Are we here for attention or support? Both?

By Caitlin Kelly

I grew up long before social media existed.

If I wanted or needed love, attention, interest — in me or my work — I had to find and nurture the relationships that might provide it. Or not. In the real world, friends can come and go, betray us, be disloyal, say stupid or unkind things — or be incredibly loving for decades.

When conflict arises, which is likely over a long relationship of true intimacy, we have a choice: try and work it out or bail and end the relationship.

We had no “mute” or “block” button as Twitter so conveniently offers.

I spend too much of my time on Twitter, I admit, and now have 6,239 followers there, a few of whom have become close friends. But I would never mistake the majority of these strangers as benign and caring friends, no matter how much anyone “likes” my tweets or retweets me.

True friends show up for us at times of real difficulty, bringing their physical presence whenever possible or sending cards, gifts, flowers, letters. They know how bad things really are, or how hard we may have worked to win something.

I’ve also been very badly burned twice through Facebook, once by a “friend” who sent a screenshot of my (unwise) rant about an editor to that editor — destroying a professional relationship. I now accept almost no new “friends.”

So people on social media “know” only a fraction of who I am, even though I’ve shared quite a lot here, because, even though WordPress says I have 23,000 (!?) followers, a tiny fraction (thank you!) ever comment. I really have no idea if more than 20 or 30 people even read this. Tant pis!

I’m very aware that sharing personal or professional details — here and anywhere on social media — also means leaving myself open to criticism, judgment and cruelty, not just kindness.

I was recently shocked (should I have been?) to see a highly popular artist/writer start hinting on Twitter that she was facing a dire medical diagnosis, which she has now made clear is some form of cancer. She has 38,000 followers, but some have chosen to tweet truly horrific things in reply to her very real fear and grief.

I’ve tweeted and DMed her to suggest she stop sharing any details there immediately and focus solely on true friends and medical care. The added stress is not helpful.

Social media — certainly in an era of (ugh) “influencers” — begs an important question:

Are we doing this for attention (obviously) or (also?) for crucial emotional support?

I see many people now sharing their grief on Twitter (as well as weddings and births and graduations and new Phds) and find this somewhat confounding — but I also spent the first 30 years of my life in Canada and France, countries whose cultures are far more reticent than the “lemme tell you everything right now!” that Americans seem to enjoy.

It’s true many of us are now terribly isolated and lonely, and year after year of avoiding social contact because of COVID, is only making it worse. Social media becomes a default way to connect emotionally and intellectually.

It’s just a double-edged sword.

I was recently dressed down (albeit privately and in a friendly way) by a very senior journalist who admires my work, saying I’m so negative about journalism on Twitter I’m losing editors’ interest in working with me.

At this point in my career, I don’t care. I want newer writers to avoid the many pitfalls I see them tumbling into.

But loneliness is a huge problem for so many…here’s a long, smart NYT article about it:

real remedies to the problem of loneliness, Dr. Murthy stressed, must address not just the lonely people but the culture making them lonely.

“We ask people to exercise and eat a healthy diet and take their medications,” he said. “But if we truly want to be healthy, happy and fulfilled as a society, we have to restructure our lives around people. Right now our lives are centered around work.”

From the surgeon general of the United States, this is a moonshot call, to reverse cultural patterns that are decades in the making and that profit some of the nation’s biggest businesses.

We recently hosted a much beloved younger friend for a few days, visiting NY for the first time in a few years from Oregon. What a joy it was!

We chatted, snoozed, caught up, discovered all sorts of unlikely commonalities — like our addiction to the Bourne movies. Like us, she works freelance, so we have lots in common from a work perspective as well.

It was so sad to say goodbye!

Why do I still blog — now 13 years and 2,000+ posts into it?

I love having a place to muse, to share my travels or images or advice or ideas…many of which can’t be monetized and sold as pieces of journalism. I weary of retailing every thought!

But I also enjoy hearing from you!

So, yes, attention is the goal.

How about you?

Do you blog or tweet or use Reddit or TikTok or YouTube to gain attention or support?

Is it working for you as you hope?

