climbing praise

Yesterday at Stoneworks I was about to try a new route when I spotted a little girl -- all of six years old -- across the wall toward me. I stepped back to let her pass, but quickly found myself coaching her along her traverse. Her mother stood nearby, supervising her younger son.

I pointed out a few foot- and handholds that would help the girl cross, and suggested different approaches she might try. I spotted her when she got scared. When she fell off the wall, she went right back to the beginning and started again -- she was determined to do the route all the way through.

During her daughter's third pass, the mother stepped up next to me.

"Are you an instructor here?"

I laughed. "No, not even close."

The woman looked at me and smiled. "Why not? You should be."

I felt my face flush red. I explained that I'm really not all that advanced when it comes to rock climbing. I just knew enough to help her daughter, and didn't want her to give up.

The mother leaned closer to me, out of earshot of her kids. "You don't have to be all that advanced to instruct children. You should teach."

deadlines

At last night's Digital Journalism social, I was talking to Michelle Rafter about writing habits and deadlines. She mentioned that her time as a newspaper reporter was probably the best training she'd gotten as a writer.

"Because every day at 4:30, you had to have something to show for yourself," she explained.

The staff room kept her on deadline and boosted her productivity in ways she hadn't previously thought possible.

One of the biggest pitfalls I've run into as a freelancer -- sorry, entrepreneurial journalist -- is the tendency to overwork my projects. Yes, I still have deadlines for assigned pieces, but it's not the same as working in a newsroom. A staff reporter might be assigned a story and have just a few days or mere hours to turn it around, where I generally have weeks -- sometimes months -- to complete the assignment. And when I'm writing on-spec essays or am working on queries, I can end up tweaking and rewriting the thing to death, trying to capture every nuance, craft witty phrases and generally make the thing perfect.

I've tried setting daily quotas for myself -- of sending out X number of queries, or drafting/completing Y number of essays. Those goals always inspire enthusiasm and help keep me on track with great productivity, for about a day-and-a-half. Then it invariably falls apart again. I can be quite self-disciplined, but I still need external structure and accountability to support these good habits.

I've tried working with "goals groups" and writers' clutches in the past to set measurable goals and to establish accountability, but for that to work, everyone needs to be committed, and there have to be consequences for missing deadlines -- even if it's just disappointment in the eyes of your peers.

This is another area where I'm hoping the "media incubator" will help. By creating a newsroom-like workspace for independent journalists and content creators, there will be other people around me to say, "Hey, Jen, how's that piece coming?" or to goad me to "Send it now," rather than spending another hour obsessing over punctuation and gerunds.

Regardless of your years in the business, every independent writer can use this kind of kick in the pants.

trying new things

We're increasingly averse to trying new things as we age. I could look up some statistics or other material to cite here, but that doesn't change the fact that I've seen this in my own life. Whether it's a fear of broken bones, not being in control or looking like an idiot -- or perhaps it's just plain old inertia -- there's an entrenchment that happens as we get older.

We get tired. We don't have the energy and enthusiasm we had when we were teenagers. We're more worldly and more realistic -- and we've been disappointed, even betrayed. It's easier -- safer -- to stop pushing boundaries.

I happen to believe this shift in attitude away from adventure is part of what ages us -- because there is a difference between growing older and growing old.

But I don't want to sit on the sidelines of my life.

So I have a new hockey helmet -- a good, multi-hit one for snowboarding, biking and maybe even some street hockey. I do feel kind of silly -- forty years old and wobbling on my rollerblades at the skating rink, surrounded by grade schoolers who can skate better backward than I can forward.

And I started taking Hebrew lessons last night. I wasn't raised Jewish. I never to Hebrew school or studied for my bat mitzvah. This is truly a foreign language to me, complete with an entirely different alphabet, not to mention getting used to reading right-to-left. (Studying Middle Egyptian hieroglyphs a few years back probably helped, though.)

I could have assumed that it's too late for me to pick up a new language, but I want to have a better understanding of what's happening at the synagogue. I want to at least be able to attempt to read the Torah in Hebrew.

