Natalie Burg's Blog, page 5
May 29, 2014
Sometimes it just works out
A friend of mine gave me a really lovely plant about a year ago. Unlike many plants I've owned, I watered it, and it didn't die. Quite the opposite. It grew. I didn't realize quite how much until I was moving into a new location recently, and one big, long branch of the plant, which had grown against the window, broke right off when I pulled it away from its support. Half the plant was gone. The flowering half.
Dammit. Even the plants I think I'm not killing, I end up killing. I was about to throw the branch away when I thought, "What can it hurt to stick the stump of this branch into the dirt?"
Dammit. Even the plants I think I'm not killing, I end up killing. I was about to throw the branch away when I thought, "What can it hurt to stick the stump of this branch into the dirt?"
May 19, 2014
Resetting my alarms to “play”
Like many dogs, Lois has a few internal alarm clocks. Unlike most dogs, none of Lois's have anything to do with food. Lois is entirely driven by people and play.
May 9, 2014
The upside of always on
People love to hate connectivity. Crabbing about our "always on" culture is so commonplace, people even do it from their mobile phones. On social media.
This makes my skin crawl. As a freelance writer whose livelihood is only possible by being always on and the technology that allows it, it irks me personally, but there's a larger reason why the complaint is wrongheaded.
Sure, having to answer an email on vacation or during dinner is annoying. It's a small problem, and people do go overboard sometimes. But isn't not being able to make dinner because you can't leave the office worse? Or having to leave a vacation early to deal with a disaster?
Today, I am in Rockledge, Florida living out the evidence of why the ability to be always on gives me the ability to have a richer life. Doing what I do, it's possible to decrease my work dramatically for a week, but it's pretty much impossible to stop it altogether, unless I want to take a serious hit to my income. But here I am, able to spend a week with my grandmother, mom, aunt, uncle, sister, cousins and brand new nephew because I can work wherever I go.
Last night, I wrote a story at my aunt's house. Today, I did an interview at Downtown Disney. Then I spent the rest of of the day enjoying my loved ones. I sent some emails from the car. Tomorrow I'll work for about half the day and then snuggle with my nephew for the rest of the weekend.
If this is always on, I don't ever want to be off.
This makes my skin crawl. As a freelance writer whose livelihood is only possible by being always on and the technology that allows it, it irks me personally, but there's a larger reason why the complaint is wrongheaded.
Sure, having to answer an email on vacation or during dinner is annoying. It's a small problem, and people do go overboard sometimes. But isn't not being able to make dinner because you can't leave the office worse? Or having to leave a vacation early to deal with a disaster?
Today, I am in Rockledge, Florida living out the evidence of why the ability to be always on gives me the ability to have a richer life. Doing what I do, it's possible to decrease my work dramatically for a week, but it's pretty much impossible to stop it altogether, unless I want to take a serious hit to my income. But here I am, able to spend a week with my grandmother, mom, aunt, uncle, sister, cousins and brand new nephew because I can work wherever I go.
Last night, I wrote a story at my aunt's house. Today, I did an interview at Downtown Disney. Then I spent the rest of of the day enjoying my loved ones. I sent some emails from the car. Tomorrow I'll work for about half the day and then snuggle with my nephew for the rest of the weekend.
If this is always on, I don't ever want to be off.
May 6, 2014
What’s inspiring me right now
Inspiration is everywhere this week. Here's where I've found it.
Aldi flowers. A person with fresh cut flowers on display in her home at all times is something so far removed from something I aspired to be that I'd hardly put a single thought into it before. Fresh flowers are expensive, and also die, making their existence seem rather inexcusable in my book. Then, on a whim one day, I examined the flowers at the Aldi checkout line, and they were $3.99. Not $20. $3.99. So I bought some. And I have continued to buy them every time I go, so now I have officially become a person with fresh cut flowers on display in her home at all times, and GUESS WHAT? It's a goddam delight.
Aldi flowers. A person with fresh cut flowers on display in her home at all times is something so far removed from something I aspired to be that I'd hardly put a single thought into it before. Fresh flowers are expensive, and also die, making their existence seem rather inexcusable in my book. Then, on a whim one day, I examined the flowers at the Aldi checkout line, and they were $3.99. Not $20. $3.99. So I bought some. And I have continued to buy them every time I go, so now I have officially become a person with fresh cut flowers on display in her home at all times, and GUESS WHAT? It's a goddam delight.
May 2, 2014
Battling the Robots
Robots have been driving me nuts recently. Two specific kinds of robots, actually.
First, there's the kind all journalists know about: the human PR robot who refuses to answer the question you just asked them. Sometimes this is fine. Even if their language is painfully robotic, you really just need them to say something, and you can fill in the narrative around their quotes. Other times, particularly when you're trying to report on something in depth that asks "how" or "why" something happened, it ruins the entire interview. If you ask a question that should be answered beginning something like, "Well, this one day, Tom said to Mary, 'I've got a great idea!' And the first thing they did was..." and instead the answer begins, "As a company Big Brand has always been committed to supporting great ideas..." that is not anything. It's robot sludge. It's definitely not a story.
First, there's the kind all journalists know about: the human PR robot who refuses to answer the question you just asked them. Sometimes this is fine. Even if their language is painfully robotic, you really just need them to say something, and you can fill in the narrative around their quotes. Other times, particularly when you're trying to report on something in depth that asks "how" or "why" something happened, it ruins the entire interview. If you ask a question that should be answered beginning something like, "Well, this one day, Tom said to Mary, 'I've got a great idea!' And the first thing they did was..." and instead the answer begins, "As a company Big Brand has always been committed to supporting great ideas..." that is not anything. It's robot sludge. It's definitely not a story.
