Friends

I laughed, I cried: The Holidays 2015

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Lots of laughs and a few tears—of happiness!—this holiday season.

We started off in the Pocono Mountains, on a tour of its famed, fading Honeymoon Hotels.

Initially, we’d picked this particular excursion for its renowned tackiness and kitsch—and there was plenty of that!—but we did also find ourselves drinking a bit of the kool-aid. These are “couples-only” resorts, so there are no kids around; it’s also not a desperation-dusted singles scene. We’d never participated in this exact type of scenario before, but by day two, we were feeling its effects, mostly characterized by an intoxicating influx of relaxation.

Love Machine shuttle
It’s a sign
In-room love pools
Requisite circular bed

Evidently, the air was so thick with romance that we lost our senses and (ready?) got engaged! Mr. Sock Monkey is holding the place of honor until further notice.

Sock Monkey

Dramatic reenactment

Before departing, we were able to see some of Pennsylvania’s many other points of interest:

Big honkin mushrooms
Canada Dry n’ hot dogs
A request, or the beginning of a lament?
Those puff ball things

Then it was off to Charleston, where we met Arthur’s family and our friends Danielle and Ryan for a festive few days of swamp-traipsing, firework-exploding, and remembering to mash the garage door button.

Mash this
Sally & Zach
Goin’ off
Coffee shop afternoon

Oh, to make this writing-related (and because it’s so cool), I’ll add here that the aforementioned Danielle is a fabulous writer and writing teacher; we met as fellow students in Emerson College’s creative writing program. Last year, Danielle was anthologized in The Best American Poetry 2015, edited by huge-wigs David Lehman and Sherman Alexie. Holla!! She was also just today published in the wonderful On Being blog. Love you, Dani!

I’m quite sure I’ll be writing about more of Danielle’s superhuman accomplishments in the year ahead, as well as about regional travel, cool families, notable signage, and mycelium. Looking forward to all.

Here’s looking at you, 2015! You will live long on my Flickr page and in my spiral-bound journal. And a big hello to 2016 and all the opportunities for obsessive documentation you are sure to bring.

Why I might stop calling myself a freelancer

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As a wordie (hey, there are foodies, right? why not wordies?), I’m always interested in people’s different reactions to the same word, including my own.

For as long as I can remember, the word “freelancer” has had positive connotations for me. I associate it with independence, bohemia, diverse and interesting work. But when I read my friend and fellow wordie Suzan Bond‘s recent Fast Company article, I experienced something of a change of heart.

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Identity! (aka: a windowsill I saw in Prague this summer)

I won’t summarize her story, since Suzan did a marvelous (and concise) job of laying her premise out, but will say I’m starting to think about different ways to introduce myself that wouldn’t be as apt to connote “beginner,” “student,” or “hack” to other people.

I could say…

  • “I provide editorial services to nonprofits and small businesses.” This is exactly true, but rather clunky and perhaps a bit stuffy for a conversational entrée.
  • “I’m a writer/editor.” And then when they ask What do you write?, I say the above.
  • “I’m in business for myself.” “I have my own business.” “I’m self-employed.” Etc. Then the above.

I’m sure something will stick in time. And if “freelancing” has taught me nothing else, it’s that all is fluid! But right now, my curiosity’s piqued.

Fellow self-employed friends: How do you introduce yourselves?

“Knitting is Sitting for Creative People”

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I just Googled “knitting jokes” and that came up. Pretty good, ay?

I also know it to be true, because I spent most of the day last Sunday in Gowanus with the good people of Knitta as we attempted to cover two white Ford trucks and a grip of cardboard boxes in loops of yarn.

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Grace and me with much yarn

What I didn’t know going into this was… pretty much anything. My friend Grace only told me she was going to “help out with an art installation involving yarn” and that they needed extra hands. Sure!

At 9:00 am, when I arrived at the production warehouse that would be our staging area, people were already busy spreading out big yarny expanses to sort them by pattern.

Furled
Unfurled

As the unfurling continued, I began to suspect something…

Hashtag
Skyy mobile

Wait—this was going to be a vodka ad!

Well, so be it. Lesson number one.

The twenty or so of us crafty types got to work plastering the trucks and covering the boxes, which would later get stacked in the back like presents.

Cube!
Cubes in the back

The skilled knitters among us did the heavy lifting of actually knitting things together when that was called for; the others (like me) took turns whip stitching, hot gluing, and velcro-taping the fibers into place.

Our fearless leader, Magda Sayeg, a not-quiet woman in big eyeglasses, would be my lesson number two: she’s the mother of yarn bombing, people!! It was an awesome trip to hang out and get guidance from a real street art luminary all day. Also fun: although Magda looks like she’s about 20 years old, her two kids showed up at one point. They were very nice, and I think they’re in high school!