My temple has a beginning Hebrew class for adults -- thank goodness -- and we spent an hour or so last night learning new letters and vowels, beginning to string simple syllables together. Yes, there were moments of complete brain freeze, where the letters you could read and pronounce on the last page suddenly look like gibberish in the next exercise. But what amazed me was how few instances of brain freeze there were -- for all of us -- and how short-lived they were. We ended up covering two lessons in a single hour.

I'm not sure we'll be able to maintain such a brisk pace moving forward. We could all come down with spontaneous Hebrew amnesia next week. But I was encouraged by my own aptitude and mental elasticity. Learning used to come so easily, but it's been years since I was last in a classroom. I assumed it would be harder for me to learn now, "at my age."

Continuing to try new things -- mental and intellectual challenges, physical activities, travel to new places, etc. -- is a big part of what keeps us young. I may not be 17 or 23 or even 30 anymore, but I'll keep taking Hebrew classes, and I'll keep rollerblading and meditating and reading, etc. I'll keep trying something new every year, every month, maybe even every day -- and not just because the alternative is sitting on the sidelines. I don't want to waste my time.

freelance writer vs. entrepreneurial journalist

At last weekend's We Make the Media conference, business writer Michelle Rafter said she preferred the term "entrepreneurial journalist" to "freelance writer," and within a short space of time, nearly all the other freelancers I encountered at the conference (including yours truly) had adopted the new description as well.

According to Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, the definition of journalist is "a writer or editor for a news medium" -- with "news medium" including traditional publications like magazines and newspapers as well as electronic media like television, podcasts and websites.

Previously, I'd be hesitant to adopt the professional title of journalist. I did not study journalism in school -- undergrad or graduate. Instead, I studied religion. (Yeah, I know; real practical.) I've not been on staff for a regular newspaper, but have written regularly as a freelancer for a number of newspapers, magazines and trades. I've earned local, regional, national and even international by-lines.

But I always called myself a freelancer, simply because I wasn't on staff -- though freelancers do the same (and often more*) work than staff writers/journalists -- and I've patiently dealt with the blank expressions and questions from interview sources and folks at cocktail parties who honestly didn't know what a "freelance writer" was.

(* Staff journalists have traditionally, but not always, had access to in-house resources that freelancers don't -- like researchers, transcriptionists and fixers -- though with many publications tightening their belts to survive the economic downturn, I imagine staff writers are increasingly doing more grunt work, too.)

I like Michelle's suggestion of "entrepreneurial journalist." It captures the essence of what I and my fellow freelance writers do for a living, using vocabulary that's more immediately understood by non-media folks. I may start off calling myself a freelance or independent journalist -- very often, the last thing I feel like is an entrepreneur, though in the end, that's precisely what all freelancers are, regardless of industry.

It took a simple suggestion from a fellow professional for me to acknowledge that I can call myself a journalist without fear that I'm putting on airs.

Thanks, Michelle!

A News/Media Incubator

At last weekend's We Make the Media conference, some of us started floating the idea of a journalism-specific co-working space -- via our Twitter back channel while our breakout group was meeting. In short order, this idea evolved into a "media incubator" concept that now has its own post-conference work group, and has quite a few of us excited about what might be coming next.

What the incubator might include:

• Regular opportunities for independent writers and media contributors to socialize and network face-to-face.
  
• Sharing resources, whether that's a copy of an AP Stylebook or Wordpress coding skills.
  
• Shared workspace for freelancers and "entrepreneurial journalists" who normally work alone.
  

I love this idea. Here are some of my self-interested reasons for wanting such an incubator (particular the co-working space):

• Working alone from a home office is isolating. I miss the camaraderie of a creative office.
  
• Being surrounded by others driven by deadlines inspires me to be more productive with my own time.
  
• I have skills, resources and ideas that I can't always immediately apply to my own work. I'd love to be able to share these with others, and to be on the receiving end of others' leads and skill sets.
  
• Brainstorming with others -- from a variety of backgrounds -- can produce amazing results.
  
• I like being a cheerleader for my colleagues, and can benefit from similar encouragement and support.
  

One of the speakers from our conference later wrote that while there was a great deal of enthusiasm from the folks proposing to help make the incubator a reality, he thought that our trying to organize ourselves toward such an end might be similar to herding cats.

