Do you work to live — or live to work? Karoshi is crazy!

By Caitlin Kelly

Did you hear about the young woman, Mita Diran, who died of overwork recently after tweeting about her long hours — 30 hours without a break?

And here’s the 24-year-old who died the same way.

I have four words for this, and they’re not: Rock on, you over-achievers!

Rather: Are you fucking kidding me?

And here’s a whiny, tedious rant at Slate by a woman who’s shocked — shocked! — to find that French workers get subsidized meals from their employers and are treated with a great deal more respect than they are in the U.S.

Duh. Americans are simply nuts about work. They go onandonandonandonandonandon about how busy they are and how needed they are and how many things they just added to their to-do list.

As if this makes them more….something.

Tired, probably.

Here’s a list of 10 reasons — written by a local colleague and former board member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors — why you might consider taking a break.

They include:

1. Quantity kills quality.

You want to be excellent at what you do. But the more tasks you take on, the smaller your chance of doing an excellent job at any of them.

2. Sleep matters.

“The way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is getting enough sleep,” Arianna Huffington said in a 2011 TED talk. She would know. She fainted from exhaustion and broke her cheekbone and is now something of a sleep evangelist. “I was recently having dinner with a guy who bragged that he’d gotten only four hours’ sleep the night before,” she continued. She considered retorting: “If you had gotten five, this dinner would have been a lot more interesting.”

3. You suck when it counts.

You’ll be bad at generating new ideas, finding creative solutions to problems, and worst of all you’ll suck at listening attentively to the people around you. That disrespects them and wastes their time as well as yours.

4. Your mood is a buzzkill.

The kind of irritability and impatience that goes with being overworked and behind schedule will cast a black cloud over the people around you both at work and at home. If you’re an employee, it will damage your career. If you’re a small business owner, it will harm your business.

5. Your judgment is impaired.

The research is conclusive: sleep deprivation impairs decision-making. As a leader, poor judgment is something you can’t afford. Crossing some tasks off your to-do list, handing them to someone else, or finishing some things late is well worth it if it means you bring your full concentration and intelligence to the tough decisions your job requires.

Readers of this blog know I work my ass off. But they also know how much I deeply cherish balance in my life.

I bitch about being broke a lot. Money isn’t great right now at our house, but we’ll be fine.

The truth is this: I could work twice as many hours and, probably, double my income.

At what cost?

On Monday this week, I revised a story for five hours’ straight. The rest of the week was spent emailing pitches and checking in with long-time clients to see where we are and lining up details for a crazy foreign trip I’ll be making at the end of March for work. In other words, I’ve been plenty busy.

Yesterday — yes, the hell with it — I devoted to all the things that actually make me happy, no matter how retro or silly or low-value they may sound to some people:

ironing, tidying the linen closet, a manicure, making cranberry bread, making dal for an Indian food feast, listening to CDs, (instead of the radio, and talk shows because I’ll learn something), emailing a distant friend who’s not feeling very well, chatting with pals on Facebook and deciding not to make soup. Even my non-work days have limits!

That filled up most of the day.

I spoke to my husband, as is typical for us, twice. We never let a day go by — and he has six meetings every day at his busy newspaper job — without one to three brief phone calls to say hello and trade some news. He’s my husband. I want to talk to him. When he comes home in the evening, the computer is off (except for blogging!) and we talk to one another, a lot.

Minda, who wrote the piece above, has no children, like me. She confesses in her story that her husband had to get assertive about wanting more of her attention, and she says she works most weekends.

Nope. Not for me.

I could make a lot more money. I have. Seven years ago, I made twice as much. In 1996, I made twice as much.

It didn’t make me twice as happy.

I know that some of you are desperate to get a job, and a well-paid job, so someone who isn’t dying to work all the time probably seems lazy to you.

Uh, no.

What I am is someone who knows her priorities: sleep, (8-10 hours every night, without fail), friendships, uninterrupted time with my husband, travel, preparing decent food for us and our friends, a clean and tidy home. I take dance class 2-3 times a week and try to work out in other ways as well.

I’ve learned my limits the hard way.

On March 17, 2007, I begged Jose to rush me to our local hospital, in pain that even laying the seatbelt across my chest was agony. I had no idea what was wrong with me, but something sure was — a 104 degree temperature and pneumonia. That meant three days in the hospital on an IV and a full month to regain my strength.

Like many people, especially freelancers and the self-employed who have no paid sick days, I kept on working while ill.

Never again.

Yes, I need to make money. And I need to bump it up by probably 50 percent this year (sigh) to make a significant difference to our quality of life.

How about you?

Do you work to live, or live to work?

Is writing well impossible?

By Caitlin Kelly

I had an interesting conversation recently with another journalist, who writes columns and features. She wondered if some people see what she and I do for a living as impossibly difficult, something you just have a talent for, or you don’t.

