Pearl Jam is making deals with Verizon. Maynard James Keenan put on a little weight and owns a vineyard. Joe Torre manages the Dodgers. Anne Rice decided to write the Great American Novel. Tim Burton got soft. Black Train Jack disbanded. My bass guitar has a warped neck and is out of tune. There are no legitimate goth and new wave nights where I can go dancing. I write, and truly get excited about, copy to sell things to people. Sometimes I wear high-heels, and although I still stick out in a crowd, it’s safe to say that I’ve grown up, whether or not I’ve wanted to. But having your idols get fat and wealthy is one thing, having your dreams become more outdated than an *NSYNC cassette is quite another. The things I want to do – get a full-time editorial gig and/or a book deal – are suddenly seeming a little like wishing for Kurt Cobain to rise from the dead and reunite Nirvana. Stupid, impossible, or worse yet, out-of-touch.

When Simon and I started sharing the sheets, we frequently fought about the same thing while basking in post-coital bliss: Amazon’s Kindle. The Kindle, to me, signaled the death of books. From Simon’s point of view, it was an elevation of literature. To me, it was the end of bookbinding, the loss of that pulpy perfume from the pages, the vanishing of penciled notes in the margins. To Simon, it was the beginning of a new era, a way to make books accessible and portable, a way to widen his library, if it ever became open source. He looked at it as a necessary component, an advancement of the publishing industry, something to feel good about. I looked at it as yet another scary new machine, like the wireless telephone, or the Segway. I’ve always wanted a book deal, but it seems like the only things that get advances these days have to do with celebrities, scandals, or Twitter. In which case, I’ve got nothing. Except for a Trent Reznor poster and a pair of cheetah print underpants. Do e-readers make my book deal more likely? No. Do they hinder my ability to score a fat advance? Well, indirectly, yes. Because they are a game changer, as men in suits on ESPN would say.

I acknowledge that collections of non-fiction essays from nobodies aren’t the most coveted manuscripts gracing the glossy tables of publishers. I understand that the literary world is in a bit of an upheaval. I let go of the childhood dream of a book tour where I’d be flown to signings in Boston bookshops, where nobody but a few cute undergrads from Seven Sisters schools would attend. I won’t have a chain-smoking editor calling me for revisions, I won’t be able to see scathing reviews on Amazon. I won’t even have the pleasure of buying Simon a Nook (or a Kindle) pre-loaded with my labor. All right, books are changing, which means that book deals, as we once knew them, are dead or close to it.

A note for publishers: I can write really glistening prose about Lindsay Lohan’s bathroom habits or Lady Gaga’s Twitter feed if need be.

Then there was the other brass ring I was reaching for, an editorial gig. When Sex and the City came out, I wanted to punch my television in the screen, and not just because I was offended by the idea that women only function when fueled by a simultaneous desire for shoes and marriage. I wanted to be Carrie Bradshaw. Mind you I didn’t want to actually be Carrie Bradshaw, but I wanted her job and her apartment. I wanted my name on the side of a bus because I was writing about New York nookie. In truth, even if I were simply writing blurbs about seedy nightlife, that would be fine too. Just give me a regular gig at a rag or mag, and I’d be good to go. Well, as we’ve recently learned by the death of Gourmet, that whimsical little daydream is as dated as last season’s suede espadrilles. Or whatever was in style last season.

The chief executive of Conde Nast said that the shredding of Gourmet, and two other magazines, would allow the company to branch out into digital versions of the brands, and he mentioned utilizing "new devices and distribution channels." I don’t believe he means kiosks outside of Starbucks.

The New York Times is cutting its staff. Countless papers nationwide are shuttering their windows and turning off the lights for the final time. Newsweek is covering life after newspapers. Information is available online, for free, and for many of us it’s delivered straight into our telephones and feed readers daily. We don’t need paid subscriptions, we have a subscribe button that it costs nothing to click. If I’m going to get that editorial gig, it ain’t gonna be in a weekly that I’ll see strewn across the seats of the downtown F train, and it certainly isn’t going to be any job that would lead to me munching at those restaurants Gourmet once covered.

