Category: Writingthoughts

By this point, I’ve been doing the Comics, FYI newsletter for close to six months; it’s not something that’s necessarily turned out exactly as I expected, but in ways that have been more rewarding, and in entirely different ways than I’d anticipated.

The origins of the newsletter were somewhat diffuse: I missed writing regularly about comics, and in a relatively self-directed fashion. (At THR, I’d basically had my druthers to pursue what interested me, as long as I could sell my editors on it; Aaron and Erik were particularly good at helping me pare down what was, and wasn’t, interesting in the end.) I’d spent much of 2021 promising myself that I’d start a comics website of my own, only to hold off for the simple reason that, deep down, that wasn’t really something I felt ready for; a newsletter, though, felt like it could be fun, if done right.

Throughout the whole process of thinking about it pre-launch, I kept remembering a conversation I had with my friend Lucy (Hi, Lucy!), wherein she joked that she didn’t really pay attention to comics news and just needed someone to summarize the important things for her every now and then. That was always the North Star, when I was working out what I wanted to do. If I could basically write about what seemed important to me, and explain why in such a fashion that anyone could get it, then I was doing something right.

And, of course, I wanted it to earn money for me. After all, paid newsletters are a thing, now. Surely, if I got enough readers, then I could make money from it, right…?

Spoilers: I’m still not charging for it. By this point, I probably never will. The newsletter has become rewarding in its own right, and my career has picked up elsewhere, so I don’t feel the need to charge for it anymore, per se. Doing so feels almost the opposite of the “information for everyone” mission that the newsletter has evolved, and almost self-indulgent and greedy at this point. Maybe my thinking on that will change again at some point, but for now, the newsletter is my version of comics journalism public service, being curious in public and inviting others to join in.

It’s become a highlight of my week, every week, even when it’s stressful and not coming together in time. It’s something I can’t imagine not doing, anymore.

One of the things about having been an online writer for as long as I have is the number of white hairs in my beard. No, wait, that’s not what I meant to say at the start of that sentence. (I do have a lot of white hairs in my beard, though; I guess the last year has been particularly stressful?) What I meant was: After doing this for close to 20 years now, it’s strange to be able to recognize trends and attitudes towards particular things change, evolve, or simply upend themselves for whatever reason.

What’s brought this to mind is, simply, word count. As part of my new work reality, I’m writing a lot more long form pieces than I used to; at THR, the majority of my work was in theory short news bursts with the occasional long form op-ed or explainer. In terms of word count, that would translate at something roughly 300-400 words for news, and 800-1000 words for long form.

Nowadays, I’m seeing long form expectations start at 1000, and go up to 1500-2000, depending on outlet and story. Initially, it was a significant shift in thinking — I was used to compressing everything down to its tightest, most abbreviated form, after all — and something I really struggled with; I felt as if I was filling time aimlessly and trying to find something, anything, to fill the space.

What’s surprising, though, is how quickly you do adapt, though. Your rhythms change and you find the way to work through the space you have, fast enough that when presented with the old limits again — Wired still asks for pieces around the old definition of long form — that that becomes the struggle instead. I’d just gotten used to going on at length, and now I have to be brief all over again? Heavens to Betsy, who has the brain space to juggle all of this on an ongoing basis?

I can already tell that time is of the essence for the next few weeks. It’s a dizzying, unsettling feeling. It’s also a somewhat thrilling one.

In terms of my workload, this year is easily the busiest I’ve been in years. Part of that is, thankfully, that I’m simply finding work again after two years where it seemed as if no-one was particularly interested in what I had to say. Last year, especially, was one where I had a number of opportunities and potentially exciting gigs either disappeared entirely in circumstances I still don’t understand, or were taken out of my hands due to budgets being cut or redistributed elsewhere. It was a rough year for both my ego and my bank balance, and one that I came through mostly through a mix of stubbornness and stupidity.

So far, this year feels the exact opposite, at least in terms of the number of outlets I’m currently writing for and the (exciting, surprising) opportunities I’ve been able to accept and embrace. I’m very grateful for all of it; I’m also very aware of just how much work lies ahead in the next few weeks, especially. It’s more than a little scary.

This is, as much as anything, my telling myself to pace myself and not burn out. (That is, worryingly, a possibility; I’m so busy that I’ve created a schedule of deadlines that currently stretches into July, shockingly — I check in with it occasionally in fear.) I’m trying to build in time to refresh my brain and find ways to recharge and not get burned out, just constantly working and producing, over and over. My old work patterns won’t support me in this new reality, because my workload is different enough to make different demands on me.