Here’s an image that may, or may not, comfort or surprise you:

It’s what fiction writers love to call their WIP — a work in progress. This is one page of a story, a narrative memoir, I was recently commissioned to produce by a major American women’s magazine.

This is the revision I was asked for by the first, of several, editors. I’ve never met her or spoken to her beyond a brief conversation about this piece. That’s typical, these days. At my level of experience, I’m expected to know exactly what’s expected of a “narrative memoir” and how to produce it to deadline. Which, of course, I did, as I did with this revision.

Which was still deemed “not there yet.”

Magazine journalism — especially some genres — is a team sport. I have to be ready for even more editors’ questions and comments.

What I’ve shown here is my own second or third revision of the second version, before I cleaned it up and sent it in.

You’ll notice a few things:

— I tightened and shortened a few sentences, cutting every possible excess word. I worked for a year as a reporter for a tabloid newspaper here in New York, 2005-2006, and it changed my writing for the better, forever. I try to use as few words as possible to convey my ideas. I also have a tight word limit for this piece, 1,700 words, encompassing my life from age 14 to today, multiple decades. Stuff has to go!

— I joined two sentences into a paragraph. Sometimes they just flow better. Or not.

— At the start of one sentence, I cut a word and inserted one later there.

— That crossed-out sentence at the bottom of the page, an after-thought, clearly, felt like a great metaphor — until I double-checked the meaning of the word I thought I wanted and I was wrong. Then I re-thought the whole idea and discarded it as intrusive and distracting, no matter how lovely a phrase it was. And it was; had I more room, I might have included it. But I don’t. This is called “killing your darlings. ” You get really good at lexical assassination if you stay in this game a while.

The reason I’m sharing this is to show the process, which no one ever sees.

By the time we read anyone’s work — no matter the medium — it’s been polished, revised, edited and re-edited.

So the final product, for most writers, is that of a tremendous amount of prior conceptualizing, framing, thinking, reporting, researching, interviewing, analyzing, re-thinking, writing — (look how far down in the list this is!) — re-writing, editing, re-editing, revising, revising again.

(This post, by the way, went through six revisions before I hit “publish” — the last one, about New York, went through 15.)

Even when I edit myself, I’m always applying three filters, three editing styles, all at once and unconsciously:

— Structural. Does this piece flow? Does it have rhythm? Does the beginning pull you in and keep you? How do I feel about the ending? Should some sections (as my editor suggested, and I did) be moved much higher in the story?

— Line-editing. How does this sentence sound? Is it too short? Too long? Does one paragraph transition smoothly into the next? When and where am I choosing to use a line space? (Helpful for marking transitions in time or place within a narrative. I learned this on some of my very first paid stories, while in college.) Am I repeating words, phrases or ideas — and to what effect?

— Copy-editing. (Should that word have a hyphen?) Looking for spelling and grammatical errors and making sure I have names and numbers correct.

Great writing — (even crappy writing, after it’s finally published) is an iceberg — you’re only seeing the final, visible 10 percent of it!

Why take a webinar with me? A FAQ to soothe your fears!

Feeling lost? I can help!

By Caitlin Kelly

I began offering writing, blogging and freelancing webinars in October 2013. They went really well, with students arriving — via Skype — from places as far-flung as New Zealand and Australia. One webinar included students in Los Angeles and London. So cool!

Feedback was super-positive.

I love teaching and helping other people reach their goals. I really enjoy knowing my skills have been helpful.

THIS WEEK:

FEB 1, 2PM EST, BETTER BLOGGING

FEB 2, 2PM EST, YOU, INC: THE BUSINESS OF FREELANCING

If you’re still wondering if they’re worth it…

Q: Why you? There are plenty of other teachers and classes out there.

With 30 years’ experience writing for the world’s toughest editors, I know what they want and need. I write frequently for The New York Times and am constantly conquering tough new markets, this year adding Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal to my client list.

A former reporter for three major daily newspapers, I’ll make sure you’ve got the fundamentals of traditional journalism tailored to how we all work now — fast-paced, highly competitive and ever-shifting.

My two books of national reporting are well-reviewed; the first called “groundbreaking and invaluable” and the second “clear-eyed” by The New York Times.

A generalist, I’ve written on almost any topic you can name. Whatever your specialty, I can help.

This blog has grown to more than 9,000 followers worldwide, adding new ones every day. I’ve also had six posts chosen for Freshly Pressed.; come learn 30+ tips for yours!.

Q: What happens in these webinars?

I offer an hour of curriculum: practical, specific, time-tested ways to get the job done well and efficiently, whether interviewing, reporting or essay-writing, plus tools and resources you’ll find useful later, from helpful listservs to great conferences.

Q: Is there time for my questions?

Of course! We’ve got 30 minutes for questions. I want every student to leave feeling they’ve received the help they seek.

Q: Why are they priced so high? Some competitors are a lot cheaper!