My choice is clear. Simon frequently cajoles me into getting and doing things that he swears are life-altering improvements (this list currently includes Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress, iPhones, netbooks, and the band Mum.) I met nearly all of these declarations with intense skepticism at first. When fire was first discovered, I would have been the caveman that threw an empty raptor skull filled with water on the torch, stating afterward that I thought it was a "bad idea." But every new platform, device, or accessory does seem to make my life (and, in tandem, my writing) easier. I think that this is based on an evolutionary model: adapt or die. And my internal life had best man up and follow suit. Just as how I’ll never dance with Gene Kelly or bring a Skip-It to show-and tell, I have to accept what’s passed and cannot be. Setting goals in an age of such rapid advances in technology and declines in economic stability is like playing Whac-A-Mole, it no longer has a predictable and straight trajectory.

The face of writing is changing, and that’s exciting, but it requires a great deal of patience, both for me and for the rest of us restless, caffeinated, passionate key-pushers. Achievement might come in the form of a paid blogging gig, collaborating with other geeks, or simply submitting articles to sites that pay. Whatever it is, success is still out there. It’s just up to us to figure out how its shape has shifted, and then to catch up to it.

Over the years, I’ve collected rejection letters the way that most people collect books or underpants. I’ve learned that they’re part of the process, they’re pretty much inevitable, and, most of all, no matter how shitty my hair looks on any given day, they’re not personal. Also, it doesn’t matter how much good karma you try to generate by tossing pennies into the Salvation Army’s cup, or by smiling at post-office employees, the business of being rejected has nothing to do with how good of a person you are. The trick is to convince yourself that it has nothing to do with how good of a writer you are either.

My first rejection letter came on an afternoon in my preteen years. Coming home from a soccer game, which we had lost, I discovered a piece of mail on my desk, next to my goldfish bowl. My goldfish, of the five-cent carnival variety, was floating belly-up in the vase that served as his bowl. My fledgling poetry career was doing the same in the envelope. I lay down on my bed and took a nap.

Over the years I became desensitized, nay, even brazen about it. Stumbling home drunk at four-thirty in the morning, I’d struggle with my mailbox key and discover the latest gently-worded “fuck you” in the tiny compartment. I treated it no differently than the bevy of men and women I’d sauntered up to over the course of the evening, leaving with little more than napkin scrawl and a potential future outbreak of herpes simplex. Rejection is part of life. I stopped caring and started treating it as less of an occupational hazard, more as simply part of the job description. So long as I was still submitting I was still a writer. I became a hope junkie.

A few weeks ago I started work on a satirical essay that was pretty close to my little robot heart. It made light of caretaking and parents, it poked fun at some of the less-than-pleasant aspects of helping a sick family member at home. Of course, I drew on some of my personal experience thus far, as I’m lending a hand to my mom and playing the role of Falcor in our Neverending Chemo Story. I edited the shit out of the piece when I was done with draft one, and made sure that it struck the right balance between wholly acerbic and sorta poignant. I mulled over it, took my time, gave it breathing room, and…I liked it. That’s rare.

I thought of where to send it, after all, it’s not like there’s a gigantic market for gallows humor, unless I’m completely mistaken. Then I thought of McSweeney’s. Probably my favorite website, chock full of chuckle-worthy good writing and brainy wordplay, of course they’d accept a quirky little piece about homecare! They are the website that’s filled with genre-transcending prose and lists,  a sanctuary for the some of the most daring of swashbuckling pens. Maybe they had a slot open for a hopeful nobody.

As glib as I’m being, it wasn’t as if I simply expected to be accepted. I truly believe that I suck, just as much as the next fledgling creative, and certainly I acknowledge that I suck much more than those who have been lucky enough to find themselves in McSweeney’s. I’ve had more than one list play the role of skeet for their editor’s marksmanship. I hadn’t cared in the past. But this piece was different. More polished, closer to the marrow, locked within the birdcage beneath my nonexistent breasts. I edited it, spell checked it twice, said a small agnostic prayer, and sent it to their site editor, wishing it godspeed.