Diminishing returns…worth continuing?

By Caitlin Kelly

Well, that was depressing!

I finally made time to do an analysis of who visits this site, while WordPress tells me it has 23,193 followers.

I see no evidence of that!

Starting March 2018 — pre-pandemic and mass distraction/anxiety related to COVID — my views have since dropped to double digits per day, from three digits, which isn’t impressive but better than this.

I enjoy blogging but, like you, have no time or energy to waste pumping stuff into silence and invisibility.

I know some readers here — much appreciated!!! — have been reading and commenting since the start, July 1, 2009.

Is this worth continuing?

Are you even making/finding time for other/better/more compelling blogs?

What is this missing or doing so poorly?

Laying down tools for a bit!

A recent favorite book. I’m mad about movies!

By Caitlin Kelly

I started writing this blog on July 1, 2009.

I was convinced no one would ever find it or read it or comment. Happily, I was wrong — WordPress tells me 22,000+ people have followed it and my daily stats show people arriving from across the globe, a real compliment.

I also write for a living, so the 2,315 posts I’ve so far published here have been in addition to producing dozens of paid/published articles and a book, Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail.

It’s very weird to…not write. For probably every writer, it’s how we process the world and how we feel about our time in it.

Our tools are simple enough — a device, our hands, our eyes/ears/brain, access to the Internet (not easy for many!)

But I’ve spent the past week not working for income but focused on a book proposal I’ve been trying to revive for a few years, about women and journalism. I’m being vague until/unless it sells. Writing a book proposal is a lot of unpaid work, done in the hope you will actually find an agent and a publisher and get paid enough to make it worth doing. Each step offers its own challenges — having an agent sounds so glamorous but I have been bitterly disappointed by quite a few, even Big Name New York ones.

Like dating, it’s a combination of intellectual and emotional fit — and knowing your agent will do their very best for you. Both of my books faced 25 rejections each before finally selling and today publishing is so much more consolidated it’s even more daunting for the mid-list crowd like me.

Two friends — within a week — including one who works for a major publisher recently urged me to write a memoir. So I bought a book on how to do that and might start writing bits and pieces. It’s tricky for every memoirist with family dramas and unresolved issues. (Likely everyone!)

My husband, Jose, is a photographer and photo editor, working freelance for the USGA and The New York Times; he’s also my transcriptionist! I never learned to touch type, as he did, so I bang everything out with only two weary fingers. At the usual $1/recorded minute one pays a transcriptionist, I at least owe him lunch!

So I’ll enjoy the next week or so, as many of you — I hope! — will as well: eating, napping, watching movies and fun TV, taking walks. Reconnecting with yourself and those you love, ideally at home!

Wishing you all a great Hanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa!

Taking a breather

By Caitlin Kelly

I know everyone’s tired and overwhelmed and distracted right now.

The U.S., for a lot of reasons, is a firestorm both literally and politically.

Millions are broke, exhausted, ill, angry, despairing, grieving.

Writing this blog for so few views these days — sorry! — also means I’m going to take a break.

I’ll see you in a week or two.

Maybe by then I’ll have more interesting material!

Stay safe.

Stay healthy.

The editorial relationship

 

 

By Caitlin Kelly

The good and bad of blogging  — for writers and readers alike — no editors!

No one to say: “Hmmm, really?”

No one to ask: “What did you mean to say here?”

No one to suggest: “Maybe you wanted a shorter paragraph?”

I’ve been writing for a living since I was 19, so I’ve worked with many editors, men and women of all ages and temperaments, some as my bosses or coworkers, many as those who chose to assign me freelance work, and my two non-fiction books.

The very best are like the best plastic surgeons — when they trim, you barely notice it, but suddenly your material looks so much better.

The very best remain calm and cool, able to re-direct us and soothe us when we’re lost or panicked in the weeds of reporting and interviewing. Book editors are gods to me — helping us make sense of 100,000 words.

I’m always amazed at the trust that each editor places in us and our skills and our character and our ethics and our work ethic when they commit to us. This was a bigger deal when top writers were paid $3/word by the big glossy magazines and a $6,000 or $9,000 or $12,000 check was still possible and not some gauzy memory.

