[Ipg-smz] Thoughts on a Career Pause

[Dana Blankenhorn]

There's an important lesson here.

What I was taught at Medill 40 years ago was wrong.

You can't let your reputation be tied to the publication you're with. You
have to build your own brand.

Books help. The best thing I ever did was write my first edition of Moore's
Lore.It came about because I was losing all 17 gigs in the dot-bomb, and
needed to keep occupied.

That is easier than ever thanks to Amazon (sorry if that seems like an
insult to anyone).

Building your own brand, around your own special expertise, is integral to
building respect in this business.

When I first started freelancing in 1983, I first called on local
business-oriented publications, then on other local publishers. They
treated me like garbage. I found a much better reception from national
publishers, who were competing in a national market for talent.

The same thing is true today. There are publications within the journalism
universe that are considered important, and most aren't. If you can get
into one of them, it's worth the effort.

Good luck. There is also no shame in using the knowledge you have within
the beat to get work that pays far more than any mere "journalist" can
make. Remember, this is not just a job. It's an indenture!

Dana Blankenhorn
http://www.danablankenhorn.com
http://investorplace.com/author/danablankenhorn/
http://seekingalpha.com/author/dana-blankenhorn/articles



On Wed, May 29, 2019 at 11:20 AM Tara Calishain <researchbuzz at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Last fall I left a job which ate my life for a dozen years. 60-80 hour
> weeks (unpaid overtime), difficult work, no support from higher-ups. Nine
> years without a vacation. Three years with no days off (and I don't mean I
> worked five days a week. I mean I worked seven days a week for three
> years.) I won't even tell you about sleeping in a warehouse five days a
> week for four months.
>
> It's been almost seven months since I left and I feel like I'm only
> starting to feel human again. Sometimes when I go outside and realize I
> have nobody breathing down my neck to get things done, I cry.
>
> I have been looking around in a desultory way for work, and did get a
> columnist job at The Saturday Evening Post. Then David Strom (bless him
> forever) hooked me up with a newsletter job for Inside.com. The pay does
> not knock my socks off, but it's a good base with my column job, Saturday
> Evening Post, Patreon, and freelancing.
>
> I will pitch and write articles (please think of me if you need something
> done), but other than that I am not hustling. I have made the deliberate
> choice to go into a lower gear for a couple of years.
>
> During that time I plan to:
>
> -- Exercise regularly, cook better, and lose some weight.
>
> -- Learn to draw. I'm not a visual person and I want to better that part
> of me.
>
> -- Learn Spanish, because when I was in high school I took German like a
> knucklehead. (Nothing against German people, but there's a ton of people
> around here who speak Spanish.)
>
> -- Spend much time with my 95-year-old Granny and do things that make her
> happy. (These include finding instruction manuals for old cooking devices,
> burning 80 episodes of "The Old Fashioned Revival Hour" to a CD, and
> sharing funny dog videos.)
>
> -- Write fiction, because my mother keeps telling me to.
>
> -- Goober around a little with ResearchBuzz.
>
> It's going to take me a long damn time to stop apologizing for not working
> 40 hours a week, but I don't care. I haven't been a happy person since I
> was nine years old, but I want to try to be once more before I die.
>
> Go for it.
>
> Tara
>
>
> On Wed, May 29, 2019 at 11:04 AM Liam Kelly <ljkelly1888 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hey all,
>>
>> I'm thinking to leave my position as editor of a crypto-centric blog to
>> pursue a few different options.
>>
>> Likely I won't find anything as well-paid as this for a few months, but
>> I've been at this publication for a few years now and I have the impression
>> it's time for a bit of progress.
>>
>> The idea is to leave editing to the side and gather as many bylines as
>> possible in hopes of landing a staff position at a larger publication.
>>
>> But I was curious about a few things:
>>
>> - If not writing, what other skills would *you* develop during a similar
>> break?
>> - Am I crazy to leave a position in which I'm paid a flat rate to both
>> write and edit?
>> - And, finally, any general thoughts on some personal experiences related
>> to this subject.
>>
>> I've got savings, a handful of smaller clients that I've been working
>> with, and a dreadful feeling of stagnation. All of this has culminated in
>> this plan.
>>
>> Thanks in advance for any suggestions, relevant stories, and/or links to
>> things I should read before making the "leap."
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Liam J. Kelly
>> --
>> Ipg-smz mailing list
>> Ipg-smz at netpress.org
>> http://netpress.org/mailman/listinfo/ipg-smz_netpress.org
>>
> --
> Ipg-smz mailing list
> Ipg-smz at netpress.org
> http://netpress.org/mailman/listinfo/ipg-smz_netpress.org
>
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