Writer's blog

A journalism rant

During the height of the Internet boom years, one company I worked for wanted us to write three to five stories a day, often on emerging companies making software, hardware, or biotech products that took a while to grasp in a business format that required some technical expertise every time. They wanted us to break as much news as possible, profile an emerging private company weekly, do frequent analysis pieces, data on 50 companies to watch, 25 private, 25 public quarterly.

They hired good peope and we did it well enough that we have many imitators out there doing mostly half-baked jobs of it now, but trying to capture that audience. On the other hand, when you write that many news stories every day and you're learning new technology, sometimes arcane, along with needing business information, and you need to do this every 90 minutes or so, you hustle. I told an editor, "I need a shower before I can go anywhere after doing this all day."

He said, "I'm glad somebody sweats on this job."

I actually liked the job. What pleases me is no significant downtime. Keep me busy from the moment I start until the moment I stop. And writing itself pleases me. The subject doesn't really seem to matter.

But it is very hard work to do it professionally. You get into a writing trance that's somewhat right brained, then have to switch to this ultra-left brained copy editor and fact-checker. It always puts me in paroxyms of conflict, because today's journalism often asks you to do things such as write three to five news stories a day on technology/business subjects you're often learning a story at a time, do it in about 90 minutes, with minimal editing and hey, guess what?

It ain't perfect.

For one thing, most writers are copy blind to some extent for a time when editing their own work right after doing it. All too many editors in journalism today seem to want to be story guidance counselors rather than editors, but personally, I need one who actually edits the copy. I'm a good editor when that's all I have to do and it's someone else's copy. I'm a good editor on my work the next day. Sometimes after a few hours. But you all too often continue to see what you think you wrote rather than what you did when you still have the fog of that right-brained trance state in front of your eyes.

But everyone makes typos and out-and-out errors when pushed beyond a certain point. I kept files of the typos editors put in my stories when making "corrections." Not that some didn't need some work. Especially for online stories. I hack my sentences in thirds, now.

I think more of the journalism process should focus on getting a story right rather than getting it fastest. If speed is of the essence, then so is an editor -- one who checks names, links, facts, sentence clarity. My experience suggests he doesn't have to take time to lecture the writer. Pointing out errors and typos will do. Pointing out patterns -- you're always writing its as it's -- something I do for instance, in that right-brained trance that gets the writing done, helps the writer remember to check for those.

Writing ability tends to show despite typos. An audience won't tolerate being misled factually if you do it often, but despite some typos in my work, the people I write about in biotech, IT, the arts and sciences tell me they like my stuff because, in a phrase I've heard several times, "you get it right."

I imagine that sounds like bragging. I hope it isn't. I've gotten it wrong enough to be thoroughly humbled. But I do work hard to get it right, regardless of the story. On the other hand, journalism is a rush job. Even with editors, it's all too often a rough job.

Despite our highest aims, the high and mighty from the New York Times to the Podunk Times print errors spanning the whole range of possiblities daily, online and off, spread over the airwaves, and sometimes perpetuate them in books and articles to follow, sometimes establishing fiction as fact in the public mind.

One of those fictions is that anything like error-free journalism exists when you're selling speed. "News" is self-defining, but it often requires time for refining.

Scribble, scribble, scribble (A Rant)

Bloggers are sure making writing a popular art again, if email hasn't already.

Someone may have already explored this, but writing for an audience makes most people take their writing more seriously. For one thing, especially in this medium, people respond to what you write. You find out if you really miscommunicated or got your facts wrong. You may not give a shit, but you'll find out, sooner or later.

Then again, writing is a process and you learn it by doing it. If you write more, you will probably write better. There are exceptions to this and no shortage of evidence in many published blogs.

My guess is that anyone with writing talent will emerge, though. Writing talent pays off hansomely online. It stands out from the crushingly mediocre crap everywhere online, whether on blogs, commercial sites, ezines, email, group or list comments. It's the most helpful skill to have in meeting new people online. If you write well, people frequently meet you in an environment that casts you in good light. A clean, well-lighted sentence goes a long way online.

