Blog Entries Make Great Essays and Op-Eds

It had actually been a year since I wrote my last essay.

Wow, and I didn’t even notice.

I had written personal stuff-- blog entries for the most part– and some opinion pieces, but nothing intimate. So when my editor asked me to write a personal essay on a topic she suggested, I almost said no.

But she knew I had it in me, as I did I. And so I did. Fifteen minutes flat and I was done. Easiest money I’ve ever made, seriously. I sent it to her ten days before deadline, and she loved it.

Recently, a friend suggested that if I looked through my blog archives, I’d find more essay fodder than I’d know what to do with. Well, I took her advice and looked, and bloody hell, there’s a whole range of essays  and opinion pieces just waiting to be written. I haven’t even gotten started yet.

I pitched an opinion piece and received the go-ahead last week. Yesterday, I sent it in. It was based on this entry. The blog finally makes a profit. Five years and the blog brings in a sale. Easy peasy!

But seriously, how obvious was that? Take random thoughts off the blog, organize them a little bit and sell them as an opinion.

Who knew?

Big big thanks to my friend for suggesting the idea. Now I’m off to make some more sales.

Indians, Summed up in 90 Seconds

Okay, so it’s true. Or as a true Indian, I should say: What to do? We are like that only.

Success in Small Doses

Some writers on a forum were having an interesting discussion the other day: how do you define success? Everyone has his or her own standards, of course. For some, it means achieving a certain income goal. For some, it comes in the form of accolades and acceptance. To others, it’s more in the personal things– family, partner, children. And many more find it in the acceptance of self, in finding peace.

I don’t actually like the concept of “success” because it’s such a vague word and we’re all successes and failures at different points in time in different aspects of life.

I do have long-term goals though, and two very important ones were to (1) have an office to call my own, and (2) get health insurance. Because you know, in America, there were times when I should have gone to a doctor and I didn’t. I couldn’t afford to pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket only to be told by the insurance company that it wasn’t covered. That says more about the American healthcare system than it does about any of my personal failings, but for several years now, I’ve lived in fear of having an accident or falling sick.

In India, it’s hard for me to get any kind of proper healthcare because I’m a freelancer and hence not reliable. I can’t be trusted to make payments on time. I mean, I can’t even get a credit card, let alone any kind of health coverage. The last time a credit card salesperson called me, she asked, “Free Lands? Is that the name of your business?” and when I explained it was F-R-E-E-L-A-N-C-E, freelance, she asked me what freelance meant. I told her to look it up in the dictionary and hung up.

So. Office and healthcare. If I had those, I figured, that would be a huge professional achievement.

Well, I do finally have an office (that I LOVE, by the way), and as of this morning, thanks to the superhuman efforts of my gorgeous and wonderful mother, I have health insurance.

That has to count as some kind of success, doesn’t it?

The Slumdog Effect

Pull it together, India. We can get through this. Promise.

I’ve been through this exact scenario before, but I swear, the movie’s just made it worse. Here’s what happened.

I was on assignment for an American magazine with a British photographer. Our job, that day, was to profile a poor woman in Delhi who works in a middle-class neighborhood, going door-to-door collecting garbage. Women in India attract unwanted attention. Foreigners attract unwanted attention. And cameras and gadgetry of any sort attract unwanted attention. Put the three together, and you’ll know the circumstances we were working under.

Anyway, I was interviewing my subject, standing next to her just talking, when a guy on a motorbike stopped behind me. For a minute, he just stood there with his engine running (therefore ruining my audio), and then, because apparently, it’s perfectly normal to stand in the middle of the road staring at people you don’t know, he turned it off and waited for me to finish.

I sighed, turned around to face him, and braced for whatever was coming. “Yes, what is it I can help you with?” I asked.

“Is he a foreigner?” he said pointing to my photographer.

His white-as-milk skin must have been the giveaway. I nodded.

“Don’t let him take pictures!” he said. “He’s going to sell them in his country and make India look bad. That’s what they do.”

For a few moments, I just did not know what to say. The absurdity of remarks like that always amuses me. There, in front of him, stood a woman who digs through trash to make a living, who cannot afford to send her kids to school, ensuring that they, too, will dig through trash to make a living for the rest of their lives, and instead of being concerned by her situation, this guy was more concerned by how the pictures were going to make his country look.

There is a growing sentiment here, especially among the middle class, that foreign journalists come to India to try and make their careers writing about the social problems the country faces. The intense criticism by Indians of both Slumdog Millionaire and Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger are results of that.

I just wish more Indian journalists would try and make their careers in the same way.

Perfect Days, Endless Nights

You know you no longer live in the city when:

(a) you’ve named the two baby geckos around your office, one of which fell on you when you opened the door last week, you had to chase out a frog your first week here, and you close the door at night to keep the nocturnal creatures out.

(b) the power goes out for ten-hour stretches, reminding you of your childhood. (My kids are going to grow up hearing stories about how their mother did homework in candle-light. No one could afford generators and invertors back then.)

(c) your neighbor owns two cows. Seriously. (No, Sam, you are not allowed to eat them.)

I had the perfect work life last week– a topic I’m very interested in (and will continue to research further), a challenging assignment, 3,000 assigned words, a writer-friendly contract, lots of human interaction, hundreds of pages of interesting reading, good pay, no worries about expenses, and a photographer who is a dream to work with. Oh, if only every assignment were like this.

To balance it out, I finished up a quick 300-word piece, interviewed four people over the phone, wrote several blog entries, and even sent out a pitch or two. Can’t say I’m lacking any kind of variety in my work.

Sure enough, this week I’m looking at putting together two radio pieces, following up on missing payments, getting my accounts in order, and oh yes, pitching some more.

In late September/early October, I’m taking two weeks off, which I’m really excited about. For now though, all kinds of interesting stories beckon.

The Odds of Success

Writing isn’t a lottery — the talk about the “odds” is misleading — it’s a game of skill. If you write total trash, no matter how many manuscripts you send in you won’t get picked. If you write Really Good Stuff, the only thing that’ll keep it from being published is if you don’t submit it.

- James D. Macdonald, Absolute Write Forums