Honestly, I have seen quite a few good ideas fail. Some don't even get off the ground. The passion is there at the outset, but it can fizzle out, get sublimated into another project, or simply be forgotten as soon as the next big idea comes along.

But this isn't the fate of ever good idea. Sure, it's difficult to launch a brand new brainstorming initiative the week of Thanksgiving, but I'm hopeful for our incubator. I can envision this project later become something akin to a working journalism/media think tank, a locus for both action and ideas.

We've got a lot of work ahead of us, and the incubator -- once it gets off the ground -- could likely take on a life of its own and become something completely different from what we'd originally envisioned.

Either way, I'm looking forward to getting started.

We Make the Media conference

Yesterday, approximately 130 journalists and media professionals gathered in downtown Portland to discuss the current, declining state of the media -- and what we intend to do about it.

I have to say I was excited about the conference. I wanted to be part of a grassroots movement to revitalize and re-envision media moving forward.

But then I sat down in the front row and found myself being lectured to by a handful of graying -- but well-meaning -- seasoned newspapermen.

I'd brought my laptop, but hadn't yet been granted Wifi access, so the only in input I had for the first couple of hours was from those holding microphones. It was pretty disheartening.

As the focus was spiraling around non-profit investigative reporting, I had to sit on my hands listening to traditional newspapermen going on about "Don't count out commercial journalism." At least one of those guys was the same top-dog who eliminated the jobs of many of my fellow writers and editors, and then systematically froze-out freelancers -- sorry, "entrepreneurial journalists" -- like myself. Sure, times are tough and papers and media outlets are being forced to trim down and streamline, but I've not seen too many instances of local/community papers doing much to try to preserve and support the very communities that keep them in business.

The for-profit model doesn't guarantee that writers and other content producers are earning close to a living wage -- but it can mean that advertisers are crafting headlines.

Once I got online and dove head-first into the Twitter stream, I discovered an entirely different side to the conference that was thriving and snarking right under the organizers' noses. The online discussion was very different from what was happening at the podium. Even in our break-out sessions -- I was in one about smaller, online networking groups -- the ideas and comments floated in Twitter were often better, more focused and more forward-thinking than what was happening "verbally."

(Which begs the questions, Are we more open and ingenious when we're typing on our computers than we are talking face-to-face? Why is that? Does the barrier -- or the seeming intimacy -- of the keyboard and screen allow us to be more honest and courageous in our assessments and ideas? Or, as journalists, are we really that much better expressing ourselves through the written/digital word than we are with our mouths? But that's another discussion.)

Another conference attendee offered the idea of having the Twitter stream projected on a wall -- in real time -- during the conference. I like this idea for future gatherings. In the afternoon, as I sat in the back of the room -- near the electrical outlets, but also surrounded by other Tweeters and snark machines -- I began to wonder if the older white men at the front of the room even had any interest in what the digitally-connected and -communicating crowd had to say.

Traditional print media needs to think beyond just adding an online component in order to satisfy the throngs who increasingly get their news and information in digital format. Ron Buel himself cited the statistics indicating that print-and-ink readers are dying off. Not everyone's connected, to be sure -- there still is a digital divide between the haves and the have-nots of the internet-- but perhaps it's time to turn the paradigm on its head: An occasional print paper as a hard-copy afterthought for a digitally driven channel?

Not too long ago, I took a look at where I get my own information. I'd been spending the majority of my time pitching stories to newspapers and magazines, when I myself am more likely to turn to websites and books. So I'm switching focus. I do still read newspapers and magazines, but it might not be a bad idea to pitch those markets more proportionally to my own reading/consuming habits.

There was a huge, and surprising, "digital divide" between the front and the back of the room at yesterday's "We Make the Media" conference, but it's reflective of the struggle that continues to rage in early 21st century journalism: Should we try to save ink-and-paper newspapers and magazines in order to preserve tradition and honor what has worked for many years, or should we acknowledge what hasn't worked in traditional media and embrace the opportunities and challenges of emerging and evolving technologies in order to reach and serve an increasingly digital-based population?

There are many subtopics for exploration and discussion here: technological access, content ownership, privacy, revenue models, fact-checking and accuracy, citizen journalism, bias and objectivity, slow vs. fast journalism, ethics, cultural differences and sensitivity -- and more. Only a small fraction of these hurdles and sticking points were even mentioned in our day-long conference, much less discussed.

