Image credit: Banksy
I'm writing a spec pilot for a cable TV show. It's about a family that works in a vice industry. It features a dead father, a prodigal son, and Los Angeles. I'll post updates here on my progress. So far, I'm enjoying the process.
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Title: "Blood Sacrifice"
Publication: The Billfold
Date: May 4, 2015
Word count: 1,246
Payment: $30
Notes: I haven't done a "How Much I Got Paid" in a while. I was surprised to see that I'd done eight of them, and that the last one I did was in August of 2014. In any case, I've got some catching up to do. Today's installment in this series -- in which I consider a piece of freelance work I did and how much I got paid to do it -- we're taking a look at a personal essay I wrote that ran this week on The Billfold, "Blood Sacrifice." In April, I had the amazing opportunity to eat at Next. Suffice to say, dinner there runs you $350. As with my previous Grant Achatz-borne experience (see: "The Best Drink I Ever Had") at Aviary, I found the entire event to be transformative, moving, and awesome. So, when I got home, I decided I'd write about it. I pitched the story idea I had to a dozen places, including The New York Times, Aeon, Matter, The Atlantic, Chicago Magazine, Esquire, The New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar, The Hairpin, Vogue, The Awl, and The Billfold. Because most editors are worthless fucking shitbags who are too busy jacking off or reapplying lipstick to do their jobs, most didn't even respond to pass, and the lone interested party was The Billfold. Luckily, I like The Billfold. And not only do I like The Billfold, I read it. (As a sidenote, I have this weird affection for the fact that the link to their next pages reads "There's more to read, if you want!" Endearing.) In any case, I heard back from Mike Dang, who edits the site. He's a nice guy. "Definitely interested in this and would love to work with you," Dang replied. Great! "We’d be able to pay $30 for the essay." Ooh, that smarts. That is some horrendous pay. Of course, I wasn't expecting much, but that was just painful. Anyway! Whatever. They wanted the piece, and I wanted to write it. I think it took about two or three hours to do it. I like the way it came out. The part about Ouroboros is my favorite part.
Conclusion: You are what you eat. (You are not what you are paid.)
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"A new piece of fiction by me in the latest issue of Pank Magazine."
I've got a new personal essay up, this one on The Billfold: "Blood Sacrifice."
I fantasized that if I went, on the night that I was there, by some strange coincidence, Achatz would be there. Achatz, I knew, had had cancer, too, and, in my daydream, Achatz would come by the table, and I would motion to him, and he would bend down low, and I would tell him, in a murmuring voice, that I had had cancer, and I knew that he had had cancer, too. He would smile knowingly at me, and I would smile knowingly at him, and then he would disappear into the kitchen, and he would emerge with a plate of something that looked like a tumor splattered across porcelain, and I would eat it, and whatever it was made of (rhubarb? venison? something else entirely?), it would be delicious, and I would have eaten the tumor that had tried to eat me, metaphorically, of course, and the cycle of life would close upon itself, completing itself, like Ouroboros with his tail in his mouth rolling down a street like a wheel.
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"Got my bikini. #thanksforlosingmyluggage #united #bikinis #beach #aruba #selfies"
I got an iPhone 6 Plus, which I love, and I'm on Instagram. Follow me here. I love taking photographs, but my big Canon was a PITA to drag around and was getting old. I had trouble with my old iPhone, though, because my hands tend to shake, and my photos were often blurry. I wasn't sure whether to get the iPhone 6 or the Plus, but I went for the latter and am so glad that I did. Taking photos on it is fantastic. The images are great, and the weight makes it easier for me to take a sharp picture. Since my old Canon was dying anyway, my hope is to have my iPhone 6 Plus be my main camera. We'll see how it goes. For some reason, it took me forever to get on Instagram. Probably mostly because of the problem I had with taking iPhone pics, and I never really got the point. Now I get it. I also love, like everybody else, that Instagram is like Photoshop for your life. It makes everything look better. Thanks, Instagram!
