I stole this template online and tweaked it just slightly (looks like I lost my table during conversion — this is a Word doc with a two column table in the center that has DATE and DESCRIPTION as headers). It’s simple, to the point, and gets the job done.

As I mentioned in my last post and will stress again, use every interaction with your editor as an opportunity to position yourself for the next assignment. That means reminding him/her what a pleasure it was to work together, making yourself available for more work, maybe even letting slip a brief (BRIEF!) overview of future plans that might lead to story ideas. There’s an Always-Be-Pitching element, which is sort of like Glengarry Glen Ross, but nerdier. That doesn’t mean you should always be sending pitches (though if you’ve got ‘em, let ‘em fly), but you should always be comporting yourself in a way that reminds editors that you’re a dream freelancer who’s ready to deliver the good stuff. It’s also worth mentioning that the threshold to entry is MUCH lower when you already have a relationship with an editor. I’ve written stories that have started out as a quick: “Hey, I’ve got idea X. I’d love to do some digging and send you a full pitch if you’re interested.” Invoicing is a great time to plant those seeds.

Hi there:

I introduced myself awhile back as a writer and teacher in Boston.

I’m writing to ask about this experience I’ve just had. I wrote, cold,
to an editor at my hometown paper (whose name I got via the National Book
Critics Circle), and pitched him the idea for this review. He wrote
back to say that “this almost never happens” but that he liked my
pitch and the fact that I now live in his hometown, and that we’d give
it a shot. He asked for it by March 19, and told me to send him my
home address so he could send me contract materials. I did this. Then,
on the 19th, I sent him my review.

Didn’t hear anything. So, a week later, I sent him a “just checking
in” message, in order to, I hoped, prompt a reply.

Nothing. And, I don’t suppose I’m conveying the nervousness I was
feeling — even though this was a very small amount of money, I was
worried that he’d hated it and/or had been drunk when he accepted my
pitch, now regretted it, and was hoping I’d go away.

I waited another week, and this time wrote something like, “hey,
y’know, the pub date for the book is coming up and I just wanted to
see if you needed anything from me?” This time, I got an out-of-office
autoreply message saying he was on vacation and would be back the next
day. (Thankfully, at this point, my wife talked me out of sending him
another message saying that the auto-reply hadn’t been turned on when
I’d sent him the review or the first follow-up message and that I was
sorry for sending three — now, technically, four — unanswered
messages in a row).

Two days after I got the auto-reply, I got a terse one line: “Got the
piece. Hope to run it later this month. thanks…”

I chalked this up to a guy getting back from vacation and having a lot
on his plate. So, I figured I’d wait to hear from him about edits.

Didn’t hear anything until yesterday morning, when a Google Alert (I
have one set for my name, it almost never hits) showed up in my inbox,
containing the link I posted at the top of this email. It’s my piece,
pretty much the way I sent it, though he clunked up the lede with what
I’m presuming is house style. But I haven’t heard from him since
that terse one line, which brings me to my questions:

1. Is that normal? I’ve worked with editors of more “literary” (read:
non-paying) sites, and had much more back-and-forth. I don’t suppose I
mind since nothing much was changed, but it was a little weird not to
have any notice.

2. Now, I’m supposed to invoice him, right? Or I invoice some other
office? And I should also ask him to send whatever packet he said he
was going to send before? I feel like I’ve pestered him a lot…

3. You guys do this all the time? Sheesh… So much stress over 600 words.

In any case, thanks for reading my very small potatoes story on a
weekend when Joe Rhodes has an incredible NYTMag piece, but any
feedback you could give me would be much appreciated.

Wet behind the ears,
Sebastian

To this I say, QUIET FREELANCE DRONE! BACK IN YOUR CAGE! There’s a disparity in perception to Sebastian’s predicament that undoubtedly clouds every freelance assignment in the history of this silly, torturous profession. To the writer, the piece is a big deal that’s taken days of his life (between research, writing, and the persistent high/low cycle of triumph and self-doubt, I’d say it’s usually weeks or months). To the editor, this is one more story in a book full of stories that all need attention and all have to add up to something bigger — a great issue. That’s an easy disparity to talk about, but it’s no consolation to our hero, the writer. Good writers find themselves in the unenviable position of taking tremendous pride in their work. Which also, often, means putting stock in what people think of that work. Which means every possible cue from an editor — a period of silence, a terse email, writing “thx” instead of “thanks” — reads like some coded “Fuck you.” We all turn into Freud the minute we’ve sent that precious draft to an editor’s inbox.

One thing that always helps me is to hear other freelancers’ stories of critical editors, of slow payment, of communication standstills. It reminds me that I’m not some dunce whose piece has somehow offended my editor into a coma. Those stories remind me that we’re in this together, that these issues are universal in this profession, and that I’m not the first boob to inundate my editor with schizophrenic emails.

The other thing that helps is to get excited about a new assignment. That’s tough when it feels like the fate of your writing career is hanging in the balance (it’s not, it never is, don’t worry). But the best cure for preoccupation is more preoccupation. That last piece? Pishaw! A mere stepping stone. This new idea I’ve got is going to make a real splash. So keep working, keep pitching, and stay on your editor’s ass (but not TOO much).