But the day as a whole, I believe, was a success. We came together as professionals interested not only in creating content, but in helping to craft and guide how that content is delivered. I'd like to think we showed up because we're proactive and optimistic, and because we honestly give a damn about what's happening (and not happening) in the media today.

I'm most looking forward to working on one of the conference's take-aways: the formation of a media/journalism incubator, both as an outlet for social connections and as a physical and non-physical co-working space for sharing ideas and skills, and to encourage and support one another and our larger profession.

I can report that working solo as an entrepreneurial journalist can often be a lonely exercise. Apart from interviewing sources and working out details with editors, many of us are isolated in our one-person home offices.

Just sitting in the "Twitter corner" at the conference yesterday, I felt bolstered in my own Tweeting. I gave voice to ideas and opinions that I otherwise might have kept to myself, too shy to share. That reticence -- whether stemming from fear, isolation or other factors entirely -- has been my biggest hurdle as a professional communicator. If just a couple of hours in a conference room surrounded by my professional peers had such an effect on me -- I mean, look at what I'm writing here, now -- I have high hopes for the profound impact of a journalism-specific co-working space.

So, that's my report. I'm looking forward to nurturing the contacts I made yesterday, and to growing this network into something ongoing and truly productive.

(Although, I still think I may be the last journalist on the planet without a smartphone.)

life in a box

While we all seem to be dealing with varying levels of disappointment and stress these days, I spent some time last night thinking about the restrictions I’ve been feeling, and how my life today compares to other times in my life.

And I realized that I’ve been living in a box.

Some boxes offer structure and healthy boundaries that make day-to-day living easier and more pleasant — working within the confines of your job description or the scope of your project, knowing where and when to show up, understanding what foods are good and not so good for you, knowing what activities you enjoy and which ones you don’t, having everyone on the road (more or less) follow the same rules of driving.

But other boxes are not so comfortable. They can stifle and even do harm.

I was raised to never draw attention to myself. Don’t cause a scene. Don’t embarrass myself or anyone around me. Even if I’m in pain, even if (sometimes especially if) another person is causing me harm, don’t cry out. Under no circumstances make anyone feel uncomfortable.

Yeah, those are some crappy rules, and they meant that I kept quiet about some really awful situations in my life.

After a year or two away from home at college, my sister made the comment that I seemed “louder.” She qualified this by saying it wasn’t bad, simply that I was funnier and less afraid to make noise or voice an opinion. And she was right. I’d stepped out of the box I’d been in.

Later, I stepped back into and again out of even more not-so-helpful boxes. For several years before I left Virginia, I was living happily in my own space — without worry of disturbing roommates or immediate neighbors (I was in a detached home with no shared walls or floors/ceilings). I played music as loud or as soft as I liked and didn’t cringe when the dogs barked. I dressed the way I wanted both at work and in my home office. I was opinionated and wrote letters to my representatives and went to vigils. I even danced on MTV. I still felt confined by my history in the area, as I was living in my hometown — home to some of the boxes I’d lived in previously. In an effort to step beyond those last restrictions, I packed up and moved cross-country to Oregon.

And inadvertently landed squarely inside another box.

Five years on, I realize I’m not well suited to close-community living — at least, not this particular community. I’m in a condo, with neighbors sharing walls on either side of me, situated on property where sound carries dramatically across lawns and water. Even inside my own space, I creep around, not wanting to disturb anyone. I’ve caught myself worrying over turning on the television or hammering a nail into the wall. So much noise. I play by the community regulations of parking, gardening, recycling, and more, even though not so many others here do. And I’ve been trying to figure out the rules and status quo of a new city, a new region and new writing and networking markets.

But it didn’t occur to me until yesterday how I’d put myself in this box. It was shocking to recognize how timid I’d become, when I finally took a few minutes to look it in the face.

Old habits — playing by the rules at all costs, being as quiet as a mouse, not demanding attention even when that’s precisely what’s necessary (think marketing) — die hard. But die they must. So yesterday, I turned up the volume on my stereo, drove a few nails into a common wall, ran the vacuum cleaner with the windows open and tromped up and down the stairs a lot.

