While I was still teaching, shortly after I started working at Cam High in California, I met a writer whose son was a student at our school, though not one of mine. Paul Bishop earned his credibility by being a Los Angeles Police Dept. detective, as well as prolific writer of several novels, television episodes and feature films. I got to know Paul relatively well, though no-we didn’t hang out together or anything like that. He was very encouraging to me as a writer and a journalist and I always appreciated his take on things.
Paul was speaking to the kids in our school’s library, and I brought my class. It was a bit selfish on my part, I wanted to hear what he had to say. At one point, he said that he loved the craft of writing, that he got a jolt out of it as much as he did out of catching bad guys. And then he said, “I’ll write anything. If there were money in it, I’d write cereal box tops.”
It stuck with me, and though I never really practiced it, I did believe in pitching articles with fury, and if remuneration was offered, take the job. Outwardly, I wanted to believe that’s what I did. Inwardly, I practiced journalism as craft. I was a fan and reader of the late Michael Kelly, a journalist and columnist with the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly and others. He spoke about journalism and writing as a craft. Kelly was embedded with a U.S. Army unit in Iraq in 2003 and subsequently killed in a military vehicle accident, and it was perhaps because of that tragic end that his words about craft spoke to me, stuck with me. He refused to see it as an art, and rightfully so. He argued that as a craft, it was a practice, one constantly learned and honed.
So I honed the “craft” over years and I wrote about what I wanted to write about. Looking back on the disparate pieces, it’s hard to find a pattern. I wrote about education, theology, movies, history, food, wine, architecture, small business, commercial real estate, aviation, art, and local news coverage including the Thomas Fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, and the Refugio Oil Spill in Santa Barbara county. It wasn’t even the cliche of “jack of all trades… ,” it was simply a result of making myself available to editors and knowing the craft of reporting, and writing.
Upon retiring from my teaching career, I continued to write, and focused more time and effort on it. I’ve been happy to do a lot more writing in the wine world here in the Pacific Northwest, and so it was kind of a big jolt when I got an opportunity to, well….write cereal boxtops.
I got hired on with Tastingtable.com, and in fairness, they are as they claim to be. As it was explained to me, they “impart information in a breezy style.” Every weekday morning for two hours between 7:00 AM and 9:00 AM, I was tasked with a “news shift,” which meant that I was at my computer, on the Trello board picking from the number of topics: Everything from tortillas and why homemade ones are better to the one ingredient that will make your tomato sauce sing. It was People Magazine for home cooks and self-styled “foodies.” And it was very hard work.
Those two hours turned into more like four or five a day as I worked at “breezy.” And then Paul Bishop’s quote came back to me. Instead of finding the “breezy” easy, I found it challenging and at times, impossible. But the people with whom I worked, the editors, were serious professionals, who were about 25 years younger than I was and they were kind. I actually felt that I might be getting the hang of it, but I knew my two-hour shifts would never be just that.
So, while not utterly surprised, I have to admit that it was difficult last week when I was unceremoniously sacked. The obvious form letter e-mail arrived at the end of my Monday shift, when I had finished writing an article about why the French put booze in cake (which felt slightly stereotypical to me…). “Hi Mark, I’m writing with some bad news,” it began. “Blah, blah, blah and so your services are no longer required…”
It was a light gut punch..or maybe, a cuff on the head. I was sacked. And while I’ve had plenty of writing and pitches rejected, it was the first time I’d ever been sacked from a writing gig. The editors said that I required too many revisions. I could have told them that it was because I’m not “breezy,” that I actually spent time trying to write sharp sentences that avoided using second person (something they actually valued), but that is, of course, sour grapes.
When you write for a publication, you need to write in the style they adopt (see? Second person is sort of obnoxious). I failed to do that. I couldn’t write the cereal box tops and I felt a bit like a failure.
But the experience was revelatory for me, and the first revelation is that I’m not that kind of writer. It’s difficult to be as versatile as I would, perhaps like to be, and I’m OK with that. I am not Mr. “breezy Mc-cereal boxtops.”
The second and more important revelation is that opportunities are not always the answer to one’s prayers or hopes in the expected way. Opportunities can be tests, and sometimes failing the test is as important as acing it.
Sorry, Paul. But I didn’t let you down. I just took another path…
To the gift and the flight of failure…
Onward.
Sacked.
When you know it’s not write/right for you, they’re doing you a favor. (I excel at writing in the second person.)