Class size is small, a maximum of 10, more likely three or four people, offering the kind of individual attention hard to get from a larger class, panel or conference. Former students say they received tremendous value. Fast-paced and information-rich, these classes offer a lot for your money.

Q: I’m a total beginner. Are these too advanced for me?

No. Take and use what you need right now: the basic principles are the same, whether you’re just starting out or decades into a writing career.

Q: Are you focused only on print or do you also address how to write for digital media?

My own work has appeared on popular sites like Quartz, reuters.com and the Harvard Business Review blog. The essentials remain constant, no matter what medium you’re writing for: accuracy, strong voice, solid sourcing, diverse sourcing and an understanding of your audience.

Q: I can’t make it at the times scheduled. Now what?

We can work individually, at a time of your choosing. It’s more expensive, but you’ll have my undivided attention.

THE FULL LIST OF WEBINARS IS HERE.

I ALSO OFFER INDIVIDUAL COACHING; PLEASE EMAIL ME AT LEARNTOWRITEBETTER@GMAIL.COM

20 lessons New Yorkers learn

By Caitlin Kelly

Have you visited or lived in New York City?

It’s a great place, but — oy!

The city resembles a small child, at best bursting with charm, all winning smiles and irresistible, 24/7 energy. At worst? Projectile vomit, much throwing of small, sharp objects and/or prolonged shrieking at high volume.

You never know which city you’ll get.

After 25+ years of living and working around New York City, here’s a random list of 20 things I’ve learned:

— After an exhausting day at a conference or trade show at the Javits Center, a hulking structure on the western edge of town, your poor feet are raw, since there’s almost nowhere there to sit down. Food is crazy expensive and not very good. When it’s time to go home, you head for the taxi rank, naively expecting, (hello, it’s a taxi rank), to find…you know, taxis! Lined up, lots of them, eager for business. Wrong! You will give up and trek long blocks in the pouring rain in search of one, praying you don’t miss your flight home.

— If you actually need a NYC taxi between 4 and 5:00 pm. — also known in most cities as rush hour — fuhgeddaboudit. There are 20 percent fewer cabs on the street then, as that’s the drivers’ shift change. But, if you beg, really nicely, sometimes a driver will in fact take you. Will you get a safe and experienced taxi driver? I once got into a cab, barked “Laguardia” and got a quizzical glance. (It’s one of NYC’s two major airports.) I directed him to the right tollbooth where the collector said “Take the BQE”, (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, a major artery). That didn’t register either.

— NYC — huh? — has shockingly lousy radio. We have WNYC, and the fab Brian Lehrer, (talk, call-in, 10-12 each weekday morning),  and Leonard Lopate, (talk, culture, noon to 2pm, weekdays), and Jonathan Schwartz (American songbook, Saturdays and Sundays.). We have WFUV and WKCR, Columbia University’s station,  (love their eclectic schedule — from troubadours to 60s reggae and ska),  and WQXR. Then…WBGO, a jazz station from Newark, NJ.

— Be very, very careful if you choose to cycle or even cross the street here; a shocking number of people, including children, are killed here every year by careless drivers. Don’t be stupid and focus on your device while trying to navigate the crosswalk, if there even is a crosswalk — that text you’re reading or sending could well be your last.

Here’s a heartbreaking story about a family whose 12-year-old son died this way.  And a bicycle deliveryman. Four people were recently killed by vehicles in just one weekend.

— Getting a traffic or parking ticket of any kind in New York City is really expensive; I recently got my first-ever ticket, for going through a stop sign — $138. (If I’d run a red light in Manhattan, it would have been $270.)

— But the cop who slapped me with my $138 fine also confided, since it was my first offense, how to get out of paying it. (I paid anyway.)

— If you see a taut line of fishing wire atop lamp posts along certain streets, an eruv, it was placed there, at a cost of $100,000 by several Jewish congregations, for religious reasons.

— To enjoy the terrific skating rink erected for a few winter months in Bryant Park without being knocked down by people who can’t skate, get there as soon as it opens for the day. It has great music and an easy-to-reach midtown location. It’s also gorgeous at dusk as the city lights up all around it. I like it much better than the costly, tiny rink at Rockefeller Center or crowded Wollman Rink in Central Park.

— Tourists. Gah! We hate freaking tourists, especially when they walk three or four abreast, slowly, entirely blocking the sidewalk for the rest of us. It’s totally awesome you have all bloody day to stroll, chat and stare. We don’t. Speedupalready!

— Yes, we can tell just by looking that you’re tourists. It’s not just your maps and foreign-language guidebooks. It’s your hair color/cut, choice of pastel clothing and/or white sneakers and/or lots of purple and pink and/or the volume of your conversations. Also, that glazed look.