Then as now, editors hedge their bets with contracts that may not contain a kill fee, or a very small one (25 percent), so that $4,000 you expected to earn — hah, now you’re only getting $1,000 and your bills be damned!

It’s one reason smart full-time freelancers are very, very frugal; it’s easy to blow some cash on a vacation or some new clothes or some dental work or car repair — put  it on a credit card — and, guess what?

You aren’t getting that money now.

It’s very stressful and stories get killed for a lot of very bad reasons. One I see a lot (not in my work) is editors who commission a story, disappear for weeks or even months (!?) and then the story is no longer timely or someone else already published it. This punishes the writer, who’s done all the work in good faith.

 

 

Some of my most memorable editors:

— The one who sent me off to profile David Quinn, then the brand-new coach of the New York Rangers, saying “You’re Canadian. You know hockey!” I did not. Here’s the story.

— The one who just assigned me a scary story about a technical topic for a specialist audience of readers with Phds. “You realize I never studied chemistry or physics?” I emailed him. Onward, anyway.

— The  one who told me to get what he was sure was a totally ungettable interview and I came back within a few hours with a former European leader.

— The one who sent me off on a two-week tour of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. Lord, what an adventure: Ontario, Manitoba, New Brunswick. We flew in Lear jets, allowing Her Majesty the “purple corridor” of advance time for her jet to take off before ours.

— The one who sent me, in December, to the tiny Arctic village of Salluit, ostensibly to deliver an entire small plane-full of donated clothing, with only 24 hours there. We landed on ice and snow at maybe 1pm, and no one wanted the stuff, and it was dark by 2pm and  I had to go on the radio, a particle board shack, being translated into Inuktitut, to calm the village down and get anyone to even speak to me.

 

 

— The one, at the New York Daily News, my direct manager, who said: “When I want to speak to you, I’ll let you know” and never spoke to me again. That was December and I was let go in  June. Fun!

— The one who edited Boy’s Life, the Boy Scout’s official magazine, and had me interviewing Scouts (by phone) all across America. They were always terrific!

 

 

— The one who read my initial manuscript for Malled and said: “I really like Chapters 11 and 12.” The rest? Needed revision. We made it.

— The one who sent me from Toronto, freelance, for The Globe & Mail, to write about performing eight shows of Sleeping Beauty as an extra with the National Ballet of Canada, at Lincoln Center. I typed it up in my room at the Empire Hotel and dictated it over the phone. “This is great!” he said.

 

At best, it’s a collegial collaboration of mutual respect.

At worst, you feel butchered and never want to trust another editor again.

And you never know for sure what you’ll get!

10 years, 2,137 posts, 21,461 followers — thanks!

 

By Caitlin Kelly

A decade!

I was pushed into blogging in the summer of 2009 by my then-agent, as we were trying to sell my second book (which we sold on September 11, 2009), and even then “having a platform” was becoming a publishers’ demand — i.e. bringing with you a built-in audience for your work.

 

 

 

I didn’t want to blog and was fearful I’d have anything useful to add. There were, then, 400,000 (!?) blogs on WordPress, and who knows how many now?

The ensuing ten years have proved both personally and professionally interesting, much of which I’ve chronicled here.

Like:

 

 

— 2011, got married on Centre Island in Toronto harbor, with 25 dear friends.

— 2012, finally got my destroyed left hip replaced

—  2012, won this exclusive about Google teaching meditation for The New York Times, the fruits of six months’ negotiation

— 2013, renovated our kitchen, which I designed

— 2014, back to Paris and London, where I met the fabulous blogger behind Small Dog Syndrome,  Somehow we survived a week of me and my too-large suitcase and her and her husband in their very small flat. Whew!

 

Hotel Flora, Venice

 

— 2017. I took a six week vacation, most of it solo, traveling from NY-Paris-Berlin-Budapest-Zagreb-Rovinj-Venice-London. Bliss!

 

 

 

— 2018, diagnosed in June with DCIS, a very early form of breast cancer.

 

 

It means a lot that some of you keep reading and commenting, year after year.