The days that followed were filled with what keeps me doing something so stupid as submitting to publications. I became buoyant with growing expectation, dancing along on my Converse, the Gene Kelly of my own rags-to-riches story of ambition, perseverance, and a flash fiction piece about cancer. My dreams were filled with literary success, launched by my little lampoonery. I’d make a name for myself. I’d be paid to write essays and articles. I’d make a living. I’d have Simon wearing a loincloth, fanning me with a palm frond, and feeding me green grapes by hand. (And vegan soft-serve by mouth.) Life was gonna look up. For the first time in my life as a writer, I was convinced I’d be embraced by the warm, snuggley arms of an editor on his ivory throne. Welcome, the letter would say, to where you’ve always wanted to be. Cherubs would sing and play Röysksopp on little harps. Chinchilas would do the hula.  Maynard James Keenan would write me fan mail. I would be in McSweeney’s. I would.

After my mom took her first monster dose of Xeloda, I ran out to buy her the B-6 vitamins she’d forgotten to take to prevent neuropathy. It was there, in the pharmacy parking lot, under a heavy, gray sky that I checked my email on my dented, pink Sidekick-ID.

“Hi, Ainsley. This one is not without its moments, but overall the conceit is just a little too dark to win me over. Appreciate the look, though. Hope you’ll keep trying.”

The sort of devastation one feels when dealing with acute failure is palpable. I’m not talking about the closing pitcher who blows an occasional game, or the still-beautiful pop singer whose third album doesn’t break the top ten on the charts. I’m specifically addressing the sort of failure that one feels when one believes, in no uncertain terms, that they will achieve great success. I hadn’t gotten all flushed and dewy eyed when Brown University bitch slapped my dreams of grad school in my early twenties, I didn’t let out a wail when Poetry Magazine sent me a very off-handed “thanks-but-no-thanks” in the tone of Sarah Palin. Like I’ve said, rejection is part of the game, if you’re truly a writer it should come as natural to you as the alphabet. I have no idea why the four lines from McSweeney’s caught me like a gerbil swept up the nozzle of a vacuum, but they did. My self-esteem, what there was of it anyway, has yet to recover, which strikes me as peculiar.

Don’t be mistaken, this isn’t a woe-is-me thing. Sure, I’m destitute, have no new clients, and spend every errant wish, from stars to birthday candles to 11:11 on the car dashboard, on the simple hope of making a living as a writer. Absolutely, my current situation, living with my mother as she battles terminal cancer while my partner stretches out in bachelor bliss on the couch in what once was our house in Oklahoma, it sucks. No bones about it. But the hard rejections, the ones that are more of a broken jaw than a flavorless jawbreaker, those are just another key in the QWERTY of life. Rejection is like entry fees, each varies in the amount, and there are few you can avoid. You want to know what would be a shame? To not resubmit the same piece — maybe edited slightly to make it less dark, maybe not — to another publication or contest. To give up and say, “That’s it, done, fuck it. I want to organize shelves in Whole Foods for a living.” (All right, I admit it, I do. But I can write, too.) Even though this particular punch in the gut was a shocker, what can you do? I’m writing about it. And I’ll keep writing, for myself and for an audience I have yet to find. And maybe that makes me an impoverished fool, but it also makes me a writer. And a Leo! And maybe also bisexual, considering I do this hoping you all will want to take me out to dinner.




As a final note, I share with you some morsels on the misgivings of this profession, that I discovered as I tried to drown my sorrows in the comforting waters of the Internet:

The editor of the San Francisco Examiner rejected a short story by Rudyard Kipling by sending him this little love note, “I’m sorry Mr Kipling, but you don’t know how to use the English language.”

If you’re looking for more consolation, there’s always the Rejection Collection and Literary Rejections On Display. They’re nice little reminders that we’re all in this together. Don’t let the bastards grind you down!

Drop me a line, AinsleyDrew at gmail dot calm. And thank you to everyone who donates! Means a ton, makes me do a little dance.

Hire us to word you.

I don’t give up. Okay, I lie, I give up all the time: right of way when driving, arguments after midnight, games of Scrabble. Just eating a meal for me requires a safe word. I often give up, and I kick myself for it, but I don’t ever give up a job unless it truly feels wrong. And by wrong I mean morally and financially, not just, “Oh, man, it’s sunny out, I’m not going to write this press release.”

So when I found myself telling the publisher of Design Business Review, “I’m sorry, but I have to give up my masthead,” I was kind of shocked. Proud of my self-awareness and forethought, but mainly shocked. And a little sad, too.