— Please, do not whine about what things cost here. Yes, the prices are insane — $50 to park for four hours in a garage or $20 for a midtown cocktail, $8 to cross the George Washington Bridge, $10 for dessert or $15 for an appetizer. We know how expensive it is. We also pay a shitload of taxes to a state and city government forever sending its elected officials to court or prison for fraud, sexual harassment or corruption. I once simply drove my mother to the airport — $13 for tolls and 20 minutes parking. Puhleeze.

— The suggested donation at the Metropolitan Museum really is only a suggestion, no matter how intimidating its full fare of $25. If you can muster the chutzpah, offer 25 cents or a dollar.

— Even the most mundane blocks offer fascinating bits of history. This midtown firehouse, on its upper stories, has deeply incised salamanders — which have a deep and historic link to fire. Isn’t it glorious?

— The city has a few early cemeteries where you’d least expect to find them, like these three ancient Jewish graveyards, all within walking distance of downtown shops, homes and modern day offices. Bronx students recently found a possible slave burial ground.

— Two places you can always find a bit of peace? The many pocket parks and plazas dotting the city and the pews of any church.

— You’ll see an entirely new city with each season, and softer or sharper, less or more angled sunlight it brings. I was walking south on Park Avenue the other day — at 2:30 on a sunny January afternoon — and passed a 1960s building I’ve seen hundreds of times. But I saw it wholly anew, as the light’s angle created pockets of shadow clearly intended by the architect, in metal indentations below each window. It was lovely.

Do you know about Manhattanhenge? Very cool!

— Museums charge a fortune, like $14 or $18 admission, but they all have a night of free admission.

— Here’s a terrific daily update of free/cheap/fun stuff to do in the city, The Skint, created by my friend Elizabeth who, natch, is also the lead singer in this amazing band playing 1920s tunes, The Hot Sardines, who often play at the Standard Hotel and Joe’s Pub.

You can even, for a week in late January every year, watch world-class champions playing squash in a glass-walled court inside Grand Central Station. Crazy!

— There  is beauty in almost every single block, if you look carefully. It might be a hanging lamp, a brass marker inlaid in the concrete, a gargoyle, a church spire, leaded windows, exquisite ironwork, a tiny snowman with pretzel hair. Despite its insane rushrushrush, New York City is actually a place that rewards a slower pace, (off the busiest streets!)

— New Yorkers may look mean, tough, unfriendly. We’re really not. We are usually in a hurry, (knowing the taxi, if we can even find one, will take forever to get there or the subway will break down). We’re probably rushing somewhere to get more something: money, opportunities, friends, whatever. But so many of us have come here from somewhere else that we get what it feels like to be scared, overwhelmed, lonely — and thrilled to finally master this place, even for a while.

Or…am I completely meshugannah?

Feel free to argue loudly. Hey, it’s what we do!

DON’T FORGET!

FEB. 1, 2PM EST, BETTER BLOGGING WEBINAR

FEB. 2, 2PM EST, YOU, INC: THE BUSINESS OF FREELANCING

DETAILS AND SIGN-UP HERE

1841, 1942, 2014: The writer’s life changes little

By Caitlin Kelly

It’s oddly comforting, when you earn your living as a writer, to read the words — the pleas, the moans, the rants! –– of other writers long gone, writers whose names are still hugely famous decades, centuries later. The arguments with publishers, the ego-wars of criticism, the fight to earn a living, the “I’ll start my own magazine instead.”

All too familiar, even today.

Yesterday I went to the Pierpont Morgan Library, a tiny, small, lovely museum on Madison Avenue at 36th. Street, across from 200 Madison, where I had my very first NYC magazine editing job, back in 1990.

The show about Edgar Allen Poe closes tomorrow — Jan. 26 — so if you’re in or near NYC, it’s worth a visit. There are lovely artifacts, like original letters and manuscripts, photos of him and of others he inspired.

But I also enjoyed him describing the “magazine prison-house” of paid journalism he longed to flee, back in the 1840s. I can relate!

And then, eager for fame “at once” he writes a fawning letter to writer Washington Irving. Sounds familiar, too.

A gorgeous new show examines the American roots of The Little Prince, the legendary book written by French aviator Antoine de St.-Exupery, first published in 1943 and available now in more than 250 languages. If you haven’t yet read it, I urge you to!

The links between his book and NYC are quite amazing.

He worked on the book in the studio of Bernard Lamotte on 52d St., now the site of the classic French restaurant La Grenouille. He also rented a house on Long Island and wrote there.

Ann Morrow Lindbergh, writing in her diary, finds the work deeply moving.

The show includes a list of all the discarded phrases he chose along the way for one section; I loved seeing his thought process. Not to mention the sheet of onionskin paper, clearly crumpled and tossed, here flattened and smoothed and framed.

Who among us has not crushed and tossed?

