Let me put it this way. On the one hand I got invited to Seoul recently, stayed in a posh hotel, got treated to lekker kos, met some interesting people, and what do I have to show for it? Well, er...firstly the experience was great. But when it comes down to the nuts ond bolts, let's see...
I have one published story 2 months after the trip, in Financial Mail nogal. If you think that's awesome dude, think again. I lived pretty conservatively in the Hyatt, during my week there. I didn't even get to spend time in JJ's, or swim in the pool, or try out the gym. In fact, I worked so hard and unremittingly hard, I almost passed out - literally - in a terminal of Changi on the way back, and when I ate something in the plane a few hours later. I actually got quite sick a few days later and was booked off from work for exhaustion and secondary infection. But never mind that. Let's get back to the trip itself. Did I like...do anything? Did I...get any story? And what were my expenses? Well, I ate some chocolate and drank some coke (in the hotel room) and did some internet research...and the bill came to over R2000, which I had to pay for. Guess how much money I have made from the trip? R1499.
Oh, I also published another story online, at Ohmynews, which bangs up my opbrengs to a total of R1619. That means, I'm still at a loss of almost R400. Oh hang on, the courier feesto send samples of the magazine articles were over R300, which means I'm skint R700 and something. But hey, I'm living lavida loco!
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, well come on man, why don't you try to pump out a few more stories. Well, there's the rub. One piece which is around 3000 words long is still hibernating at GQ HQ, pending 'a big meeting'. My gut feel is the story won't see the light of day - oh it's good enough, it's really good - because it has been hibernating (like mushrooms do, in the dark) for over 60 days, and I have a feeling the features editor feels a bit uncomfortable, after all this time, to say, "You know what, you know that story you wrote...yes, that one about the...ja, that story...we're not going to use it." He may surprise me, I don't know.
I've also sent other stories to various newspapers, and basically received once sentence responses every 2-3 weeks. Now this shouldn't be misconstrued. Some of these guys have snapped up my writing SAME DAY so that it goes up days later. Now, after going to the ends of the earth to get good stuff, not even a response. Not even: "Hey, you know we got your email. Thanks. We'll check it out." In total I think I've produced about 6 separate pieces. When I got back from Korea I said I could probably conjure up 14. I can. How many will see the light of day is another story.
I do have a sneaking suspicion that one or two editors have a sneaking suspicion that the Seoul Government gave me the Hyundai Tiburon, provided escort services to my hotel room, and offered other perks such as a hundred million dollars, a groundbreaking follicular transplant, and my own personalised undersea cable connecting me to Korea's superfast ethernet...you know, as rewardfor a glowing endorsement of their country. I mean if Zuma can get a Merc for giving away ship contracts, I, a PHOTOJOURNALIST, can at the very least secure for myself a couple of grand under the table and a pair of socks with my name hewn into the soles. Right? Uh...not quite. Like I said, they paid for my trip, and meals, and the bed I slept in. Let me reiterate, the Pringles and coke and kitkats I ate in my hotel room, aswell as surfing around the online news, left me R2000 out of pocket. And I didn't luxuriate in Seoul, I ran around like a chicken that had had its head chopped off. Never mind that I met the mayor (who is probably a more powerful man than our country's president), never mind that I met a Zen master, never mind that I met architects and dodged National security Police to get a few snaps of the Blue House, never mind that I gathered about three to thirty times more footage than my peers...never mind all that because...pssst, Nick...you're not a writer....and even if you are...we're not gonna LET you be one.
Really?
Really.
I guess the memo - fuck van der Leek if he emails you - didn't quite reach Financial Mail before June 6. Anyhoo. The good news is GQ said they will publish a blogging story in October, and I dunno, I have a good feeling about something I sent to Cosmo just yesterday. I've also got some interesting experimental stuff that I did [Why the world needs Batman] which may see the light of day, and...I have a few other projects in the pipeline, but they depend to an extent on these current projects being unhooked so they can fly out of the trees like kites, and one kite will lead to another (except that philosophy has proved to be an oversimplification).
The editors who have sniffed at my stuff (maybe they have the flu, I dunno), I am gonna give them a break and run off somewhere and do something else. They'd like that, I know. I will probably start learning how to write scripts and work on The Butcher, and invest in a consistent story for a while, rather than these mini projects. Just for a while. I just need my frustration to stop stewing for a bit.
That said, I STILL aim to publish all 14 of those strories. So far I have 2. 12 to go, but I'll get there in the end.
Now, to answer the question, is freelance writing fun? Well, it's great running after stories I'm personally interested and inspired to write about. I meet writers often who see what they do as a job and just have a very cliched [read boring]view of what to write about. There's no enthusiasm. No zing. Not even a passing personal interest. Freelance allows some variety, adds some spice. But it's no picnic. In fact it's fair to say to do this you need a thicker skin than a T-Rex. Put it this way, if you put a T-Rex through whatI've been through in the last 8 weeks, it would look like sorry-assed swiss cheese, like it had stood for a week behind the targets at a rifle range. This job basically would turn a T-Rex into mincemeat. Now...does that answer your question?
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