The reasons why I stepped down from Editor In Chief to become just a lowly contributor are many, but mainly it can be boiled down to two things that make the world go ’round: time and money.

For one, driving my mom to the doctor, sitting through the drip-drip-drip of chemo, taking care of my mother’s pets, my mother’s house, my mother’s car, my mother’s medication, and my mother’s quirky obsessive compulsive tendencies, as well as fulfilling all of my paid professional obligations for Ministry of Imagery, requires twenty-five hours of a twenty-four-hour day. Although we’re still starving and struggling to find new clients, we’re working on several projects that require a ton of concentration, and one in particular that calls upon a fair amount of time. I don’t have the spare seconds of silence that are needed in order to interview people, transcribe the responses, and organize a second issue of a magazine in accordance with the feedback we’ve received, especially when I might have to go from copywriter to floor sweeper, dog groomer, personal assistant at any time. I can’t take conference calls very often because my schedule fluctuates like Oprah’s waistline. I can’t make meetings unless they’re the kind that keep me from drinking.

Secondly, DBR is a fledgling publication, which means that the return wasn’t going to be an immediate financial gain. As a company, MOI has decided to be hesitant about doing work for free or lowered rates. Early on we fell into the trap of being taken advantage of because we didn’t know how much to charge, or that work trades sometimes aren’t worth it, or that usually when you ask for a number — even if it seems high — you can find a way to get it, or get close to it. DBR is a beautiful portfolio piece, and an acrobatic routine for my ego. Moreover, it was founded by people we respect, and created with the help of people we look up to, we were able to speak to designers who established the companies we revere. But it didn’t feed us, and continued effort on the project most likely won’t lead to a huge pay day, at least not for quite some time. That’s the new publishing media. It’s slow going, even if the going is good.

For the record, items we are still waiting on as a result of our work-trades: a painting of a feather, a pair of underpants, two dinners, a lunch, a breakfast buffet.

And any of our spare time should be going to side projects: Simon’s fiction and blogs, this blog, and my personal narrative blow-by-blow of my mother’s terminal illness and her treatments. (It’s going to be humorous. ‘Cause cancer is funny, whether or not we admit it. Like the fact that she was nervous about taking so much Tylenol at first because the label says may cause liver damage, until she looked up from the bottle laughing and said, “But I already have cancer in my liver.” Okay, maybe you had to be there.)

It’s hard to know when too much work is actually too much work. Nowadays, a lot of us have two or more jobs, and families, and social obligations, it’s become the norm to be stressed or burned out. How often do you hear your friends or colleagues say, “Jeez, I just wish I had more to do!”? I’m the type of Type A that likes being pushed to the limit, and when I’m under emotional duress I actually enjoy being able to focus on a slew of different, pressing tasks, especially if they could pay off in some way. As a freelancer, I feel as though turning down a job is turning down an opportunity, it’s rejecting a chance to keep busy. I also fear putting off the chance to foster any potential long-term business relationships or, worse, missing out on an eventual paycheck.

But I simply don’t have enough self to make this happen, and to commit to the magazine, no matter how rewarding it could potentially be, would be selfish. I know that I’ll do a shitty job. It would be that dead weight to my professional load, and not only would I do work that I couldn’t be proud of, but I would also let a ton of people down. Not just people, friends and mentors. So, in that case, I had to do the hardest thing and say enough. I may feel weak and pathetic, but at least I know that I’m bowing out while I’m ahead. No Mike Tyson-like comebacks or face tattoos planned for the immediate future, but who knows.

If any of you are looking for a (for now) unpaying, fun stint in digital and print publishing, let me know. I hear there’s an opening at Design Business Review for an Editor In Chief. AinsleyDrew at gmail dot com.

And if you’re in the market for some copy — press releases, bios, text for your website — you can hire us. (Payment in underpants expected in full, up front. Heh.)

Thank you to all of you who donate!

So far my week in Oklahoma has exposed me to a few things that I was not prepared for. I watched the Bedlam Game between Oklahoma University and Oklahoma State University. I learned that I like the Sooners because if I don’t I could get shot. I heard actual use of the phrases “y’all,” “cussin’ and raisin’ heck,” and “hellcat mad.” I watched a turkey get fried, learned that you soak cowboy boots in the bathtub and wear them wet in order to break them in, and became acutely aware that Baptists do not dance – ever. I ate cranberry salad that had marshmallows in it, and tried Indian food for the first time. It has been exciting and strange, but above all it’s been educational.

