Networking

I made a somewhat bold move last week. I e-mailed a senior copywriter at my company and asked her to lunch. She’s been with the brand for a long time and before that she worked for two very well-known national women’s magazine (one of them is my favorite publication). I’m hoping to learn more about the beauty field from her as well as copywriting. I have an in already by writing and editing the websites, why not take full advantage?

We’re having lunch next week. What sorts of things should I ask her? I’m hoping she could mentor me.

Please stop staring at my bald spot

I was born with a full head of blue- black hair. I inherited my dad’s silky, straight, thick hair and I never realized how beautiful it was until I started rapidly losing it about 4 years ago.

My hair had no reason to be mad at me. I colored it once when I was 15, I wasn’t allowed to heat-style my hair because of my mom and I didn’t really apply that many styling products.

I first noticed that my shedding strands weren’t naturally replacing themselves when I was 21. My mom became really worried and we consulted a dermatologist. The med-school graduate told me it was normal and probably stress-related and would grow back: I had nothing to worry about. I got annoyed at my mother for wasting my time since I hated doctors. A year later, my hair got even thinner; so much so that I couldn’t tie it in a ponytail without my scalp showing through. A trip to another doctor with a different bullshit diagnosis; apparently the issue was genetic. He blamed the hair loss on bad genes and sent me packing.

Around this time, I noticed that my facial hair was growing thicker and thicker and when I threaded my chin hairs: they grew back as stubble. I also put on 20 pounds and started getting acne when I had never skin problems before, not even as a teen.

At the age of 24, I finally figured out what was going on with my looks; I had ploycystic ovary syndrome.

Polycystic ovary syndrome is a complicated and largely misunderstood condition. It either means that you have unwanted cysts in your ovaries or that you have an excess of male hormones called androgens. Both of these issues can lead to infertility, male-pattern baldness (thinning hair at the crown), thick facial and body hair, acne, weight gain around the stomach, diabetes, heart conditions and more.

I started getting treated for it last year but had to stop when I got laid off and lost my health insurance. I re-started last month but the frustrating thing us that there really are no solid solutions.

The most frustrating at this point for me is the hair loss. My acne and unwanted facial hair can be lasered off; but most hair loss treatments are futile. Living and growing up in a culture where hair is revered for it’s beauty, it’s hard to feel good about myself when there are various ‘aunties’ constantly commenting on how thin my hair is. I also dread hair cuts because I always get the same, tsk, tsk, from every stylist I’ve tried!

It’s just something I’m going to have to live with. Hopefully I can learn to manage it well.

Dang it, summer!

I’ve ben trying to play catch-up with my writing, freelancing and blogging goals for a while now, but my new job (it’s month three-yipee) and summer weddings have kept me very, very busy. I’ll also admit, I’ve just been lazy–summer’s just not a good time to accomplish anything.

Work, however, is going great. I’m having a lot of fun doing what I do and there’s a ton of room for growing at this place, which is great. It’s a different world out here in interactive marketing/pr. I’m used to being on the other side, where I’m RECEIVING the products, not trying to sell them, so sometimes I do feel as if I’m selling my soul–but it’s okay. A girl’s gotta eat well

On the freelancing front, I’ve published two articles at two different women’s magazines this summer, so another (yay) for that. But I wrote those in the beginning of the summer and after that I haven’t sent out a single pitch. Not.a.single.one. So, I’m having to start all over again, in a sense. Although, I will say in my defense, that I finally launched my South Asian wedding blog that I’ve been dying to do for a while now–so the new job and the site has kept me extremely busy.

I feel my writing getting dusty, so here I am–back again! This blog was always meant to be a way for me to connect with myself (cliched? cheesy? I know) and for a way to practice my writing. So, let’s hope I stick to this. I do have my new handy-dandy iPhone to blog from now, so no excuses will be necessary

I’m not a spinster (yet)

By now, the quarter-life crisis is no longer just a fad, it’s a real issue. Finding a decent job after graduation seems like a miracle that only a few of us can pull off nowadays. As a 25-year-old Bengali girl, it gets even worse. All my life, I’ve been prepped by my parents to be molded into marriage material. Armed with a college education and a decent career (finally), the only things left to do, according to them, is get married, have babies and oh, yeah, go to grad school. The pressure to get married is different than what I had imagined it would be. My parents are now urging me to go out there and find someone on my own, as long as they fit the bill of what they would want. While I don’t enjoy being pushed and pitied for being 25 years old and single, I don’t exactly mind pursuing the arranged marriage route. The system has changed and my generation is no longer forced to make a decision after one meeting. Several meeting, months, sometimes years are allowed. 