It was satisfying to watch our collective labor start to add up to something as the day wore on, and I was also stoked to see about one-third dudes making up the itinerant knitting crew. Yeah, fellas! We all chatted and snacked on really delicious Amy’s Cheddar Bunnies and listened to dreamy dance music as we worked. The time passed quickly.

Ergo, lesson number three: Doing crafty stuff is meditative and fun, even when you have to keep staring at a vodka hashtag.

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Knitta circle

Bonus points: on my bike ride home, the best Brooklyn sunset! Shots straight from the phone:

3rd Ave + 10th St
4th Ave + 10th St
5th Ave + 10th St

A sci-fi plebe gets initiated

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I should have known when I learned that a friend of mine named her blog after a Philip K. Dick novel that she was into science fiction (or should I say speculative fiction? help!), but I really didn’t think about it.

Only several years later (which was already several years after I’d met her) did the topic of sci-fi come up in earnest between us. We were in a rental car on our way to a wedding and she said, apropos of not much, “Have you ever edited a book?”

I said not exactly, but mentioned a few things that kinda-sorta came close. Why was she curious?

“Well, I wrote a sort of sci-fi novel maybe 10 or 15 years ago,” she said, “and it’s basically been sitting in a drawer since then. Recently, I’ve been feeling like I’m ready to do something with it, but I think it could use a second pair of eyes. I’m not sure exactly what an editor would do, besides be a genius and fix all my mistakes… But let me know if you want to talk about it.”

I was SUPER intrigued. For one, my friend wrote a secret book!! For two, it was a sci-fi book—especially weird!! For three, I love me the prospect of a crazy new project.

I’ve found that one of the best things about my first year-and-change of full-time freelancing has been the ability (or heck, sometimes the necessity) to take on a wide variety of editorial gigs. As I heard the author John Vaillant recently say, “I am a professional generalist.” Aside from the thrill of solidarity it gave me to hear a big-name writer identify himself that way—I’ve always been a mega-generalist and sometimes struggled with my lack of speciality, but he’s proof you can have an awesome career as a jack of many interests—his quip also perfectly described one of my favorite job perks: variety.

I told my friend that, although I: a) am not a fiction writer, b) am not even a huge fiction reader, and c) have never, to my recollection, read a sci-fi novel*, I was confident that I could at least do a decent job of copyediting her book, and that if I found I had any developmental suggestions for her in the course of doing so, I’d pass them on. She agreed to hire me, and off I went.

Dune

Dune! Power! Kyle MacLachlan!! (courtesy Flickr user KAZ Vorpal)

I’ve been combing through her formidable 480-page book since the middle of last month, with the goal of finishing by year’s end, and I’m having a blast with it, for many reasons. To name a few:

  • The change of pace is invigorating (see the jollies of the generalist, above). I love what I normally do, which is writing and editing external communications for nonprofits. It’s interesting, it has clear goals, and it’s for a good cause. But fiction! I can crank up the artfulness and shelf for a time the thoughts that the text I’m working on will need to be fact-checked, or instigate a call to action, or fit in a 500-word box. Our only goals here (though they are heady ones) are to tell an engaging story in the most appealing way we can. Hooray for that creative focus and freedom.
  • I’m getting to know my friend better through reading her impressive writing, which is lovely. And I’m probably enjoying reading the story more myself since I know who wrote it. Double win! Oh, and I’m gaining a better understanding of why people like sci-fi. Triple win!
  • As the weather cools, this is the perfect long-form project to curl up on the couch with: blanket over my knees, cup of coffee on the end table, laptop just where it was designed to be. Another nice change of pace: there’s nothing frenetic about this task.

So this post is part shout-out to my talented and industrious friend for believing I might be of some help to her labor of love, part written revelation about the wonderfulness of changing things up at work, and part teaser—’cause this book should be out on Kindle next year and I’ll be engaging in even more shameless self-promotion then!

*   *   *

Hey other freelancers: Do you like the way variety shapes your professional life? (Or maybe you hate it?) Penny for your thoughts in the comments.

*Unless you count a college boyfriend trying to read all of Frank Herbert’s Dune to me in installments. I tried hard to keep up with it, but usually fell asleep before he finished.

Freelancers’ lunch

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We shoulda been in pictures!

But we weren’t, because we were too busy talking and making awesome connections. (So I’m pasting some non-in situ photos and links here.)

