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"There is something very magical and godlike about being able to create a whole world from nothing and have it be exactly like you wanted." Kathryn Whitbourne, associate editor, PINK |
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Associate Editor's Blog A NOVEL IDEA
I fell in love with writing when I was about 8 years old. To this day, I remember the first story I wrote, about an unhappy blackboard. Who knows why I picked that character. The teacher gave me a low grade because it was messily written. But I didn't care; I felt a thrill I had never felt before from school.
There is something very magical and godlike about being able to create a whole world from nothing and have it be exactly like you wanted. Of course, you often find the characters behaving in ways you could not possibly have imagined. Which is probably how God himself feels sometimes.
When we talked at PINK about doing a story on writing a best-seller (see the July.August issue), I jumped at the chance to do it. I've always wanted to finish writing a novel, but it seemed like such a daunting task. What on earth could I talk about for 100 to 200 pages? Over the years I had written dozens of short stories and actually had two published, but I've never been able to sustain the momentum to take on something longer. All of the authors I interviewed for this piece got up before dawn to write for a couple of hours and pressed weekends and holidays into service to get the job done. The single-mindedness inspired and scared me at the same time. If that's what it takes, I thought, then I'm doomed. I like sleeping too much.
There is, however, another way to get this done that I'm surprised none of the writers mentioned: a writing group. I met my three fellow members – Mike, Rupal and Alberto – in a nighttime creative writing course. Every two weeks we get together in a coffee shop and read what we've written, or tried to write. Sometimes, between work and family, we get nothing done. But it's OK; the camaraderie keeps us wanting to go on. It's the fact that someone is waiting to read my work, however crappy, that makes me scratch out a few pages every two weeks. And over the course of two years, I have managed to get to 100 pages.
Since the publication of this article, I actually got an e-mail from an agent who wanted to see my novel. Talk about a reason to actually finish it! I'm giving myself a deadline of six months to crank out another 200 pages and revise it. If it gets accepted, I'll keep you posted.
Kathryn Whitbourne is PINK's associate editor. To comment on this blog, e-mail blog@pinkmagazine.com and enter "Kathryn" in the subject line. . . . . . . . . . .
ON THE INTERNSHIP HUNT
Summer's almost here, which means I'm juggling the fall issue and the hiring of our summer interns. With a small full-time staff at PINK, we really rely on interns to do the fact-checking, answer the phone and send out packages. They, in turn, get to write bylined articles for the magazine and website. It's fun to see their skills improve as they come to understand more about working at a magazine.
Each semester we get more and more applications for intern spots, especially for the summer. I remember being a college student myself, sending out applications and wondering why I wasn't landing internships or jobs. There's no point in asking the person who interviewed you, because they'd have a potential lawsuit if they told the truth! One day a friend had me replay a recent interview and pointed out that I was putting myself down in the interview before the hiring manager did. Lesson learned.
So, consider this a public service, potential interns: I'm going to tell you how to improve your chances of getting hired here – or anywhere else, for that matter.
1. Follow directions. I always ask applicants to send a résumé and a cover letter. Many just send the résumé. These go to the bottom of the pile. The point of the letter is to see your writing skills and if you pay attention to detail.
2. Make sure this is where you want to be. I've gotten letters from people wanting to work in our fashion department or at our political desk. Neither exists. A quick look at the masthead or staff page online would have made that clear – if reading the magazine didn't.
3. Dress for the interview. Even if you're a college student, dress professionally rather than showing up in jeans. Do you want your look to say, "I'm ready to get down to business," or "I was on my way to the mall and stopped off for this here interview"?
4. Prepare. Have some answers ready for commonly asked interview questions. (If you don't know what those are, read any job-hunting guide.) Many times I get the "deer in the headlights" look when I ask for an example of a problem solved at school or work. (Hint: Figuring out which outfit to wear to last Saturday's party is not a good example.)
5. Have questions ready. At the end of the interview, I always ask if the applicant has any questions. I often hear, "No, you answered them all." Surely I didn't. It makes you look much more engaged and interesting if you can come up with a couple of questions. Again, most job-hunting guides will give you suggestions on what to ask if you are stuck.
6. A fact-check test will be given. Take it seriously. For real? For real. Kathryn Whitbourne is PINK's associate editor. To comment on this blog, e-mail blog@pinkmagazine.com and enter "Kathryn" in the subject line. . . . . . . . . . . DRINKING RAT POISON I'm about to share with you a forbidden quote. It's from Anne Lamott and it says, "Not forgiving someone is like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die." It's one of my favorites and I wanted to put it in the "Clips and Trends" section of the magazine. My editor, Cynthia Good, wasn't too thrilled about it. I think the words "rat" and "poison" didn't really jibe with something called "PINK." So the quote has found a home here in my blog, and I'm going to tell you why it means so much. Because it's true, yet it's hard to believe at the same time. They say if you want to practice forgiveness you should start with something easy, like the guy who cuts you off on the highway. But that wasn't really a problem for me. I'm pretty easygoing. So I started at the top. I had to forgive the person who killed my dad. It's a complicated story, but for the purposes here, you simply need to know that my father was shot during a holdup and the killer was arrested but later let go for lack of evidence. For 13 years I held on to my anger because he didn't deserve to be forgiven. Hell, if he had been convicted and I had been invited to flip the switch on the electric chair, I would've happily done it. My sister and I used to talk about this sometimes: She is against the death penalty and I support it. And my father's death changed nothing in that respect. "Killing him wouldn't bring back Daddy," she'd say. "No, but it would stop him from doing it again," was my reply. And it would give me great satisfaction, I could have added. And so it went, year after year, the case getting colder, along with that knot of anger I held on to as my right. Until this year. I was sitting in church, listening to the pastor talk about forgiveness, how he forgave his stepfather for choking his mom – almost to death. And then he invited us to forgive whomever we needed to in our lives. Sitting in that pew, I said to him (or to myself), "I forgive you, for what you did." I don't know why I did it then and not before. I probably just needed a nudge. But here's the part I did not expect: I felt all of a sudden like a weight had lifted off my back, like I was freer and lighter and not under bondage anymore. I'd stopped drinking the rat poison. And slowly it started to leak out of me. I don't think too much about this man anymore. Strangely, after all this time, it has ceased to be an issue. What "doing forgiveness" did was create freedom in my own life. And maybe, next issue, I'll get to put another Anne Lamott quote in the magazine. Something to do with daisies! Kathryn Whitbourne is PINK's associate editor. To comment on this blog, e-mail blog@pinkmagazine.com and enter "Kathryn" in the subject line.
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