Incoming to your profile.

I would like to be a cops and court reporter Sister! Alas the hours are so not compatible with disability, it's to laugh.(Bitterly, of course) But I don't blame any attendant I would have for not wanting to work at four because I've gotta follow the fire truck. But I still have a (mental) hard-on for it. So, I'm stuck in the Features ghetto. No, let me amend, I'll have to work my way into the features ghetto. But, see new tag.

Oh, you know, the ineffable desire to Create! and Be! and Make Your Mark Upon the World!. Starving-artist-in-the-garret motivators. I feel like because most of the reasons I want to do this stuff are practical, they count less, somehow.

Ah, yes, the "If it ain't grand it don't count" feeling.

While I'm all for large circulations seeing my funny/trenchant/wise/timeless words the fact of the matter is the big effect is more often the accumulation of increments. Some of them so subtle as to be nearly invisible to the reading eye until they're combined with something else.

You can't build the Great Pyramid without first making the bricks.

Hmmmmm.

Tomorrow night's writers group at my house may well have a neat guest sitting in: my friend Danyel Smith may be coming over. I hope so - Danyel rocks the house.

Speaking of career weirdness:

I'm speaking, and maybe reading, at a Sci-Fi convention at Harvard on Jan. 31st. I read poetry in Worcester the next day.

When worlds collide,Victor. Deb, her book sounds like a winner. I like messy stories like that.(And that sounded nice in my head.)

erika, I once described her to someone as a hot cranky angel. She is all that, and more.

Danyel the dynamo.

LJ, if you want to freelance, don't wait as long as I did to decide to go out on your own. I did it five years ago, and I found that there are a lot of writing opportunities out there that appeared once I actually committed myself to freelancing. You say that you don't have a lot of ideas, but many of the articles you see in magazines weren't pitched by freelancers; the editor picked a freelancer to write the article. If you just come up with one idea, sell the article and the editor likes it, he may well call you to write other articles. Even the stuff that pays the bills, such as corporate brochures and magazine articles, stays pretty interesting if you're doing it for different companies.

That being said, I'd really like to move up to the higher end-magazines, and that's going to take some serious query writing on my part. A good query is a significant time investment, and I keep putting it off.

Sister! Alas the hours are so not compatible with disability, it's to laugh.

Ah, I'm sorry.

You might be able to do the Laura Hildebrande thing of writing from your home based on phone interviews, but that's still not as much of a rush as going to the courthouse or whatever. (Plus, I'm not sure crime is as easy to write about from home as historic horse racing is.) I am sure you will find your niche.

Ginger, thanks for the advice. You're right that it's more about selling one story to the right editor than it is about selling bunches of ideas every month. I just need to find that one idea ... though,I was thinking lats night, and I have a few. Just need to turn them into queries.

Maybe if I could find one case and write a book or something. But you know, who am I? Don't have much cred.If there ever really was an Internet killer, maybe.And the teacher who taught the magazine-writing course thought I could...just reach out and touch Justin Dart or Steven Hawking. Secret Gimp Handshake, huh? I mean, we are kind of a small minority but still numbering in the millions. We don't all know each other.