The world of the journalist, blogger or creative type in general is not one I like to call easy. In fact, it’s not easy whatsoever and whoever says it is either has an ace in the hole or is making an attempt to over-luxuriate their lives. They don’t live in Manhattan, they live in Brooklyn. They don’t wear Louis Vuitton, they’re attempting to nestle away the month to keep the lights on in case they don’t get another freelance check for 2 months. & even though I love this life, I will not lie to you. This job is hard.
One of the biggest disappointments you will get in this business is the rejection of editors and partnerships, whether you’re pitching to them or even interviewing. A few weeks back, I reached out to a writer of a huge website that I had commended for years. unexpectedly, she reached back out and expressed an interest in me writing a story for her for her site, of which I quickly wrote an article, edited and formatted and had sent by the end of the day. I waited anxiously to hear back from her the next day, or even the day after. The reality was I never heard back from her and I never read my story on the site.
Another time I reached out to an Edtor who eagerly agreed to a meet and greet. I waited for weeks and never heard back from her and felt too ashamed to ever send another email.
The thing is, you’re going to deal with assholes but you’ll also just deal with busy people. Sending my resume and pitches out, I almost never hear back from a company. I just usually can assume I didn’t make it by the lack of response. And for the Editors? They’re so swamped with everything else they will quickly forget you and what you wanted, and you can’t take it personal. Although it just makes your job a little harder when nobody’s taking the time to invest in you.
Like I said earlier, this job isn’t easy. Trust that you are in the right profession by the amount of tenacity and passion you have for what you do. If you don’t have that, there is no way you can be successful in a business that asks you of your or someone else’s ideas and thoughts. You can’t do this job for the monetary rewards or perks either. Passion of writing and producing the good stuff is your compensation. Then perhaps you’ll grow to be compensated in the way society portrays us writers. They include the free stuff, cool events and partnerships, but they don’t show the long hours (literally like a 10-10), little monetary gain for freelance work, excessive amount of research and constant need to be the first at everything in such a fast pace career.
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