No one complained. I doubt anyone even noticed.

Even harmful boxes can offer the comfort of the familiar. It can be frightening to step outside those restrictive boundaries, especially in dicey economic times — when everyone else is scrambling just to hang on. But sometimes it is precisely these moments of uncertainty and instability that offer the best opportunities to make the leap and try something different.

I’m not playing the part of the phoenix just now — at least, I’m not planning to. I’m not contemplating huge, sweeping changes that will make my life yesterday completely unrecognizable tomorrow. But I am returning to what I know is healthy and nurturing for me — like morning meditation before I do anything else — as I also try new approaches in my daily life.

As if in support of my somewhat shy resolve as I get back to building from basics this morning, the weather has offered me my favorite kind of day — cool, with a light mist of invigorating rain. It’s both calming and wide-open. This is precisely the kind of relaxed inspiration that drew me to Oregon in the first place.

adventures in spinsterhood

Today I was asked if I had ever been married. When I replied that I haven’t, the next question was, “How the hell did that happen?”

That’s a question I’ve been asked more often than you’d think.

The simple answer is that it’s taken me a very long time to find the right person. I’d like to think I’m with that right person now, but we’ll see. The not-so-simple answer is longer and considerably more complex — and a great deal more personal in nature than I’m willing to divulge in a blog post right now.

A few weeks before I graduated college, one of my professors asked if I was worried that I was about to leave the “best prospective suitor pool” available to me, when I was still unattached. He pointed out that I was entering a world where I wouldn’t be surrounded daily by people my own age who were also more likely to share my values and sensibilities. I honestly hadn’t thought about it, and so shrugged off the question.

As I approached my 25th birthday, my grandmother sat me down and informed me that I was being inducted into “the Order of St. Catherine’s.” That was a nicer way of letting me know that I was now an old maid. My grandmother had been 25 when she married and felt that she’d really pushed the limits on holding onto singlehood.

When I turned 30 and was still unmarried, my family assumed I had just put my career first, and that I’d be settling down any minute. But that didn’t happen, and suspicions began to percolate.

I was 33 when my younger sister got married, and that raised more than a few eyebrows. When a friend of my stepmother’s learned that I was the “unmarried older sister of the bride,” she cooed “Ooooh, the older sister” in a conspiratorial tone, then smirked at me and said, “I did that to my older sister, too.”

The only thing that bothered me about my younger sister getting married first was that it bothered other people — who then felt they had not only the right but the duty to make what I guess were supposed to be insulting or scandalizing comments.

When I was 38 and was visiting this same grandmother back East, she asked me point blank:

“Do you like boys, or do you like girls?”

My family will be relieved to know that I’m not a lesbian. The fact that such a possibility would have worried anyone troubles me. I wish I lived in a world where sexual orientation was truly more of a non-issue, and where all human beings have a right to get married and love whom they choose. We’re getting there, in small steps.

Now, I’m sliding toward 40. Yes, it’s just a number, but there is a weighty psychological milestone attached to it. I’ll admit to a momentary, whiny panic when I first awoke on my 39th birthday — that I was very likely to be still unmarried and childless when birthday Number 40 rolled around. But it wasn’t worth my energy, and it passed.

Truth be told, I’m looking forward to my 40s, which I envision as a decade of savvy refinement of who I am and my role in this world — a decade of action. My 30s have been involved with necessary exploration, experimentation and healing, and I intend to continue reaping the benefits of this rather arduous work as I move forward.

I’d love to be married. I’d love to have a committed partner with whom to share and enjoy life, and I’ll never know whether I’d be any good at marriage until I give it a try. But I’m not your typical chick, and I’m not a good fit for just anybody. I’ve never been on the receiving end of a marriage proposal, and I’ve no idea if anyone has ever considered making me such an offer. I have a hard time imagining myself getting married just to get married, or because it’s what was expected of me.

So — at least for the time being — I am continuing my adventures in spinsterhood. I have a wonderful man in my life, whom I dearly love, so I’m not sure if I fully qualify as an old maid anymore, even though I remain unmarried. There are pros and cons to being single — just as there are pros and cons to being married, and to pretty much everything in life. I may never have a pat answer to the question of, “Why did you never get married?” And for now, I’m not too worried about it.