But, now my parents have given up on me and moved onto my 23-year-old sister. 

How does that make me feel? A little neglected and a little angry. I’m not old, as they seem to think I am, but they sure make me feel like it since they’ve given up any hope of me continuing on with my life. I want the best for my sister and if she did happen to meet someone, I would be happy for her (although personally I think she’s definitely not ready for marriage). But, I want my parents to give us both a little breathing space. Let things happen naturally–a concept my mother can’t seem to grasp.

Corporate-Happy

It’s week three of my brand spankin’ new job and I’m happy. I had forgotten what corporate perks, a steady paycheck and health benefits felt like! 

I think I’ll always struggle with the indecision of whether I want the creative freedom of a full-time journalist or the easier lifestyle of a media employee but I think I can achieve a happy medium with this position. My duties consist of web production, writing and editing web copy and press material as well as marketing/public relations. It’s a good mix and not too far from the  work I was doing at online magazines, so I don’t  think it would be too hard to get back into the magazine world. Although, at this point, I can’t really imagine why I would want to (but that might change)!

I will continue freelance writing and blogging part-time. 

So, that’s the game plan: interactive marketing producer by day, freelance writer and blogger by night!

I’m not a sellout

With magazine journalism down in the dumps, many journalists and editors are looking at alternative career paths but I never thought I’d be one of them. It’s certainly not uncommon for editors and writers to make the switch to public relations, marketing, advertising or corporate communications but I always saw this as a last resort (as if these fields are any easier to break into).  I just accepted a full-time position with a major beauty company as a producer in the online marketing division.

And I couldn’t be happier. It’s been a few days since I started working and I’m absolutely loving it. My salary jumped up considerably, I have benefits and all the free and discounted beauty products I could want!

Gotta dash off to bed, but will fill in more about my job in a later post.

Not Settling for Less

I recently took up a few assignments  that were extremely low-paying (less than .10 per word) because the client called it a ‘trial run’ and if it worked out, I would be paid better in the future and promoted to contributing editor. Seeing as that I don’t have many projects on my plate, I decided to give it a try. Now, here I am, struggling to finish the first assignment, already a few hours past deadline and I simply can’t find the motivation for it. I am sick of getting paid next to nothing for my hard work, especially in this case where I won’t even be getting a byline!

I’ll finish the assignments because I would feel guilty otherwise but after this I’m done. I’m aiming for the big leagues, no matter how many times I get rejected. It’s time I stop playing it safe.

Down but definitely not out not

Optimism by Jon Slaby

The freelance job didn’t extend my gig until next month; my last day is tomorrow. They hired a bunch of interns (for free, of course) so they can make do without me. To be honest, I’m quite relieved simply because this job was boring and drained me. It had no writing or editing involved, only working within the Content Management System and it was meant to be four-six weeks, which didn’t provide me much motivation to work hard.

I followed up with the magazine that I wrote the PCOS article for (it will be appearing in the July issue) and they sent back another small edit. I asked them what sorts of ideas they were looking for for future issues and the editor replied that they were open to anything, but

‘There are a lot of changes with the mag right now, so we aren’t using any freelancers more than once or twice for the time being, just to give us time to see who’s out there and keep the copy sounding fresh.’

I am assuming they didn’t like my writing, although they are publishing my article. To be honest, I couldn’t give it my all because this topic was too close to home–I am struggling with PCOS in a major way and just could not write the article the way I had envisioned it.

So now that one possible market is down and a day job is over, what next? I do have an interview on Tuesday for a copywriting/web writing position but I’m not holding my breath.

As you can tell, I’m feeling a little down, as I always do when one job ends. I’m twenty-five-years old and I’m already tired. All my life, all I wanted to was become a writer and/or editor, and this is what I still want to do but do I want other options for a day job? I can see myself working in marketing, advertising and especially public relations but how feasible is it to get those jobs these days? I know the economy is bad and it’s not particularly my fault, but it’s hard to keep your chin up when your dream career seems to be dwindling away in front of you.

I’m the first-born child of immigrant parents. Parents who have worked blue-collared jobs their entire lives. They’ve managed to secure property, a bit of pension money–but not much else. They worked so hard to put my sister and I through college, is it really that wrong for them to expect us to have successful and baller-status careers? I know they really try to understand my work as a writer and I am still young and in the early stages of my career, but when they see my friends buying cars and houses (yes, in NYC!), how do they deal with the disappointment? I still live at home, under their roof, rent-free, having only my own bills to pay. I would like to be able to buy them nice things once and in a while, send them off to mini-vacations or just give them some money to splurge on anything they want (which they most likely will not do but save it for our futures instead) before I have my own children to worry about. I feel old but am still living the life of a child.