I've been writing professionally for 30 years, but I've seen my work improve since I started doing so much of it online. One, because it lets you do so much of it in email, ezines, elists, and IMs, blogs and many another forum, usually getting feedback instantly or in qutie reasonable amounts of time. Even without the access it provides to online workshops, networks, and so many other resources that make the writer's job easier, the Internet provides what a writer needs most: an audience.

Clarion Writer's Workshops

I attended the Clarion science fiction and fantasy workshops in 1974, where I got into a minor embrogglio with Harlan Ellison. See my version of that tale here:
Harlan Ellison, Soul-etcher

You can find links to other work of mine on my marketing page:
AllanMaurer

Now Michigan State University, which hosts the Clarion East workshop, heir of the original founded by Robin Scott Wilson, is once again cutting off University funding for the program.

My guess is that no University in its right mind would even consider doing away with a program as successful as Clarion if it were not focused on genre fiction such as science fiction and fantasy. Even though many of our best writers take up the form and SF & F may suit our technological age better than 19th century realism, it retains the ghetto stigma of its pulp years.

The digest sized-science fiction and fantasy magazines of today, however, are primarily literary magazines full of experiments in style, narration, point-of-view, and the other elements of fiction. You'll find tales told in second person (you) and present tense. You'll find character sketches and poetry -- real poetry, too, not verse masquerading as the real thing.

My guess is the University will work something out to find outside funding, but if not, the workshop very likely won't have that much trouble finding another home. It's one of the most successful of the Midwest writer's workshops, even if the others, such as the famous Iowa Writer's Workshop where Vonnegut taught and John Irving attended, are focused on realism.

Personally, I think it's time for academics and so-called literary critics to come on into the future. Well, I'd be happy if they at least got to the second half of the 20th century. As it is, they're mire in 19th and 19th century notions of what literature is or should be.

Working Online

localtechwire has changed from being a subscription site to one sponsored by advertisers and events. I don't know if it will fly in this incarnation or not.
Writers pay for a news story on any number of professional daily sites has drifted down to $60-$200 or so, with Newsfactor at the low end for a 750-word, three approved sources story on tech, science or business. Not something I can do profitably, although they did give me a shot at it.

I've written for National Journal's tech daily (a subscription site), do two columns weekly for LocalTechwire, although that varies, and breaking news for Triangle Tech Journal Triangle Tech Journal, and CarolinasBest.com CarolinasBest, which offers news, features, and resources for both Carolinas and the southeast in addition to a place where the writers and editors can explore their E-thusiams in a magazine format.

I've been writing primarily for online media since 1999. It suits my lifestyle, since I'm online 16 hours a day or more anyway. But I'd be the first to admit the industry is still trying to find a way to operate profitably.

// posted by Allan Maurer @ 11:03 AM

Will pay sites work on the Web? We're trying to find out with a technology news site covering the Carolinas.
Red Hat and Linux. A vaccine that may cure cancer? A statewide bioinformatics grid? Gossip. Similar to the gone but not forgotten LocalBusiness.com, which bought me a car, three computers, and several shelves worth of books.
Localtechwire

A Writer's Weblog

I've been writing for my supper for 30 years, but the Internet has changed the dynamics of writing for a living.

I'm currently writing online fulltime, but I've been through the gamut of writer's life job choices: teaching and writing, fulltime freelancing, editing and writing, photography and writing and more. My odd jobs look great on a book jacket. This new medium has pumped new life into the writing profession, but one of the unusual aspects of cyberpsychology, is that giving away work is a key to getting work.

It seems wrong to many writers who already have enough trouble with people wanting them to work for free or very near it.

Yet many of today's savvy successful writers are giving away work on the Net.

Bruce Sterling, cyberpunk guru, has been posting work online for years, starting with his Hacker Crackdown, columns from magazines, and manifestos. Sterling, who was a classmate of mine at the 1974 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop taught by SF pros, helped create a few early alleyways in this city of bits we all inhabit now.

You can find his stuff here: Bruce Sterling on the Web

This is a first entry as I set up this blog, and I'll be adding links to Web sites and further comments shortly.