And I loved the three-page typewritten fit of pique, from Nov. 9. 1942, from George Davis, an editor of the era, furious to learn that his translation from French to English has been discarded in favor of another’s:

I let me gentility carry me away in the presence of the exalted aviator -writer and set no price on my services…since the honeymoon is over I suppose the time is here to take the cash.

No contract? No set fee? Overwhelmed by celebrity?

Yup, that too.

Here’s The New York Times’ review of the show.

If you want to succeed freelance…

By Caitlin Kelly

I hope you’ll sign up for my webinar, Sunday Feb. 2 at 2pm EST.

It’s 90 minutes, conducted through Skype, costs $125 and will help anyone — photographer, graphic designer, artist, writer, small business owner — who wants to really understand how to earn a living without a steady paycheck.

I grew up in a family where everyone worked freelance, in film, television and journalism. No one had a steady paycheck or paid sick or vacation days. No pension. No access to unemployment benefits.

As the saying goes, we ate only what we killed. I learned early, firsthand, the importance of persistence, of protecting your intellectual property, of keeping very careful track of what you earn and what you owe in taxes. (For those of you who’ve never freelanced, you become wholly responsible for paying whatever taxes you owe, as none are deducted at source.)

I started freelancing as a journalist at the age of 19, while still a full-time undergraduate at the University of Toronto, Canada’s  most competitive university and freelanced full-time after graduation for three years. I then won a prestigious and highly competitive journalism fellowship in Paris and was hired as a staff writer by the Globe and Mail.

I’ve gone on to write freelance for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Smithsonian and many more outlets, including on-line sites like Quartz.

I’ve been full-time freelance since 2006, this time around, my third long stint doing so.

In this webinar, you’ll learn some of the many skills you need to thrive while self-employed:

— how to find clients

— how to keep them!

— how to detect, avoid or fire PITAs (pains in the ass)

— how to juggle multiple projects at once

— how to find and manage researchers and assistants

— how to price your time

— how to handle late payers and deadbeats

— efficient time management

Sign up is here.

I also coach individually, and my students have found tremendous value even after two hours by phone, email or Skype. Whatever you want or need to discuss, it’s your call!

Questions or concerns?

Please email me at learntowritebetter@gmail.com.

How’s your blog doing?

By Caitlin Kelly

Many of you are also blogging — whether for fun, for visibility, to improve your writing, to make friends. Maybe to evangelize for issues you care deeply about, like feminism, faith, education reform, fitness or social justice.

Some of you run a business — music, cooking, coaching, photography — which a well-written blog can also help, by conveying your visibility, authority, credibility and personality to potential clients.

Some of you have also had your work chosen by Freshly Pressed, WordPress’ daily pick of nine posts from 400,000+ blogs on the WP platform. If you’re not reading them regularly, I urge you to visit now and again.

I started blogging here in July 2009, and, now with 1,500+ posts, have been Freshly Pressed six times; here’s one of mine they chose, from August 2012, about why it’s so important to say thank you.

I blog three times a week — frequency is one essential key to building and growing an attentive audience.

If you’re eager to gain more readers, boost engagement or have your blog catch the eye of an editor or agent I can help!

I hope you’ll sign up for my next webinar, Better Blogging, on Saturday Feb. 1 at 2pm EST. The webinar is via Skype, costs $125 for 90 minutes and will offer you more than 30 specific and practical tips to improve your blog.

I can also take time, before we begin, to look at your blog and read a few posts to get an idea of your tone, design and content and offer you useful, constructive feedback, if desired.

Here’s a former post with specific tips, a taste of what we talk about in the webinar.

Here’s a testimonial from Jonelle Hilleary, a blogger in D.C. who took this webinar last fall:

I have to say that since that time, after thinking carefully about what we learned and discussed, I have sustained a 644% increase in new readers over the last 3 months- at least many are seeing my work and coming back, according to the data. So for others who may be weighing commenting, this is a great opportunity to make a new acquaintance with some awesome knowledge.

Sign up here!

Questions and concerns? Please email me at learntowritebetter@gmail.com.

He outed a source. She committed suicide. Then ESPN apologized

By Caitlin Kelly

Have you been following this?

A writer named Caleb Hannan profiled the inventor of a “magic putter” named Essay Anne Vanderbilt for an ESPN-owned website called Grantland.

Here is the story he wrote.

As he dug into the story over seven months, it became clear she was hiding something from him. He discovered that she was transgender, and outed her to one of her investors.

She committed suicide.

It has prompted a firestorm — among writers, editors, bloggers and armchair ethicists — over how this story was (mis)handled.

Here’s one analysis of the piece and its aftermath.