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Hi Susannah,
My name is [redacted] and I’m a senior at the University of [redacted] at [redacted]. I’m majoring in [redacted] and [redacted]. This summer, I’ll be an intern for Forbes--working under [redacted]. (I sent an e-mail to your Forbes account but wasn't sure which account you might check more often.)
For my final paper in [redacted] and the [redacted] class, I’m looking at Forbes’ business model, specifically the way the company allows advertisers to publish their own content directly to the website.
I’ve always enjoyed your contributions to Forbes and follow your work on Vice and other publications. I’m interested in your perspective as a Forbes contributor, but I also think your thoughts would add some great color to the topic, since the vice beat is so interesting and unusual.
Please let me know when you’re available to speak this week. I can conduct the interview on the phone, or by e-mail if you’re too busy to chat. I’m pretty much free Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday--any time of the day or evening.
I look forward to hearing from you!
[Redacted]
[Redacted]'s an asshole, I don't write for Forbes anymore, and I've never written for Vice. So no.
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I get rejected, a lot. These days, actually, you're more likely to get ignored than rejected. Silence is the new no thanks, the muted good luck placing your work elsewhere, the digital version of please keep us in mind in the future. In any case, this week I received a rejection that was, well, different. To wit (in part, it read): "[Redacted] raised worries about the variety of emotional reactions (and toxic feedback) that it might generate from readers." So, the internet lynch mob is working, I guess. Apparently, editors are shuddering from the chilling effects of invisible morons clambering around social media to create a shit storm about whatever something or other that's offended them lately. Too bad. Life is more exciting when you offend a little, when you knock someone hard enough in the jaw that their head turns and they're forced to see things spinning newly.
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Very cool: Gumroad CEO Sahil Lavingia singled out THE TUMOR's awesome cover designed by Peteski as an example of great Gumroad product covers on a new Gumroad blog post: "Judging Books (and More) by Their Covers."
Who: Sahil:
What: The Tumor: A Short Story by Susannah Breslin
Why: It’s a professional cover, but it’s nothing so crazy that you couldn’t wrangle something of that quality with a bunch of free/online tools. And I like how “A Short Story” sits in the center of the target.
Thanks, Sahil and Travis!
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You want to write like a real journalist? Write like this. That's what I'm thinking. I loved reading this. It's like watching a writer swing from sentence to sentence, hanging by his word choices.
We made our way downslope, to an abandoned mine. The tunnel entrance was twenty feet wide, maybe ten feet high. Ilasaca produced two hard hats and a miner’s lamp from a backpack, and we headed in. “I used to work in here,” he said. “There’s enough oxygen, from old shafts that go to the surface.” He gestured toward the depths of the mountain. As the tunnel narrowed, the air got musty and the darkness, within fifty yards of the entrance, was absolute. Ilasaca was careful to light my way. He showed me mineralized veins in the walls, glittering between rough slabs of black Ordovician slate. When the quijo angled upward, he said, so would the tunnel, and it did. This had all been dug with hand tools and dynamite, he said. “Maybe two metres a day.” Back then, the lamps had been carbide, he said, burning acetylene gas. These nice bright electric headlamps we had, with battery packs that attached to your belt, were relatively new. He stopped to listen to my breathing, which was getting ragged. The tunnel ceiling had been dropping, obliging me to crouch. My thighs were burning from the effort. I was O.K., I said, just altitude weary. More coca, Ilasaca said. I had bought coca leaves that morning, from an old woman on the street in La Rinconada. Everybody here chewed them, I was told, to stave off exhaustion and hunger. I stuffed a wad in my cheek. The leaves were stiff and bitter. Ilasaca also took a wad. The quartz vein in the tunnel wall turned downward, the tunnel followed it, and at a certain depth we found our progress halted by an icy-looking pond. Ilasaca studied the vein, tapping it with his fingertips. I wondered what he saw in its fissures and glints.
