cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back on the Schedule Thank fuck that election is over. For s*so* many reasons. First, the obvious. I was hoping that Obama would win on his own merits. I worked in politics for a long time, have studied economics and foreign policy and the modern history of the presidency and when I say that I think that Obama has done a pretty good job in his first four years, I think I know what I'm talking about. I wouldn't put his face on Rushmore just yet, but he has been a steady hand at the wheel and Romney was just fucking retarded. I had two other reasons for wanting Obama to win, though. First, my twin brother works for the Wh1te H0use. Yup. He takes the train up a few times a week. My brother works for the WH office of Sc13nce and T3chn0logy doing important and high-profile shit. If Obama lost then my brother would be out of a job. Second, I have this big fucking backlog of articles that got held up by the election and the hurricane. The election was sucking up all of the attention. Right now I write mostly for Sl@te dot com and for the W@shingt0n P0st. Both were running so much election coverage that they had their editors for non-political sections working on election related pieces. The articles that both publications had ordered (and the WP company owns both) were holding everything that I wrote for them without running it. These holds were fucking killing me in two different ways. First, I don't get paid until a piece runs. The WP company pays really quickly compared to most publishers, but the clock still doesn't start ticking until the piece runs. The WP company owes me around two thousand dollars and I desperately need the money just to survive. Secondly, this shit is the bread and butter of my ongoing career. I started steering my best material toward the WP and Slate rather than blogging about it a long time ago. And my best material is really good shit. Like the piece that Slate bought about me killing that black b3@r with just a knife, and then butchering it and experimenting with different b3@r recipes for several weeks. That is some fucking A-grade material. And its finally going to run soon. Son long as the election was news, all of that shit was put on hold. And if Romney had of won then it would be another 3 months of wanking about his new cabinet and what they eat for breakfast and whatever. With an Obama win its just business as usual right away and I can get paid again. The goal here is to move up another league. Writing for the W@shingt0n P0st is cool, but doesn't pay quite as well as I need to make a living. I need to move up to the N3w Y0rk T1mes. I am now ONE STEP AWAY. I can do this. The P0st is one step away from writing for the T1mes. And then I can pitch stuff to the N3w Y0rker and shit. The editor of Men's J0urnal emailed me back yesterday and apologized. He still wants me to write for them, but apparently they are still dealing with hurricane S@ndy shit, and don't have power and so forth. We're going to pick up the discussion when they get back on their feet. But I still need to get paid sooner than any of these big magazine things can pay off. I don't have any savings left. That's why I'm applying for jobs. For the first time since 1999 I am applying for jobs. I don't even know how this shit works. But I'm applying to environmental non-profits hoping that someone will pick me up. I would be good for fund-raising, public speaking, writing, teaching, etc. I have broader experience in the field with inv@sive species than anyone else in the world. Surely that must be of use to someone. I've addressed the US Dept. of St@te, I've written 2 books, I'm speaking at Y@le in February. I write for Slate and the WP. Surely this must matter to someone? I've sacrificed so much in order to do what I have done. I've had a serious impact on environmental policy and on grassroots action. There are scads of well-funded programs that haven't accomplished a fraction as much as I have on my own. If I could just get a basic salary and maybe health insurance then I don't think that is asking too much. And my new articles will be running over the next week. The WP piece will run on Tuesday and I'm doing a live chat with readers about it and this should hopefully help to cement me as a new star writer for the Post. And my new pieces for Slate will run soon and will be an even bigger deal, passed around and linked to. Both new pieces in Slate will be controversial and hopefully lead to new opportunities to write for even better-paying publications. Though I'll be happy to keep feeding stuff to the Post for a while if they have the appetite. The frustrating thing is that I could write a new short piece like what I do for Slate almost every week day. I drive an incredible amount of traffic with every piece I write for Slate, and I could be doing this shit 4 or 5 days a week if they would let me. Just give me a column. The readers are there. 8:46 p.m. - 2012-11-08 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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