And another, from Alyssa Rosenberg at Think Progress:

one of the best reasons for large journalistic organizations to hire staff with a broad range of life experience and expertise, and to treat those perspectives as if they’re valuable and deserve deference, is so someone’s present to step in when a piece fails, to educate the writer in question, and to save subjects of pieces from journalistic malpractice, and publications from damaging themselves…

It’s hard to consider better evidence of the value of having staff with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives–and of the willingness to go outside your own staff when they reach the limits of their wisdom. Doing this takes humility, and it takes curiosity, an acknowledgement that your own knowledge is not the sum of the world, and a voracious hunger to understand more of it. These are the basic qualities of good journalism. It’s remarkable that so many news organizations fail to apply them to considering the mix of their own staff and contributors.

Here’s a smart post from a friend, colleague and another veteran sportswriter, Vivian Bernstein:

I was once assigned to write a feature story on a high profile, nationally known professional athlete who kept getting into trouble. What was wrong with this guy? I talked to former coaches and anyone in his hometown who knew him back when the athlete was in high school.

Through that reporting, I learned a shocking family secret.

The athlete’s mother had attempted suicide back around the time he was becoming a local star with a big future. Not only that, but it was the athlete who had actually found his mother following the attempt.

The information may have shed some light on why this athlete had been so troubled. It also turned what was going to be a good feature into a great story.

But before I published it I wanted to find out something about this woman who was not a public figure and was about to have her personal agony exposed. That was a problem because I was not able to interview her. The athlete was refusing all media requests at the time, too.

So I tracked down the brother of the athlete and I asked him the one question I needed an answer to before writing this story:

Would revealing his mother’s secret cause so much anguish that she might consider suicide again?

Maybe, he said. And he implored me not to write it.

I thought about what greater public good would come from revealing the truth. Would it help others? Would it prevent a crime? Would it save lives? Was there any redeeming Fourth Estate journalistic purpose at all? We’re not talking Pentagon Papers here.

No. It would only make me look good for scooping the competition and drawing readers. And it would have been a hell of an ego boost.

I never wrote it. I have kept that secret to this day.

Like Viv, I’ve had a long career in journalism. Like Viv, I’ve also heard a few shocking secrets, and had sources plead with me to keep them in the closet. I did. No question about it. I never discussed it with an editor or coworker or colleague or friend. I knew what to do (how would I feel if it were me?) and behaved accordingly.

There’s another element to this story that pissed me off, and, yes, because it’s people like me and Viv — veterans of decades of smart, thoughtful, accurate journalism — have been shoved for good out of beloved newsroom jobs. We’re considered old and expensive; 24,000 journalists were fired in 2008 alone.

Here’s Bill Simmons, the editor of the Hannan story and part of his apology:

Another reason we created Grantland: to find young writers we liked, bring them into the fold, make them better, maybe even see if we could become the place they remembered someday when someone asked them, “So what was your big break?” That matters to us. Just about every writer we have is under 40 years old. Many of them are under 30. I am our third-oldest writer, as crazy as that sounds. For us, 31-year-old Caleb Hannan had (and has) a chance to be one of those writers. That’s why it hurts so much that we failed him.

There’s a really smart reason that some journalism organizations still keep and value those with decades in the trenches — who have made mistakes, learned from them and now teach others not to do the same damn thing.

It’s called institutional knowledge.

No matter how whip-smart or ambitious a 31-year-old might be, or a brilliant 23-year-old, they haven’t been around the block a few times. They’ve barely found the block — the place every ambitious writer reaches — where difficult, challenging, complicated stories demand a lot of smart, tough thinking from people who already done a lot of that.

Without smart, tough, wise editors — willing to think broadly, deeply, inclusively and incisively — we’re all screwed.

How much money is enough?

By Caitlin Kelly

Interesting, if scary, essay in The New York Times recently, by a former Wall Streeter — who once sneered at his $3.6 million bonus as insufficient:

After graduation, I got a job at Bank of America, by the grace of a managing director willing to take a chance on a kid who had called him every day for three weeks…At the end of my first year I was thrilled to receive a $40,000 bonus. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have to check my balance before I withdrew money. But a week later, a trader who was only four years my senior got hired away by C.S.F.B. for $900,000. After my initial envious shock — his haul was 22 times the size of my bonus — I grew excited at how much money was available.

Over the next few years I worked like a maniac and began to move up the Wall Street ladder. I became a bond and credit default swap trader, one of the more lucrative roles in the business. Just four years after I started at Bank of America, Citibank offered me a “1.75 by 2” which means $1.75 million per year for two years, and I used it to get a promotion. I started dating a pretty blonde and rented a loft apartment on Bond Street for $6,000 a month.

I felt so important…The satisfaction wasn’t just about the money. It was about the power…

Still, I was nagged by envy. On a trading desk everyone sits together, from interns to managing directors. When the guy next to you makes $10 million, $1 million or $2 million doesn’t look so sweet.

If you live — as we do — in an area filled with seriously wealthy people, some of whom attend the same church as we do, or sit beside us on the same commuter train, it’s disorienting to realize what “enough” looks like to those of us whose annual incomes are a puny fraction of theirs.

My first husband, a physician, earns in one month what I make in a not-great year writing.