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"Two Days, One Night," French, is a movie about a woman with a problem. The problem has to do with her getting fired, and everyone else getting a bonus, and how she wants her job back but to get her job back she has to get everyone to give up their bonus. Suffice to say, this movie would not have been made in America. Marion Cotillard is the woman. She strides about purposefully in tight jeans and durable boots. She wears thin tank tops that reveal shoulders bent by the weight of the world. This isn't "La Vie en Rose" or "Rust and Bone." It's a simple story about one thing and the one woman who's going to make it happen. It is simultaneously the world's most boring movie and the world's most poignant movie. It says big things by showing little things. It's sad and heartwarming, and the ending isn't what you think it's going to be, but it's realistic.
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I've got a new short story coming out in Clackamas Literary Review, which you can buy now on Amazon. You can read more about the issue here. My story is called "The Urologist."
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Image via @YaleThread
I'm super excited to share that I got accepted to THREAD at Yale.
"THREAD at Yale, which debuts this summer, June 7-10, 2015, is a gathering of professional journalists and storytellers that does not care whether you work in print, radio, podcasting, or some form we haven’t even thought of yet.
At this program, a small group of storytellers from print, radio, and other media will gather for three days and nights to learn from masters in the field. And from each other. It’s not a conference, and it’s not a workshop.
It’s both. Maybe it’s neither."
I'll be working on a new piece of longform journalism while I'm there.
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Enter the neon butthole. pic.twitter.com/htfwHoRaKZ
— Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) April 17, 2015
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Image via Wikipedia
I changed the blurb describing THE TUMOR.
Here's the first incarnation:
"THE TUMOR is a deranged, surreal exploration of our dark places, malignancies that won't stay gone, and the lengths to which a man will go when he goes to war with a determined enemy."
Here's the new incarnation:
"THE TUMOR is a slipstream short story starring an anthropomorphic tumor, a killer husband, and an invisible woman. Based on the author's true life experience with cancer (she's fine now!), this terrifying tale will grab you by the balls and make you scream."
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Here are the sales numbers for THE TUMOR to date:
Total copies sold: 89
Total revenue: $541.00
I use Gumroad and Pay What You Want pricing.
Buy THE TUMOR: "This is one of the weirdest, smartest, most disturbing things you will read this year."
Image credit: Matthew Lambros and After the Final Curtain
A few weeks ago, I signed up for an improv class. Basically, the improv class has been pretty disappointing. I only have one prior improv class experience, which was at The Second City. This is not that. The only way I can think to describe this class is to say it feels like the inmates are running the asylum. This is not a good way to learn improv.
In any case, I heard that there were auditions for another improv group last Saturday. I was excited about going, but then I started the improv class that is the inmates running the asylum, and I wasn't sure I wanted to go to the audition. I guess it made me doubt my abilities. But I did some more reading about improv and decided to go.
I went to the audition. I auditioned with another person. There were four people judging us. I didn't think I did very well. I felt disappointed afterwards. Then I was annoyed for the next day.
On Monday, I found out that I got picked to be in the improv group. Which is really exciting. This is a different improv group than the inmates/asylum class one, and I'm excited about it.
I'm nervous about doing something I'm maybe not super great at in front of a group of people, but there are going to be a lot of rehearsals, and I figure doing something is better than doing nothing.
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Image credit: zoomar
Hi Susannah,
I'll be honest; I don't think I could afford to hire you as a regular columnist for our site, but I sure would love to. A weekly column with a lot of freedom to write about your opinion on technology would be amazing. But, we are self-funded and slowly growing and not able to pay as well as some of the more well known publications you've worked for before. I've decided to fill out this form anyway because once I would know what it would cost to hire you I have something to look forward to, and maybe one day soon I could return with a solid offer. So, what would it take?
Thanks in advance,
[redacted]
Founder & CEO [redacted]
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Image via little aesthete
The other day, someone paid $200 for THE TUMOR. I'm using Pay What You Want Pricing, so buyers had to pay a minimum of $1, but they could pay any amount above that they want. It got me thinking about pricing.
