.”

While this is subtle, having read their work all year, I feel like I should have caught this, and given that this is obviously the writer’s responsibility, I’m a bit ashamed I didn’t. Reading the blog since, it’s clear that they do keep to this restraint, and it does make them more focused, more dense, better.

But just in case I got any ideas that I could play along with having to stick to London…

“In addition, we currently have more contributors than we can efficiently coordinate, so aren’t really looking for new writers.”

Alas, lessons learned, wounds licked, and we’ll fight on tomorrow.