A new film, The Wolf of Wall Street, is a true-life story of a former trader whose life defined greed. Cate Blanchett should get an Oscar nomination for her role in Blue Jasmine, Woody Allen’s latest film, about a New York woman who tumbles from tremendous wealth into poverty.

And here’s a stunning bit of new data, from Oxfam –– 85 people own nearly half the world’s wealth.

Here’s a sobering list of how much money you’ll need for retirement — if you need or want $4,000 a month, your stash needs to be $666,000. Very few people can ever manage to save that much, especially when battered by multiple recessions and a weak economy.

People who live nowhere near NYC have no idea how insanely expensive it is or why we put up with it — for some of us, it’s where we need to be professionally; my husband spends more than $5,000 a year just to get to his office, between train, cab and subway. There’s no practical way to cut that fixed cost, a stupid number to many of you, I know.

But moving an hour or two further away from the city to save on housing costs also means an even longer commute, (which costs more), and sharply diminishes the time and energy to spend on its cultural, social and professional opportunities — fine for some, not for others.

Let alone the time one has to see one’s family, relax or have a life; one of my favorite books is the classic, Your Money or Your Life, which makes clear that’s the tradeoff many of us make, with only 24 hours in every day.

One writer I know profitably pounds the drum of endless productivity — a very American obsession — with books like 168 Hours.

What the point of making huge bank if you’re working all the time and/or too exhausted to enjoy your personal interests, (or even have any!), let alone nurture intimate relationships with anything beyond your computer screen or phone?

Credit Suisse recently made headlines by suggesting its junior bankers take Saturdays off.

I come from a family with money, some inherited, some earned, but will never enjoy a lavish life like theirs, which is sometimes a little depressing after watching them spend freely on jewels, furs, limousines, property, cars, travel and antiques. You develop a taste for the best, with extremely limited ability to buy it yourself.

So what’s really “enough”?

For us, at the moment, it’s having decent retirement savings and adding to them every year, no matter how much immediate fun it costs us.

It’s my husband’s job that he still enjoys and which, thank God, offers a pension.

Above all, it’s good health — without which billions in the bank means damn little.

How much money is enough for you these days?

The writer’s week: PLM, stretch lace and late payments

By Caitlin Kelly

Occasionally, I review a week in the life of a full-time writer, me.

Monday

That’s a whole week ago, so I can barely remember. Finished up a fact-checking job for another writer, someone I’ve never met who lives in Florida, whose book is a series of brief biographies. A story I’d written for the Wall Street Journal — whose income, as always, I rely on — was abruptly killed, an overnight loss of $600. Shit.

In an online members-only writers’ forum, I saw the plea for fact-checking help and, for $25/hour, jumped in. I made up $500 of that lost $600 with a week’s phoning, emailing and on-line research, even though I’d never fact-checked before. Much of my work now means jumping, without hesitation or fear, into media and projects I have zero experience with.

But now I have to let all the people I interviewed for the WSJ piece know they’re not going to get the mention they had hoped for. One of the problems of writing for a living that’s rarely discussed publicly is managing your sources, without whom you have nothing to write about. I hate wasting people’s time and now have to share this disappointing news with them. I fear it make me look incompetent, when a killed story happens maybe 1% of the time.

Tuesday

Off to cover a trade show in Manhattan, at the (ugh) Javits Center, the massive conference center at the western edge of the city. I hate Javits! This is the third year in a row I’ve attended the National Retail Federation’s Big Show, an annual event that brings every possible vendor of anything interesting to a retailer — scanners, training programs, scheduling software, PLM (product life management) software. It’s basically an annual arms race, in which one or several Big Box retailers adopts a specific system, the vendor touts their win, and competitors think “Hmmmm, maybe we need this as well.”

The center is so huge that even walking to the bathroom or coat check is a hike; one vendor wearing a pedometer tells me she walked 10 miles there in one day.

I run around the place interviewing the eight people I’ve been asked to meet. Some use acronyms I’ve never heard — PLM, RFID — and I’m dancing as fast as I can. RFID turns out to be, (to me anyway), fascinating, radio frequency identification, which embeds every paper clothing tag with a device that can be read from a distance without opening a box to check inventory. (OK, I guess I’m a systems geek.)

Having worked retail for 2.5 years as an associate for The North Face — the subject of my book, “Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail” — and having to slash open huge boxes of clothing with a box cutter, (talk about inefficient and dangerous), I’m really intrigued by this efficient new system. But it’s expensive — 7 to 8 cents per tag — and I realize how much cost our clothing prices include that we never see or know about.

I leave Javits at 4:00 pm, into pouring rain. Of course, there are no cabs at the taxi rank and a long line of miserable people waiting. My feet are killing, me but I hoof it another four long, wet blocks to the bus stop to catch the crosstown bus to Grand Central to catch the train home.

