hmpf

Should I try to get into freelance journalism?

Or make that, should I try to get into freelance journalism *seriously*, now?

Pros:

- I can write really well, when I put my mind to it - and still decently enough when I'm just phoning it in. I got really good feedback from a professional writer (specialising in literary reviews) last term, and will probably get a certificate that will say something good about my writing.
- I do have (some) experience writing for fan media (webzines), and am beginning to get some experience writing professionally (on a very, very, very low level, though.) I'll also get, probably, a lot more experience writing during my next internship.
- Got a chance to impress a fairly important newspaper guy (chief editor of the culture pages of the most important German daily newspaper) this term, and may possibly get a good certificate from him, too.
- I'm constantly around people who do freelance writing at the moment; I may, just possibly, be able to make some useful contacts there.
- It's a... job that works fairly well for a 'patchwork' approach to earning your living. Flexible, etc. If it's just one of three or four things I do...

Cons:

- I'm slow - though not quite as ridiculously slow at writing articles as I am at writing fiction.
- I don't particularly see myself as a journalist; it's not a job I'm particularly interested in (especially not on the level that I would be working on, i.e. mostly writing about boring and inconsequential stuff), just one that I think I could nevertheless do reasonably well.
- I'm not sure how much thought I'm willing to invest in this. If someone gives me a topic to write about, I'll do it - but if I have to pitch my own ideas, I may just be... not interested enough, after all. Dunno.
- So. Scared. Of the idea of freelancing as an even moderately long-term survival strategy.

***

It's so odd talking to my parents, 'specially my mum. She's always kind of helplessly boggled by the complications of my life. Like she thinks it's all kind of... not supposed to be difficult.

I used to think that if I'm ever going to take up learning an instrument it'd be guitar. But lately, I feel myself really drawn to the idea of drumming.

Which, of course, is a rather impractical instrument to take up. Hm.

die Trennregeln der neuen deutschen Rechtschreibung so richtig *fantastisch* gut?

I started reading my flist again yesterday, properly, for the first time in... years, and was glad to find several "2009 in review" posts there - very handy for someone who'd like to catch up with people but can't really spare the time to read dozens or hundreds of posts back on a hundred LJs. dunkle_feuer suggested I do such a post myself, and I suppose it does make sense to make it easier for people to catch up with *me*.

( Read more... )

I will pretend I was on a space mission, in the radio shadow of some planet, for the last two years or so.

Preparing for reentry in three, two...

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-introverts-corner/200911/introversion-and-the-energy-equation

This is interesting, because I've referred to myself, on occasion, as an emotional vampire - and I didn't know that expression was used by other people as well. It's also interesting that the article talks about energy in relation to social interactions, because when I try to explain my problem with social life to people, I often refer to my available level of energy. I usually say I'm a "low energy person" when it comes to social life. ETA: Actually, I'm a low energy person in general, I think. There is - usually - only very little energy available in my psyche for social relations, and that means I can be a good friend to one or two people - maybe three; or I can be a bad friend to more. There is only so much energy to go around.

"Emotional vampire" is a very negative term of course, and the description makes it sound like a choice: emotional vampires "tend to like a big return but don't like making such a big investment" - "like" and "don't like", not "need" and "can't". Emotional vampires are, in other words, (somewhat) deliberately exploiting other people. Maybe - well, okay, *certainly* - this is true for some people. But, speaking for myself, this is definitely *not* something I do because I "like" it. Rather, it's something that happens because I have an unfortunate need for deep connection paired with an extremely low energy level available for social interactions.

The situation is exacerbated by the fact that, I think, the same description also fits rather a lot of the people I care about. Which means that none of us can fulfill the other's needs. We all need more from the other than we can give. A lot of the time; maybe most of the time. When I've seen a friend or two, or written an e-mail or two, or made a phonecall or two, that - usually - means I've exhausted my social energy reservoir for the week. I have seriously considered making a schedule of some sort, spacing out social contacts according to some rota so that everyone I care about gets at least *some* attention from me, if only at long intervals. Of course, social life doesn't really work that way.

ETA 2: Sorry, no replies to comments today; awfully busy day, just needed to ramble about this for a moment because it seemed so a propos.

This is what is going on in my brain... *much* of the time. Far too often. This is what makes me so inefficient and unreliable:

"I want to write fic but it's six a.m. so I need to try to sleep because tomorrow today I have to clean the flat, call prospective employers, take care of my subscription, take care of the TBFC trip, and the trip to Copenhagen, and find out if it's okay to stop over in Hannover and Kiel, and make an appointment with my doctor about how I can't sleep and all this other shit, and my mum wants to go shopping with me on Friday and there's the FS dinner, and that's another day lost for all the things I need to do and oh god I miss R I need to reply to her mail I miss D I need to contact her I miss C I need to contact her I miss N I need to call him I miss A I need to call her I miss K I need to e-mail her and hell I miss (other) A and K and (other) N and (other) R and I'd like to see A again, too, and meet S, and ask (other) S if she's still coming to Frankfurt, and ask M about the pictures and contact F about last month and call my grandparents and my aunt and uncle and make that gift for my cousin's little son and there's that many-years-old half-finished gift for D, too, and god, all the unfinished jewellery, for my mum, for E, for my aunt, for S, and I won't be able to get to any of that in the next three days or so with all the crap I have to do today and my mum wanting to go shopping (and I *need* that sleeping bag, too), and the Greenpeace action and a homework assignment due on Saturday evening, and the radio meeting on Sunday, and then there's the heap of unopened letters on my desk that's been there for weeks, and I haven't written a job application in *weeks*, and there's so much fandom stuff I never get around to, the archive, the recs journal, the fic recs, the websites, the vidding, the vid collecting, the vid organising, and so many people I'm losing touch with, I need to contact so many people but I need to take care of fixing the door of the chest of drawers, too, and take my old laptop to be recycled and my old medications and old batteries to be disposed of, and take care of my financial mess, and find a job, and another job, and an internship, and another internship, and I need to contact 350.org and tell them why I bailed last year, and contact S and tell her why I never contacted her, and do that other homework, and the next one, and buy shoes that don't have holes and that I'm not allergic to, and backup my LJ and shit, I need to contact my job coach but first make that list she told me to make, and I need to find out if I'm entitled to any kind of financial help, too, and I need to find out about that taxes thing, and I think I forgot to pay my dues with the SFCD and the DTG this year and I really need to fix that and contact the DTG people especially, and my bike's still broken, and I need to learn Excel, and work on my Spanish, and my French, and I should make an appointment with the dentist, and reply to E's e-mail and F's e-mail and read at least *some* people's Ljs, especially a few I'm really worried about, but then there's still so much job hunting to do and I haven't done any goldsmithing in months and I need to finish those gifts and get more effective about climate change, and prepare content for the radio show, and do my homework, and do the laundry and the dishes, and.... (repeat ad infinitum)"

JOB APPLICATIONS!
COMPUTER TROUBLE!
GREENPEACE STUFF!

Hey, how cool. All the things that are stressing me out a bit at the moment have exactly the same number of characters (if you count spaces, too ETA: Err, and if you don't count spaces, as well. *sheepish*)

But, yeah. Why is my life always *too full* of stuff to do? Why? WHY???

I'd like to have some time for writing, jewellery making, and friends, please.

When I say that I'm doing what Beavan is doing I don't mean the full No Impact thing with no toilet paper and composting in the kitchen etc. He's not doing *all* of that anymore, either. What I'm doing is, I go as far towards sustainability as I can without making it a full-time job. ;-)

I.e., no car,
no flying,
no electric clothes dryer,
no tv,
no meat (with a very few exceptions - mostly when visiting my parents; but even they try to accomodate my no meat habit most of the time now),
no fish (exception: a Swedish potato dish that I make a couple of times per year, which requires a few anchovies),
using recycled paper,
buying 'green' energy,
generally being conscious of food miles reduction and trash (esp. plastic trash) reduction when grocery shopping,
and most importantly, extreme reduction of all kinds of unnecessary consumption (of goods, resources, energy).

So, no new clothes until old clothes begin to show holes, and when I do need new clothes (I need to get the basics of a 'professional' wardrobe soon), buy them used or at least buy them at Hess Natur. No new mobile phone just because they're cheap, when the old one's still working. And so on. Most of this I've been doing for ages, btw, it's not a fad or a phase. The no flying resolution is fairly new, though - a few years ago I still tried to tell myself that it was okay if I flew to Britain or Spain to see friends because it's the cheapest way and I was a poor student. (Yes, I know, it's a stupid excuse.)

Areas where I still need to improve:

- hygiene products (I don't see myself giving up toilet paper - but of course that's made from recycled paper, anyway, so it's not quite so bad - but I *should* try to find cloth handkerchiefs, I think. And possibly give menstrual cups a try. Sorry if this is TMI. *g*)
- books and cds. I can't live without new music and books, and my tastes are so strange that getting them from a public library is not an option; libraries don't have my kind of stuff. (Plus I have to admit to really liking to *own* books, in particular.) I do try to buy them used, if possible, though.
- computer use. Seriously, it would probably be better for me *and* the environment if I could restrict my computer use to a few hours per day... *g*

on the issue of doing a Ph.D., that the Ph.D. idea I tossed around in the previous entry differs from the kind of Ph.D. I rejected in my previous Ph.D. entry insofar as it - at least theoretically, if I did a good job - would actually address the current crisis, and possibly enable me to confront that crisis more effectively. Whereas a Ph.D. about comics, much as I would love to do it (and I would!), probably wouldn't have much of a chance of improving the world in any currently significant manner.

Speaking of comics - Finder, the comic about which I wrote my thesis, won an Eisner award recently! The Eisners are sort of the Oscars of the comics field. :-) (I'd put a link here but Finder's website seems to be broken at the moment.)