 

It’s heartening to know my words are of value beyond the monetary price put on them for my paid assignments.

 

Thank you!

Taking a break

 

By Caitlin Kelly

I’m not doing any paid writing this month.

I’m really tired and need to rest and recharge.

While Broadside has more than 20,700 followers, according to WordPress, (which is lovely), the number of readers-per-post remains extremely low — most posts, no matter what the subject, get a maximum of 100 views before I post another one, hoping for more.

I’ve published 2,105, starting on July 1, 2009.

I enjoy blogging and will continue, but I am feeling generally dis-spirited and need a break.

 

If anyone wants to offer suggestions on how to improve readership of Broadside — more/fewer posts? shorter/longer posts? wider variety of subjects?  — feel free to comment here or send me an email; the address is on the welcome and about pages.

 

I appreciate every one who makes time to read, and especially to comment!

I really value those who return year after year (!) and whose insights make writing this stuff more compelling for me and for other readers,

 

But I’m going on hiatus until January, probably the first week.

I hope to meet you back here then.

 

Have a great holiday!

 

The blog post I dare not publish

By Caitlin Kelly

Actually, there are several.

Maybe you have a few as well.

These are not posts that are deeply and personally confessional, but my (generally left-leaning) opinions on politics and my disgust with where we’ve ended up in 2018.

Here’s a recent New York Times column by Michelle Goldberg that expresses it well:

It’s a natural response — and, in some cases, the right response — to try to hold the line against political reaction, to shame people who espouse shameful ideas. But shame is a politically volatile emotion, and easily turns into toxic resentment. It should not be overused. I don’t know exactly where to draw the line between ideas that deserve a serious response, and those that should be only mocked and scorned. I do know that people on the right benefit immensely when they can cultivate the mystique of the forbidden.

In February, Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist who has garnered a cultlike following, asked, in an interview with Vice, “Can men and women work together in the workplace?” To him, the Me Too movement called into question coed offices, a fundamental fact of modern life, because “things are deteriorating very rapidly at the moment in terms of the relationships between men and women.”

Having to contend with this question fills me with despair. I would like to say: It’s 2018 and women’s place in public life is not up for debate! But to be honest, I think it is. Trump is president. Everywhere you look, the ugliest and most illiberal ideas are gaining purchase. Refusing to take them seriously won’t make them go away. (As it happens, I’m participating in a debate with Peterson next week in Toronto.)

I shy far away, here and on Facebook and usually on Twitter, from so many political subjects — gun use and abortion, being two of them — that will only provoke trolls, bullies and harassers.

I have no time, energy or appetite to get into fights with ghosts over this stuff, no matter how passionately I feel about them, which I do.

It’s become a world of virtue signalling, spittle-flecked (out) rage and worse.

I see some bloggers sticking resolutely close to home with soothing/inspiring images and posts.

I get it.

I wish I dared.

But I don’t.

 

Are you also holding back on your blog and other social media?

Want to write better? I can help!

By Caitlin Kelly

 

 

A few new things to share:

 

⇒  If you work in design or architecture, in or near New York City, I’m once more teaching a class I created that starts soon at the New York School of Interior Design,  Writing Skills for Designers. It starts March 21 at the school, on East 70th. Street, (very close to the 68th. Street subway.)

The class runs two hours, for four weeks, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. It helps design professionals — architects, interior designers, lighting designers, anyone working in the field — produce lively and compelling copy.

It’s fun and practical and you’ll come away inspired!

 

 

⇒ If you are, or know of someone, a truly interesting entrepreneur with an unusual story, (anywhere in the world),  please email me at learntowritebetter@gmail.com as I’m always looking for people to feature in The New York Times column on entrepreneurship.

 

⇒ If you’re thinking of attending the annual conference of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, held every spring in New York City, I’ll be speaking there May 19 at 2:30 on How To Write for The New York Times, which I’ve done dozens of times since 1990, and for many different sections and editors.

I’ve been an ASJA member for many years, (membership costs only $235 a year), served for six years on their volunteer board, and every year I volunteer to mentor at the conference as well.