It’s also a notice to myself to appreciate where I am, again, and not take it for granted or be frustrated by my workload. This time last year, this seemed literally impossible; no matter how overloaded and overwhelmed I get in the next few weeks, I should remember how lucky I am that I’m here. Not everyone gets a comeback; I should be grateful for mine, no matter how tired it makes me.

So, yeah, things are getting busier again for me.

Part of the current flurry of activity for me right now, at least when it comes to work, is trying to consider just how much I can handle, and how to structure my time to help that happen to the best of my ability. This kind of introspection is very much the product of not having been quite so busy for at least the last year, and having fallen out of practice of simply just keeping my head down and producing, without too much reflection of what that means and what costs such an attitude have; nonetheless, it’s still an unexpected level of self-analysis that runs contrary to the story I’d previously told myself, where I could get everything done as long as I just made it happen.

I’m recognizing my limits, as they exist today: the rhythms I’ve developed as to when I’m at my most productive, and the space I need between projects in order to recalibrate my head. I’ve learned, already, the amount of downtime I need at the end of the day, at weekends, to allow my brain a chance to relax, and allow me a life outside of work and simply fulfilling physical needs. The upshot of this is that, as I take note and relearn just what I’m capable of, I’ll eventually be more productive and able to juggle multiple projects again with something approaching ease, or at least easier than it’s been.

Part of all of this, though, is also that difficult thing of realizing that I can’t do everything, and that I’m going to make mistakes or miss deadlines — self-imposed deadlines, at least; thankfully, I haven’t blown any official deadlines yet — and that that’s okay. That’s maybe the hardest part of all this re-evaluation: accepting that, of course, at some point I’m going to fuck up. It’s inevitable, and it’s also understandable, given everything being asked of me, even by myself. It’s also not the end of the world, if handled well and humbly.

Or, at least, that’s the new story I tell myself.

It’s either a sign of how lucky I’ve been or, alternately, how particularly unlucky I’ve been in terms of a lack of workload, but when I had a piece returned to me this weekend as being rejected and in need of a line-one rewrite and rethink, it was the first time in a long time that’s happened. Which, it should be noted, sent me into a spiral of self-doubt and recrimination that, if I had more self-awareness and presence of mind, I would probably be embarrassed about in retrospect.

The problem wasn’t that I received such critical notice that my delicate sensibilities were offended, nor than I had done such a terrible job that I got an email savaging my very attempts to put more than three words in order; I actually received a very polite, almost apologetic email that argued in an eminently sensible manner that what I had written was going in entirely the wrong direction for the target audience. Looking back on what I’d written, I have to admit: they’re right! I 100% had aimed myself in the wrong place and just went for it nonetheless. But still, even that realization was enough to sink my self-confidence to near-parodic levels.

I spent the rest of the day managing to convince myself that I had done fucked up in the worst way possible, and that in doing so, I’d demonstrated that I couldn’t do the very thing that I’d been employed to do, and therefore shown myself to be utterly unemployable. I had the sinking feeling in the stomach that comes from that deeply-held conviction that I’d fucked up in an entirely irreparable fashion, and my brain wouldn’t let me rest until I’d written an entirely new piece that I hoped would salvage my clearly tarnished reputation in some small way and keep me from being thrown into a hole marked “never hire, ever again.”

I sent the email with the new version at 9:30 Sunday night. By 6:15am the next morning, I was told there were no notes, it was perfect, and I blushed at the memory of how convinced I’d been at calamity the day before.

I was on a call earlier today, related to a work thing, when I realized that I was accidentally sounding like a stereotypical gangster, even though the actual intent of what I was trying to say was entirely sincere.

I was talking to a party involved in a particular story, about which I happen to know certain facts even though they would never admit to those facts publicly. (Or, at least, not until it fits into a pre-determined publicity plan, which for my purposes amounts to the same thing.) Said facts, I hasten to add, are good things in the grand scheme of things, and something that would reflect well upon said party if they were to be known publicly.

Which is, again, not what said party is currently wanting to happen.

The problem in this case was that there are rumors to the contrary to the facts going around. Rumors that not only contradict said certain facts, but make the unnamed party look undeservedly bad as a result. So, I’m on a call earlier today which basically consists of me saying, please can I report what I believe is the truth so that these rumors don’t become reported and then people think they’re true, instead, and them telling me, more or less, well, we don’t know… over and over again.

At some point in the call, things got heated and I tried to bluntly say something along the lines of, if I can’t get you on the record saying X, then someone’s going to write the record saying Y, at which point I realized: I’ve basically become a fake gangster saying the equivalent of, “Nice reputation you’ve got here, shame if something was going to happen to it.”