April 30, 2014
Freelancer Fears: Money talk
Talking about money is the wooooooooooorst. Even as freelance writer who must measure absolutely everything I do by how much it pays if I want to eat and sleep inside, it kills me to broach the subject of pay. I'm not alone on this. For whatever reason, most Americans not only don't talk about their finances, they'd prefer to discuss politics, religion or death over money. Multiply that Americanism by being Midwestern, and talking about payment with publishers is practically paralyzing for me.
My professional money talk anxiety began decade ago (a decade ago!), when I wrote a weekly bar review column for a local paper in Lansing. Every week, I went to a bar, wrote my little thingy, and I'd get a $60 check in the mail. One week, it didn't come. I decided to wait and see if it was late. When my next check came on schedule, followed by the next -- with no mention of the missing funds -- I panicked. I was 22, living paycheck to paycheck. I really needed that $60. How could I ask for it? What if they just thought that bar review was super bad and decided not to pay me for it? What if the error was on my end and now it was too late to fix? What if my editor thought I was stingy for making a thing over $60 and then hated me and stopped giving me work and my dream of writing for a living was dashed? Over $60?!
My professional money talk anxiety began decade ago (a decade ago!), when I wrote a weekly bar review column for a local paper in Lansing. Every week, I went to a bar, wrote my little thingy, and I'd get a $60 check in the mail. One week, it didn't come. I decided to wait and see if it was late. When my next check came on schedule, followed by the next -- with no mention of the missing funds -- I panicked. I was 22, living paycheck to paycheck. I really needed that $60. How could I ask for it? What if they just thought that bar review was super bad and decided not to pay me for it? What if the error was on my end and now it was too late to fix? What if my editor thought I was stingy for making a thing over $60 and then hated me and stopped giving me work and my dream of writing for a living was dashed? Over $60?!
April 25, 2014
The joy of amateurism
You know what I love? Doing things I'm only OK at doing. Below average even. It's really the best.
If you're the sort of person who likes to be the absolute best at what you do, which is often a trademark quality in freelancers and entrepreneurs of all kinds, you know the incremental improvement game: hours and hours and hours of every day are spent focused polishing, refining, developing, researching and practicing the same skill/product/business you've been polishing, refining, developing, researching and practicing for the past bazillion days. It's exhausting. Of course it's rewarding and fulfilling and all that too, but today, we're acknowledging that it's exhausting too. Come on, A-typers, you can admit it.
If you're the sort of person who likes to be the absolute best at what you do, which is often a trademark quality in freelancers and entrepreneurs of all kinds, you know the incremental improvement game: hours and hours and hours of every day are spent focused polishing, refining, developing, researching and practicing the same skill/product/business you've been polishing, refining, developing, researching and practicing for the past bazillion days. It's exhausting. Of course it's rewarding and fulfilling and all that too, but today, we're acknowledging that it's exhausting too. Come on, A-typers, you can admit it.
April 22, 2014
Everything, every day
To-do list anxiety. A lot of professionals deal with it, but for the self-employed, it's a particular challenge. Between all of the things that need to be done for clients and all of the things that are important to do to promote oneself and all of things to do to keep long-term, unpaid creative projects moving forward, prioritization can be...what's the word I'm looking for?...a complete %@*^ing nightmare.
I like consistency. I like daily consistency. While client work always gets first billing (because that's the only way I get to do any billing), it is important to me to tweet, keep up with my online content sources, blog (ahem), work on my own writing, stay on top of my email and read a book every single day. And because I pretend I believe in balance, I tend to believe working out, walking the dog, trying a new recipe and a nominal amount of housework should also be daily activities.
Obviously, I don't do all of these things every day. I just intend to, and then feel like a failure when I don't.
I like consistency. I like daily consistency. While client work always gets first billing (because that's the only way I get to do any billing), it is important to me to tweet, keep up with my online content sources, blog (ahem), work on my own writing, stay on top of my email and read a book every single day. And because I pretend I believe in balance, I tend to believe working out, walking the dog, trying a new recipe and a nominal amount of housework should also be daily activities.
Obviously, I don't do all of these things every day. I just intend to, and then feel like a failure when I don't.
April 17, 2014
Why The Maya Rudolph Show Matters
Every Wednesday, three self-employed friends and I get together for co-working. We're all successful, entrepreneurial women, so feminism and women's roles in various industries is a common thread in our conversations. Okay, I'll be honest, that's a common thread in all conversations I have with all people. But anyway, I had ensconced myself in my friend's living room to do an interview while the rest of them were working away in the kitchen when I saw, mid-interview, an email pop up in my inbox from a co-co-worker in the other room with the subject line, "Non-dude show host."
April 3, 2014
An exercise in perspective
It's not often that I write here about a story I've written elsewhere. It's also not often I write a story that alters one of my fundamental beliefs. And thus, I must share. Mostly because it's reminded me how important it is, as a person and a writer, to view the world in all its dimensions, rather than categorize things and people as "good" or "bad."
I was recently assigned a story about a city that has no traditional downtown, but is working to make its commercial area more walkable, urban and appealing to residents. As a development nerd, I've long believed downtowns are good and sprawl is bad. I've scorned cities that are just miles of big box stores and parking lots, believing they should receive no help from government, big ideas from planners or love from people. They are the bad places, and downtowns are the good. Southgate, by this definition, was one of the bad places.
I was recently assigned a story about a city that has no traditional downtown, but is working to make its commercial area more walkable, urban and appealing to residents. As a development nerd, I've long believed downtowns are good and sprawl is bad. I've scorned cities that are just miles of big box stores and parking lots, believing they should receive no help from government, big ideas from planners or love from people. They are the bad places, and downtowns are the good. Southgate, by this definition, was one of the bad places.