It’s a terrific place to meet fellow writers at all levels, as well as agents and editors.

 

 

 

⇒ I coach writers of all skill levels, focusing on non-fiction, journalism and public relations. Maybe you want to create a better blog or to get a personal essay published and paid for.

I read and offer clear, helpful feedback on finished work and/or answer pretty much any questions you have about how to succeed in journalism, whether writing for websites, magazines or newspapers.

 

As the winner of a Canadian National Magazine Award, (for an essay about my divorce, in the humor category!), a three-time staff reporter for three major daily newspapers, former magazine editor and successful freelance writer for The New York Times, Washington Post, Marie Claire, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Smithsonian, Sunday Telegraph, VSD and many others, I know what editors, agents and publishers want! 

I’m also the author of two well-reviewed books of nationally reported  non-fiction; details here — and can speak to your students or class about this (one on gun use in the U.S. and one on low-wage labor in the U.S.) via Skype.

I offer 90-minute, individual webinars ($150) and hourly consultations ($225/hour, with a one-hour minimum.)

I work by phone, Skype or in person.

Details here.

Is social media really social?

By Caitlin Kelly

I really enjoy social media — but I see such mixed results.

Women who speak up about contentious issues are harassed, bullied, doxxed. Some, in desperation, end up fleeing Twitter and other platforms, blocking everyone who attacks.

I’ve had a few bad experiences there as well, but thankfully most of my social media experiences have been pleasant.

I recently started using Instagram.

My site is caitlinkellynyc...and I’m enjoying the wild mix of people who like my photos — from an auto-body shop in Brazil (a photo of a vintage air machine) to a trekking company in Nepal.

I have, as you know from reading here, extremely eclectic interests, so my Insta feed includes flowers, vintage clothing, travel photos and lots of female pilots.

Thanks to this blog, and through reading theirs, I’ve made friends in real life with  Cadence, author of Small Dog Syndrome in London and Kate Katharina Ferguson in Berlin.

Thanks to Twitter, I also met up in Berlin with Jens Notroff, an archeologist who works on Gobekli Tepe, a 12,000 year-old Neolithic site in Turkey and Dorothée Lefering, a travel blogger whose post about Rovinj, Croatia impelled me to stay there for a glorious week last July. I’d never even heard of it before!

We all met for lunch at Pauly Saal (a trendy restaurant) in Berlin last July, thanks to “meeting” them regularly through several weekly Twitterchats focused on travel — and Jens and I bonded for certain after trading the lyrics to the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Who knew?

 

 

Now, thanks to Insta, I’m reviving my photography skills; I began my journalism career as a teenager selling three cover photos to a Toronto magazine, then sold to Time, The New York Times, Washington Post and more.

I love how my Smartphone has made me hyper-aware of my surroundings once more. The glossy perfection and waayyyyyyy too many selfies of Instagram don’t appeal to me, but I’m loving the global reach it offers.

I also spend a lot of time on Facebook participating in online-only women’s writing groups, where we find friendship, freelance work, staff jobs, mentoring and moral support. At worst, it can get ugly and weird, but at best it’s my daily water cooler, as someone who works alone at home in the boring suburbs of New York.

(It costs me $25+ in train and subway fare into New York City to meet people face to face, so social media offers us all an easy and affordable option.)

But I also plan play dates — this week an Oscar-viewing night with a neighbor, lunch here with an editor, a Canadian consulate event at the Tenement Museum in New York City, and meeting friends for dinner in Harlem at Red Rooster.

My weekends are also filled with in-person social activities from now through mid-April, so I don’t feel isolated and lonely, which social media can create online interaction is all you do.

Facebook was also useful recently in a highly unusual way — with a local woman reporting to our town in real time that a woman had been shot in an apartment complex nearby, that the shooter was on the loose (!) and that’s why we heard police helicopters overheard for hours.

(She died and he was captured in New York City at the bus station.)

The hashtag for our town’s zip code, whose Facebook page has thousands of members, was the single best place to find out what was happening.

 

Are you using and enjoying social media?

 

Which ones do you enjoy most and why?