 Kaiti

 

 

 

 

 

Today, my friends Alison (an honest and passionate real estate agent) and Kaiti (an incisive and graceful designer and developer) convened our first Freelancers’ Lunch, an opportunity for a half-dozen (okay, seven) fun entrepreneurial types to talk about what we do, ask each other questions and seek advice, and see if any biz connections came readily to mind. (Yes, this was also the outgrowth of our semi-hashed summer experiment: Trying to Form a BNI Group in North Brooklyn. Only Alison succeeded with her burgeoning Influentials group. Go Alison!!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

I knew I’d have fun with these guys; I know them all (and many of them already knew each other) and was looking forward to having lunch with them no matter what. But I was truly surprised by how much we had to offer each other—especially considering how many of us were already friends!

  • A former intern of Claire’s might be able to do some work for Kaiti.
  • Alison knows someone working on a film that Mike could possibly do sound for.
  • Kaiti wants to introduce recording engineer Lily to a badass female bass player she knows.

The connections probably numbered in the dozens, and everyone took care to make actual notes to follow up (that’s right—I don’t do business with flakes).

Claire Taylor Hansen Lily

 

 

 

 

 

 

And even beyond potential work introductions, people were batting a thousand:

“I’d like to meet a good mortgage broker…”

“Do you know of a good, free CRM?”

“What’s a nice restaurant downtown for client lunches?”

DONE.

We’re planning to convene again after the holidays, and will try to get a few more heads in the mix. Even though I’m a classic hippy-dippy, bleeding-heart people person, I admit I doubted the power of the personal network at the beginning of my freelance life. But I’ve gotten 90% of my rent-making business in the past year through personal connections, and 90% of my clients have been absolute joys to work with (the other 10% weren’t rotten, either).

So I can now personally attest to the professional as well as personal efficacy of keeping your relationships up. Talk to people you like: tell them what you need and listen to what they need. Then write it down and follow up.

Repeat. Enjoy.

Last week’s Mashable Social Good Summit was pointless

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I’m sort of cringing at that snippy, click bait-y title, but it really was not good.

I’d heard about this annual social good event for the past few years, but hadn’t had occasion to go. Then a friend of mine, who’s launching a new design and social good conference in Portland next year, asked if I would attend this year’s program in her stead and give her notes.

I was genuinely interested. Also, I’m sure I don’t need to say that when you offer a freelance writer a free ticket to something, she’ll always go. So I went.

A (good) freelance writer will also always try to show-not-tell you about their experience. So here’s what I saw, as reported to my notebook during the event:

At least they had one of those celebrity backdrops you could stand in front of.

At least they had one of those celebrity backdrops you could stand in front of.

  • “Objectively meaningless two-minute video where the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal flags are waving around groups of ethnically-diverse children.”
  • “Opening ceremony = brief introductions to each of the SDGs by celebrities Victoria Beckham, the clock/”bomb” kid, Adrian Grenier, a taped speech by Jennifer Lopez… This is not helpful or interesting! Just a parade of celebrities.”
  • “The Digital Media Lounge appears to be a room with a bunch of tables where people are using laptops and there’s a screen projecting the live program happening in the auditorium. The lounge is where the coffee and snacks are, too, which was not explained to us before.”
  • “Did the conference website crash, or is the wifi in here just getting deluged? Been 10 minutes and it hasn’t loaded.”
  • “Moderator: ‘These kids will be leading this summit 15 years from now.’ Yawn.”
  • “Panel participant: ‘Social media is used by young people, who are going to be the ones driving change for the next decades, so we need to use and pay attention to social.’ Is this news??”
  • “There is a panel called ‘Champions of the Earth.’ “
  • “I see people with pizza, and I smell pizza. I guess we got pizza! No instructions or explanations. It’s like a secret!”
  • “I’m not sure who’s here, or why. There was no chance to network—other than waiting in line for the bathroom, which I did—and I’m left with no sense of who would come to this. Starting to think it was just a bunch of UN moles!!”
  • “Closing remarks were compassionately brief. We were asked to leave the auditorium immediately afterward.”

I could go on, but I don’t want to embarrass anyone, exactly. And there were some gems:

A deservedly tired Bill McKibben spoke about, among other things, the similarities between tobacco and oil companies when their jigs have been up.

Moxie Marlinspike issued the very interesting thought that laws should be difficult to enforce: “How would we know that public opinion and demand was swaying in support of same-sex marriages if no one had ever seen an ‘illegal’ same-sex relationship in public? Same goes for marijuana legalization in Washington and Colorado. We need to see how people act outside of what they’re told to do by laws in order to see what they’re really like; what they really want and need.”

Lara Logan was a tough and smart moderator who brought needed rigor and vigor to her discussions.

But overall, I was surprised by how much time and care went into something that wound up being so banal and providing such little value. My peanut gallery tips to conference organizers of the future:

  • Make it concrete, not conceptual. Statistics and stories can be useful; platitudes are not.
  • For the love of god, build time to network into your schedule. No one wants to go to a conference, sit for six hours, then go home. Networking is half the point.
  • Either tell us to bring a lunch, or tell us there will be food (and preferably what and where and when, too). Also for the love of god.