Wednesday

So excited! Today I’m attending another trade show in the city, for the same editor, someone in a distant state I’ve also never met, (typical of my worklife). This show is a lot smaller, and a lot more fun, a combination of textile manufacturers and designers whose own paintings and digital prints designers buy, then use in their own collections. Glam-looking professionals, all in chic bits of black, cluster on the sidewalk clutching their coffees, waiting for the doors to open at 9:00 a.m.

Two dozen of us watch an hour-long video of spring/summer 2015 trends: pale colors, lots of mesh, netting, lace and transparent fabrics. Neon is out, kids! I run around the show until 5:00 interviewing the people on my list. Many are French, so I speak the most French I have in ages, which I love. I see spectacularly beautiful silk, lace, wool, mesh and satins and recognize the names of some Very Big fashion labels on the buyers selecting their choices. One designer of amazing patterns, which you can buy, own and use exclusively for $625, tells me that one of my favorite women’s activewear companies uses many of his designs.

I’ll never look at a piece of clothing quite the same way again. This is why journalism is so addictive. In one day, I’ve enjoyed: meeting a pile of highly creative people; gotten to use my language skills; learned a great deal about this industry and made some useful new contacts for future stories and projects. What’s not to like?

Thursday

Time to bang out two 1,000-word stories, due this evening to my editor in California. No pressure!

I also call and email editors whose payments to me — as is now typical — have not arrived, even weeks later. While 30 days is normal, the pace of my production is much faster now, and waiting for a month for something I have to bang out within a day or two seems ridiculous. At this point, I have pennies in my bank account, bills are due and I have to start using my line of credit. (I have significant retirement savings and another emergency fund with six months’ expenses, but a short-term cash flow issue is not, in my mind, an emergency. I keep those funds in case, God forbid, I simply can’t work at all for a period of time, to be able to keep contributing the amount my husband relies on every month for our expenses and savings.)

A freelancer who can’t pay their bills on time is someone whose business, health and reputation are at risk. I’ve had a bank line of credit — $16,000 worth — for more than a decade. When I call and email editors, my tone needs to be breezy, relaxed, happy, not someone desperate for any assignment. (Even if it might be true!)

I email and call half a dozen editors, print and on-line, to check on the progress of my pitches to them. A pitch I’ve sent to one Marie Claire editor comes back, suggesting another editor there, and possibly a better fit for a competing magazine. I try the second MC editor and decide to give it a week before trying the competitor.

Friday

Exhausted. Between writing, blogging, tweeting and FB, I feel like my eyes are going to melt. I should jump at once into my next story, a long personal essay for Good Housekeeping, but I desperately need a day to myself and off the damn computer. I’m also physically spent from two crazy days of walking and non-stop interviewing.

I have an eye exam and discover — which I knew — I finally need reading glasses. The optometrist is a woman my age who tells me I’ve dodged that bullet a decade longer than most.

I get an email, out of the blue, from a source in California I’d interviewed last year for my (unsold) book proposal, asking me (!) to possibly speak at their annual conference. I give her an idea what that will cost and hope it will come through. I enjoy public speaking and it’s the easiest money I now earn.

I drive to Greenwich, a super-wealthy Connecticut town about 20 minutes east of us, to pick up a gallon of my favorite, spendy, British-made paint, Farrow & Ball. We’re having a new contact over for dinner — someone who might (!) send me on a very cool research trip for her organization — so we want the apartment spotless. I splurge on some gorgeous fresh flowers, white nerines, orange tulips and some greenery, and pick up the food for the dinner. I’d hoped to make filet mignon but at $29/lb. (!!!!) choose pork chops instead.

Saturday

One of the great pleasures of living so close to New York City is being able to hop in for a few hours after a 40-minute train ride. I buy a 10-trip ticket — whose price has just risen again — now $83. I walk from Grand Central to ICP, the International Center of Photography to see a show of photos by Lewis Hine.  Admission is $14. New York City is really expensive!

The show is fairly large, and the images — of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in 1905, of child labor in 1915, of African Americans in the 1920s — are powerful, some of them very familiar. A former schoolteacher, Hine became the pre-eminent photographer of his era, capturing slices of life that were damning and which prompted social change. Yet he died broke and unknown.

I wonder what impels us to do the work we do, to care as deeply as we do, if this is to be our inglorious end.

Our dinner is a lot of fun; our guests have lived and worked in Europe, the U.S. and Africa, so we have lots of stories to share, from the White House (my husband was a NYT photographer there for 8 years) to Rwanda.

Sunday

Pooped! A day to sleep, recharge, catch up with my husband, himself a busy, tired NYT photo editor, and read four newspapers — the WSJ, two days of the NYT and the weekend Financial Times.

I bang out this blog post, trying not to freak out about the coming week: bills due, no checks (yet) and a 2,000 word piece due on Thursday I haven’t had a minute to start work on.