This morning, I test drove a Maserati Ghibli. 345 HP. It wasn't like driving something better. It was like driving something else altogether. I'm not in the market for a Maserati, but I wanted to understand the value of things and pressing the gas pedal on this vehicle -- the throttle, the noise, the gun of it -- caused something to click in me internally.
I don't know the guy who paid $200 for a 1,546-word short story I wrote. He's a stranger. He emailed me the other day and asked me: How can I repay you? "You and your words have impacted my life in many ways over the years, some good, some well that was my own fault really," he wrote. "I feel I owe you something for all your words, ideas and culture you have lead me too." I told him to buy a copy of THE TUMOR. "The Pay What You Want pricing option gives you the ability to pay whatever you want for it," I told him. "It's a way of letting creators know you support their work." Then he sent the $200. Which surprised me. Thanks, man.
I use Gumroad to process my payments. It was recommended to me by Clayton Cubitt. He uses Gumroad to charge people who want to pick his brain. That's the InterroClayton. The other day, I emailed the CEO of Gumroad and asked him what the most expensive product being sold on Gumroad is. He directed me to Rock Health. For $1,999, you get a one-year Digital Health Research Subscription. I have no idea what that is, but it sounds awesome. The CEO of Gumroad was born in 1992. Halle Tecco, who cofounded Rock Health, got her MBA from Harvard in 2011. Pricing as we know it has changed because the people who set the prices are changed.
After that guy paid me $200 for a copy of my story, I sent him an email. I thanked him. I mean, wouldn't you? I asked him if it was worth it. "It is because I could pay for the other stuff," he replied. Which was a reference to something he said earlier in his email. "I already have got my monies worth by reading your blog and following links to sometimes amazing things." It wasn't about the story, I think. It was about the experience. People will pay a set amount for a product. They will pay another amount for an experience. I think what people want isn't things. I think what people want is to feel things.
I asked some people who bought THE TUMOR why they bought it and why they paid more than $1 for it. Here's what they said: "I have HISTORY with your work." "I think anything over what the asking price is is a payment toward the talent for the work to create it." "An artist who has offered her work to the public for as little as $1.00 is obviously making a gift of a large percentage of its value to potential buyers." "I figured it was a short story and that a novel costs anywhere from $15 to $40 but that I value local writers, underpaid writers, self-published writers and I had the money and I was feeling generous and maybe I had killed a bottle of wine with a friend that night and I was thinking I would give that money more as a vote of confidence than anything else."
As part of this process, I have read and am reading a few books. I read Austin Kleon's Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered. He reminded me to "Become a documentarian of what you do." I read Tom Morkes's The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing: How to Share Your Work and Still Make a Profit. I found this book completely annoying, but on page 58 he wrote: "Remember, people contribute to humans, not corporations. So tell us about the blood, sweat and tears you put into your product or service." (THE TUMOR only exists because in late 2011, I was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. Today, I am cancer-free. I would guess that I put one gallon of blood, two shopping bags of sweat, and three swimming pools of tears into this product. I also donated a chunk of flesh. I have no idea what the market rate for a tumor of the size I had is today. I'll leave that to the experts.) I'm still reading Amanda Palmer's The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help. Indirectly, she led me to have a weird conversation with an old man in a grocery store who told me that he was annoying because he was asking me, a random stranger, what I thought he should put in his oatmeal ("Sunflower seeds?" he inquired), which made him say of himself, "I'm annoying, aren't I?", which led me to respond, "You're not annoying, you're just trying to get what you want." This was an honest exchange between two human beings standing near bins of seeds and nuts in the aisle of a Whole Foods on a weekday morning.
In any case, as of today, THE TUMOR is $5. But, you know, pay what you want.
Buy THE TUMOR: "This is one of the weirdest, smartest, most disturbing things you will read this year."