That’s it. No hard feelings, Mashable (although I can’t recall seeing anything on your site that’s really grabbed me, either). Just… sayin’.

Teach a 20-something punk to write a good memo, and she’ll write good memos for life

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For a couple of fun, lucky years in my 20s, I worked as assistant to the director at the Asian Cultural Council (ACC), a grantmaking nonprofit that awards cultural exchange fellowships to artists and scholars from the U.S. and Asia.

Looking for a tear-jerker with great music? Look no further!

As well as being fun, the ACC is an extremely classy place, so not only did I get to attend the super-cool performances and openings of loads of top-shelf international artists, I also honed a grip of executive-level writing skills (first forged at ACC’s sister foundation, the venerable Trust for Mutual Understanding) that I find myself coming back to quite often as a full-time freelance provider of editorial services to nonprofits. Skills like:

  • ghostwriting correspondence and statements for a VIP
  • culling meeting notes down from chaos to the essentials
  • drafting invitations to donors that made giving us loads of money sound like a treat
  • and more!

This past spring, I was extremely stoked to see an email from ACC’s current director in my inbox. She said they had some writing and editing needs on the horizon, and wondered if I might be available to help. I couldn’t say yes fast enough.

Almost six months later, I’m still having a blast popping in on my old workmates in the office, reacquainting myself with all the great things they work on, and helping them craft communications—like this—that speak to the gravity and longevity (and yes, the fun) of what they do. (If you peruse that newsletter, check out the story about Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan. Definitely my favorite to write.)

You never know when an old skill—or old friends—will show up in your life again. But unless that skill is effectively squandering time or that friend is a psychotic clown, chances are you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Join my networking cult?

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A couple of months ago, I got an invite from a friend-of-a-friend who was interested in forming a new North Brooklyn chapter of the business networking organization BNI. I had heard of BNI, but had (quite luckily and happily) always been too busy working to check it out.

However, this personal invitation grabbed me. I’d be founding a new group (fun professional development activity), with this friend-of-a-friend who I totally hit it off with (fun social activity), and would almost certainly gain some new business connections (fun $$$).

Ladies of BNI

The photo of our founding members I’m sending out with all my email invites. Who wouldn’t want to join us?!

But it turns out it’s a pretty long and involved process to get a group started, and as we go through the paces, I admit I’m experiencing bouts of cold feet.

Here’s a plusses and minuses rundown—maybe you can help me decide if I should continue?

Pros:

  • BNI has been around for 30ish years, is based on the who-could-argue-with-that? premise “Givers Gain,” and bazillions of business owners and sole proprietors around the world seem to swear by it.
  • Chapter groups’ weekly meetings are usually held in hilarious old-school diners (around here, anyway), so members can look forward to a hearty breakfast and bottomless cuppa joe with their fellows as they sharpen their elevator pitches and swap referrals.
  • There’s a whole lotta small business going on in North Brooklyn these days, with an especially hot injection of “creatives” in recent years. Business-swapping opportunities abound!

Cons:

  • Meetings are every week at 7:00 am. ’nuff said.
  • There are dues, to the tune of about $100 a month, all told.
  • Nine out of ten times I tell someone about BNI, they ask, “Is this a cult?”

So, dear readers, what do you think? Have you heard of BNI? What’s your impression? Had any experiences with it yourself? If you were me, what would you do?

When clients go to Mexico

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My dear friend and longtime client Elena is leaving NYC on a pre-dawn flight to Mexico tomorrow to embark on the 10-day silent meditation retreat that will usher in a bold new “oh-my-god-what-is-happening??” chapter of her life. I would say congratulations and good luck, but I don’t want to trip up her whole not-speaking thing.

Since we met a decade ago, I’ve known Elena by turns as a diligent, fair-minded, and hardworking coworker, partner in shenanigans, and small business proprietor. She thinks about almost everything deeply. She makes sumptuous vegetarian meals on the fly. Over the years, she’s handed down a grip of her classy clothing to me, which I hope made beautiful space in her closet with the same proportions as it filled the ghastly gaps in mine.

Elena

Recently, Elena decided to take an indefinite break from her glamorous Upper West Side life: she parked her baby blue Piaggio scooter in storage, sold most of her other belongings, and put her successful nutrition coaching practice on hiatus. Tomorrow, she’ll touch down in Mexico, and after that, it’s off to work on a veganic farm in the southwest. After that? I’m pretty sure she’d say your guess is as good as hers.

The fact that I realized today that I should probably retire Elena’s testimonial from my website (for now) is the least important part of this story, but it did make me want to tell it, so that’s cool.

Godspeed, Elena! You’ve got chutzpah, and I love ya. Just remember: Wild Women Don’t Sing the Blues.