I’d like to say that I ended the call there and then, and withdrew from the entire debacle, but reader…? I didn’t. Instead, I plunged ahead, perfectly aware of the surreal and ridiculous circumstance and trying not to laugh out loud every time I spoke.

Finally, this past week saw the publication of my oral history of the New 52, just six or seven weeks after I’d finished it. (I’m oddly salty about the time between submission and publication, even though I know the editing process was particularly in-depth on this one; really, I think I’m just upset that it stretched on to the point where we missed the actual 10th anniversary of August 31st.) Seeing it actually go live after so long, and after working on it for so long, was a surreal experience, and one that was more than a little awkward.

I am, I should say to start, happy with the piece. It’s imperfect, of course; creating it proved to be surprisingly difficult, with a genuinely surprising number of people contacted refusing to be involved for any number of reasons — including, on more than one occasion, explaining that they remain too traumatized by the experience that they couldn’t talk about it, or at least couldn’t talk about it on the record — which made for a difficult time assembling anything that looked like the reality of the situation. There are noticeable absences in the narrative, but they were unavoidable, unfortunately.  For the most part, I like the story.

That said, watching the story’s reception across the week has been odd and uncomfortable, as people have noticed those absences and created arguments in their mind for them that… well, just aren’t true. Apparently, I’ve been alternately writing official propaganda, or ignoring specific creators intentionally; I’ve been an apologist for multiple, often opposing, viewpoints and arguments, I’ve had agenda to fulfill, and I’ve simply been trying to destroy the reputation of the entire era by, and I quote, “dredging up the past and making everyone look bad.” Really, I’ve seemingly been exceptionally productive, if you think about it.

Through the whole thing, I’ve kept quiet; arguing against people on the internet is a losing proposition, and it’s easier in the long run to just quietly seethe on the sidelines, knowing the truth. But still. But still.

I had the strange experience last week of making an argument for my dream job — or, at least, one of my dream jobs. It was something that spun out of a phone call with an editor, and me beginning that argument during the call; they said something along the lines of, “I’ve never heard you so fired up! Why don’t you write something up and we’ll see what happens?” and it was off to the races.

The reason I’m sharing this isn’t that I think it’ll happen; just the opposite, given the way that so much of this year has worked out when it comes to career opportunities. But, really, just the act of sitting down and writing out what is more or less a pitch for, “this is what I want to be doing with my career, and this is why I think that you, unknown decision maker who has to think about if this is financially viable, should agree with me,” is a dizzying, surreal experience. Think of it as the old idea of singing for your supper, but with a component of having to consider how the supper and the song fits into the listener’s overall business plans.

The even stranger thing is, this wasn’t the first time that I’ve had to do something like this in the last couple of months. As I try to consider what shape my writing career is going to take in the next few months to a year — if I’m going to continue to have a writing career of any note — I’ve had to write more than one attempt at pitching myself and my plans. As someone who hates talking about themselves and coming across as anything resembling confident, it’s a skill that I’m still working on learning, but one that I arguably should have had years ago.

I’ll find out if this latest argument was convincing in a few weeks, I suspect. Like I said, I doubt that it truly will be, given the evidence so far, but I’m willing to be surprised one more time, just in case.

Before I hit send, I thought the following things:

– That I was relieved, more than anything, to be finished. This process was one that had been in the back of my head since I first had that conversation months ago, and the constant presence was something that had gone from something filled with potential and possibility and, yes, even excitement had become something of a worry, especially in recent weeks. At the start of everything, I’d suggested the end of summer as a self-imposed deadline because it felt impossibly far away; then, suddenly, the end of August was staring me in the face, and I was all too aware of the need to just sit down and get things done.

– That this wasn’t the end, but really just the end of the beginning, to use the cliche. What I was sending off was a first draft — arguably, something even earlier than that, notes towards a partial first draft, perhaps? — and nothing was really finished at all. In fact, this was taking things into a more difficult, awkward place where someone else would see what I’ve been doing and could tell me all the ways I’d messed up. This was just the start; as soon as I sent it, things would only continue, only get bigger and more filled with pressure and expectation.

– That I was nervous of letting go of the whole thing. As exhausting as the process had been to date, there’s been a comfort and security in working on it for so long in private, in working to my own expectations and plans without anyone else seeing or telling me where I’m going wrong. In many ways, the project had become a security blanket I hadn’t expected, and as soon as I sent it off, that wouldn’t be true anymore.

– That I would be heartbroken if it was rejected, or pulled apart with notes to essentially start over.

– That I wasn’t emotionally prepared for it to be accepted either, with all that would mean.

Knowing how scary the moment was, I hit send quickly, and tried to ignore the knot in my stomach afterwards.