For a state founded on a history of hard work, dust, sweat, and tears, Oklahoma has work ethic. Coming from Portland, where a small, but still way too large, population of young adults wastes their time doing nothing, buying retro clothes, snorting lines, growing ironic facial hair and looking apathetic, this red-blooded ‘Merican-ness is refreshing. If it’s between cowboys or hipsters, I’ll choose cowboys anytime. Same goes for frat boys. (Go Sooners.)

In order to try to understand where things go wrong between this red state and the blue that flows through the streets of Puddletown, I decided to start with those who make up the work force of this area of the south-central US.

Anonymous employee and staff opinion surveys are some of the assessment tools that the Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce and OKCBusiness Magazine use to gauge the list of “Best Places to Work in Oklahoma.” Tate Publishing made it on among the elite, ranking an impressive number two on the list. As a writer, the publishing world fascinates me, and a Christian publisher based out of a town called Mustang seems like an ideal resource for the hard working professionals that keep the intellectual oil of Oklahoma pumping. Tate Publishing has a staff of only one hundred people, but operates as a main-line publisher of book products, audio books, and music. Every year they select only 5% of the thousands of manuscripts that are submitted for publishing. Moreover, Tate gives back to the state by generating interest, revenue, and professional prestige, not to mention the jobs that they create that often attract the best and the brightest graduates of local schools. Keeping with the traditions that they hold dear, the company regularly contributes to the community by sponsoring non-profit groups and assorted philanthropy projects year round.

Rita Tate thought that she would become a lawyer when she was in high-school. After graduating college with a degree in Speech and Communications she became a speaker and a writer, eventually publishing a book with her husband, Richard Tate. That experience pedaling their pages sparked the Tate’s interest in the publishing industry, and from that tiny flicker a company was born. Seven years later, Rita Tate can regard the company that she helped to create with quiet pride. “As I face retirement I look back and discover that every job, every challenge, every relationship impacted the choices I made to help establish this company. I am doing exactly what to do, and the best part is, I’m doing it with my family at my side,” she says.

There is a quote in The Grapes of Wrath: “The migrant people, scuttling for work, scrabbling to live, looked always for pleasure, dug for pleasure, manufactured pleasure, and they were hungry for amusement.” These words, and the plot of the book as a whole, deal with the way that Oklahomans, and Americans in general, have struggled and will continue to struggle to varying degrees throughout the course of history. Yet, no matter how tough times are, we always need diversion. A company like Tate Publishing exemplifies the union between a toiling mentality with the enjoyment of books. But that’s not to say that the universality of what they produced can’t be traced back to the trials and tribulations of their great state.

“The state shaped my outlook on work because Oklahomans are made of tough stock, [with] a deep, strong work ethic. We possess something intangible, yet so evident: true grit,” says Rita Tate, who is also a native of Oklahoma. “Maybe it is the natural disasters, the tornadoes, the Dust Bowl, the Murrah bombing, those experiences that made headlines across the country when “the Oklahoma standard” became a measuring stick for the rest of the nation on how to handle life’s greatest challenges.”

Although I’ve only been here for a little under a week I can say that Oklahoma’s main export isn’t cowboy boots, or styrofoam, or even rabid football fans, it’s thick-skinned, assiduous stock who might lack some of the glossy ambition of city folk, but more than make up for it with their ability to buckle down and persevere.

AinsleyDrew at gmail dot calm. Thank you to everyone who donates!

Hire us.

Recognition is the meat and potatoes of my life, in part because I’m still attempting to label my eating disorder “veganism,” and in part because I can’t afford actual meat or potatoes.

I love getting email as a result of this blog, especially if it’s praise or creepy fan letters that make me lock my doors twice. Even the hate mail is welcome, ‘cause it means that somebody’s reading. That said, often when I click over to whatever hyperlinked site is below the email signature I find myself less swelling with pride and more seething with envy.