There, I vented. But, as always, I like to keep my to-do list ready. I’m not one to get stuck on the past, I always keep moving.

So, what are my plans?

- Improve my writing. Blog, work on a novel idea, personal essays–whatever it is. I feel as though I talk more about writing than writing itself. Somewhere along the way, my writing has turned less passionate.

- Find my voice. During my freshman year of college, an a**hole professor told me that my voice was very ‘Indian’, which pissed me off at the time because I thought he was just being racist. Now, I realize what he really meant is that my tone is ‘formal’. I don’t know where I developed this ‘formal yet cheeky’ voice because I am the product of good old New York City public school. But rather than shy away from it, I want to embrace and enhance my writing style.

- Develop my blogs. I have some great blog ideas and whether or not blogging is just a fad, it could be a way to improve my writing, work on the topics I’m interested in and develop a niche for myself. Stay tuned!

-Pitch, pitch, pitch. So what, that ‘maybe’, one editor didn’t like my writing? I already know I couldn’t give it my all. I have years and years (hopefully) of writing ahead of me and will only get better with time.

Now that that’s all said and done, my summer has officially started! I have extensive (and cheap) travel plans starting May, so I better get to work on it! But, that’s for another post.

Is grad school really not worth it?

I know the general consensus is that if you majored in Journalism in college, getting a master’s degree in Journalism right away is probably a waste and you should be out there working and interning instead. But, what if  you have experience in the industry and would still like to go back to school. Do the rules change?

To be honest, I don’t feel like my B.A. in Journalism really means much. It was heavily newspaper-based and there was only one magazine course as well as one online course that taught me the basics. I’ve worked mostly as a web editor so my experience taught me all that I needed to know. However, I have no clue about videos, podcasts and I know only the basics of Photoshop and photo editing for the web. I realize I can learn all this through work experience or just by fiddling on my own, but somehow a grad degree seems worth it. Not to mention, the networking could be worth it.

I’ve mentioned before that if I do apply, it will only be to CUNY grad school because of the cheap tuition. Although my parents would be more than willing to pay for my grad degree (to immigrant parents, you are nothing without a bunch of diplomas, especially in this day and age when a Bachelor’s degree is easily attainable), but I don’t want to do that to them.

I’m still worried about what my next step is going to be after this job ends next month. Freelancing full-time is definitely the game plan but how successful will I be at that? From what I’m experiencing, it takes time to be a successful freelance writer/editor, so what do I do in the meantime?

So, I plan to study for my GRE’s and apply for grad programs in journalism as well as creative writing and literature for Fall 2010. If by then, my career takes a turn for the better, I can always not go back to school.

How long before you make it as a freelance writer?

I love Mediabistro’s How to Pitch guides. It ’s a great way to learn about what types of stories magazines are really looking for and which sections are pitch-able. Every so often, I like to re-read the guides to all my favorite national magazines, in hopes that one day an idea will strike and I’ll work up the courage to pitch them. But, I haven’t yet. I keep reading and hearing everywhere that the front-of-book is a great place for new writers to break into for most of the national glossies, but nowadays, most of the shorter pieces are being written by Editorial Assistants and Assistant Editors, so how is a new writer supposed to get an in?

I’ve done the research for a few really good ideas for a women’s national magazine but I’m scared to pitch them because I’m afraid that

(a) my e-mail won’t even get read.

(b) my really good idea will get trashed because of my limited portfolio.

(c) my idea will get stolen, reformatted and assigned to another writer. Although, I’ve read somewhere that sometimes you can get paid for your idea, but the magazine will assign the story to someone else.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ll stop pitching these publications, it just means I might have to hold out a little longer to get published in them. Ideally, my plan was to build up my portfolio with smaller magazines and then move on to front-of-book pieces for bigger publications and hopefully start doing some reported pieces after that. But, I’ve learned that when you’re a freelancer, there is no set game plan–you have to go with the flow.

My temp. job at the magazine website was supposed to end either this week or next week, but they’ve extended it another three-five weeks, which is great, even though the work is very tedious and quite boring. I assumed I would start freelancing full-time afterwards because the job market is just impossible, but I’m not going to be able to survive on these low-paying and limited assignments. Not to mention, since I just started, most of my payments won’t be coming in till after the summer. I plane to wade the summer out because I have travel plans that I wouldn’t want to give up and then probably look for administrative work in the fall to supplement my freelancing income. Although, finding those seems to be just as hard these days!

What do the rest of you do for money to keep your writing dreams alive?