Don’t get me wrong, it makes me happy that people who have homes, children, iPhones, cars, and advanced degrees in various subjects read my missives. I’d probably delete myself if the comments on this site even vaguely resembled those below the average YouTube clip.

But I want in to your exclusive club of responsible adults with savings accounts. Please. It’s become Ainsley’s Number One Whining Topic, subverting both Why Is Portland So Goddamn Flakey and Boyfriend’s Excessive Use Of Gadgets In Bed (not in the fun way, we’re talking about a SidekickID and an iPod Touch, not a Rabbit or a Hitachi Magic Wand, unfortunately.)

I am afraid that I will be living hand-to-mouth forever, constantly worrying myself to the point of an ulcer, soliciting work and stalking clients until I have a complete mental breakdown. It is terrifying to think that I might never be able to start a family simply because I won’t be able to afford one. When I discuss these coming-of-age concerns with my parents their solution is…

“Why don’t you get a book deal?”

This is often peppered with comparisons to David Sedaris and Rachel Ray, both of which make me kind of long for tubal ligation or to eat my face off, respectively.

I can’t imagine the sort of pitch I could propose in line at Starbucks or in the conference room of a publishing house.

“Uh, hey. I’d like to write a book about looking for work as a writer and how hard it is to actually get work as a writer but about how it’s, like, living the dream?”

Hum of radiator. Slight cough from the one with the visible pantyline from the back end of her skirt-suit. My editor furtively doing blow off of the binding of the most recent James Patterson release.

“Uh. I mean. It’s, like, a love story. A lesbian alcoholic moves across the country to be with the love of her life, who happens to be a man. A DJ. Who writes stories about children in peril.”

Pause.

“There, on the West Coast, she loses everything, goes sober, and decides to try fulfill dream of being a professional writer while trying to make her first dick-‘n-vag relationship work. The two of them start a company, they struggle. And their clients are, like, stoner skateboarders, musicians with OCD, skeevy men, and tech geeks who make pottery. Oh, and there‘s a lot of sex, some of it kinky. And some violence. Like, bike crashes and falling off of skateboards.”

By now the suits are simply riveted.

“Do they live happily ever after?” They ask. My editor is texting an escort service.

“That depends. Does she get the book deal?”

In truth, breaking into publishing is very much like what I imagine becoming an actor is like: a heady concoction of success brewed from equal parts luck and who you know, garnished by blow-jobs. I have no idea what it entails, really.

But I do believe that to wind up with your words in actual books — which is to say, to triumph in a dying medium — you need one thing that’s a little bit more important than your idea or a decent editor who believes in you. You have to be completely dumb.

Again, this is not an insider’s view, it’s wholly speculative, merely an opinion based on these gems I’ve seen recently at a local and nameless bookstore that resembles a coffeeshop (or is it vice-versa?)

First, there is this.

Then this.

And, lastly, this.

And these are just three of the precious print prizes that you, yes you, can spend your money on.

Me? My book? Confessions of a Writer for Hire would maybe have a slightly less conventionally attractive cover (I’m five feet tall, covered in tattoos, and have a hair cut that is a somewhat awkward mix of mid 90s Ani DiFranco and mid 80s Samhain) but it would be a hell of a lot more interesting. Though I have to be honest, I’ve got nothing that even comes close to doing the lindy with your cats.

Of course, a book deal would be great, but to be paid to blog, to me, would almost be better. After all, this gives me instant gratification and it‘s self-sustainable. I would be able to write as much as I’d like and send it out into the world instantaneously…and get paid for it. Basically it would be a more focused equivalent of what I’m doing here already, only instead of your gracious and unbelievable donations I’d be making a living off of some Perry White type.

I’ve even thought of opening it up to you, the readers, and saying that for a fee I’d write a post all about you…or whatever you wanted me to write about, may it be the best way to eat a grapefruit, Al Green, car parts, your mother in law, whatever. Just be a literal writer for hire.

As for now I’ll just continue to hope for That Big Break where I get an email begging me to write a book for a ludicrous amount of money or to blog for a weekly paycheck. As for steamy bath time erotica? I only have a shower and a fairly significant fear of drowning.

Hate mail, love letters, and stalkers can be sent to AinsleyDrew at gmail.

140 Characters Per Minute.

Live To Work