Here are my best stabs at Sebastian’s three questions, from one freelance newbie to another.

1) The not-hearing-back-for-chunks-at-a-time part seems very normal. I don’t know where these editors go after they’ve assigned something but before they’ve given you little things like “a contract” or “a deadline,” but it must be a nice place. They tend to stay awhile. The part here that strikes me as a little odd (again, keeping my own newbie status in mind) and potentially a little scary is that the piece got published with edits without the writer’s final approval. In this case it sounds like Sebastian’s sparkling draft translated more or less untouched into a sparkling published piece, so that mitigates things quite a bit. But I’ve always had editors run each tweak by me with a quick “would you give this a look and let me know if you have any changes?” It’s a chance for them to cover their asses and also a chance to ensure that what gets published is what the writer intended.

2) I usually send an email after final edits are in saying “It was great working with you, I hope you’ll keep me in mind for future assignments, can I send the invoice to you or should that be directed somewhere else.” I think the “I hope you’ll keep me in mind” bit is important. The editor is going to get back to you at some point (possibly after follow-up emails) to give you invoicing instructions, and maybe it just so happens that he/she has an unassigned story at the same moment. Or maybe you just get an encouraging, “I’d love to work with you again, too.” Nothing wipes away what you’ve exaggeratedly assumed is a tense relationship like an editor’s chipper encouragement. I’ve landed stories this way.

As far as follow-up emails, I’ve adopted a Tuesday/Friday approach. Every Tuesday and Friday I send a quick, unstressed (believe me, I’m stressed) reminder until I hear a response. Waiting a week is WAY too hard for me. Tuesday/Friday lets me keep my sanity. (This applies to pitches after the first week, too. “Just checking in to see if you’ve had a chance to read my GET THE HELL BACK TO ME RIGHT NOW, GODDAMN YOU!”)

3) I know, RIGHT!?

The freelance game is a blast and a shit show and a ball of stress and all those things. Oftentimes what it is not, though — between editors’ demands, performance anxiety (what?), pressure to make money to buy food, etc. — is creative. That’s not to say that freelancing inherently isn’t creative. Of course it is. And the more I do it, the more assignments I get, the more I feel entitled to put my stamp, in one way or another, on a piece. But work is work and sometimes work doesn’t feel all that artistic. And if you’re a writer, and if you’re being honest, then you fancy yourself an artist. C’mon , champ … ‘fess up.

All this is to say that the trip, which was a blur of wine and food, along with rediscovering Neruda, finishing Moby Dick, and reading some great essays by Skip Hollandsworth, felt like spiritual rejuvenation. I’m not talking about Scientology or Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese stuff. I’m just suggesting that recharging the creative batteries is important. I’d finished, before leaving for the trip, the last of a handful of assignments I had on deck. And now I’m back, energized, and going after it. I’ve done interviews for a few different story ideas, put together a couple “big story” pitches, and I’m excited to get back on the horse. Which hasn’t always been the case. So here’s the deal. Work hard, shove your head in the game, but also take the time to let yourself be moved.

And damn it, read Neruda in Spanish. Even if you don’t understand a word.

I’m working on three stories at the moment, all for one magazine. I’m going to keep this anonymous, since none of the stories have been published. Bear with me on the behind-enemy-lines style censorship. This all began when, after the first story I wrote for this magazine had gone through edits and art, I sent a wrap up email to the editor I’d been working with:

Hi XXXXX,

That seems pretty standard. And it accomplished a few things: it gave closure to the whole editing process, which is never a start-then-stop thing, it led to me getting proper invoicing info, and it indirectly (and tactfully) posed a question: based on the story I just wrote and our relationship during that time, am I someone you’d like to work with again? That’s sort of the million dollar curiosity for a freelancer, both from financial necessity and plain ol’ ego. Happily, the editor replied that he’d definitely like to work with me again and he followed that email with another that had two very broad topics that he thought might make interesting stories: creative innovations coming out of slums and organic agriculture feeding the world. He had a few links to give me an idea of what he meant. He asked me if I had time to root around for a possible narrative. Sweet.

After I got a-rooting, I came across a story. It didn’t get to the organic agriculture stuff, but it had tie-ins to Brazilian factory farming and left the door open for more reporting. Keep in mind that this pitch was sent to an interested editor who had solicited the idea from me. I mention that because, unlike a normal pitch, I felt like this one didn’t need the immediate sexy hook and could take its time developing the ideas. I wouldn’t send something this dense to an editor blind:

Hi XXXXX,

I’ve had a chance to do some research and I came across a compelling story.

Brazil’s farms have received a lot of press lately. The cerrado, or savannah region, has changed rapidly in the last decade as agricultural advances have made previously overlooked land arable. Soy in particular has made Brazil one of the world’s agricultural powerhouses, challenging the dominance of U.S. soy production.

But reactions are mixed. Some praise the cerrado techniques as nothing short of revolutionary, a model that might be adapted in areas of Africa and India where population growth and infertile land have contributed to famine (here). On the other hand, agricultural expansion into the cerrado has had devastating effects on one of the most unique ecosystems in the world (here). Monoculture and genetically modified crops, along with heavy infusions of fertilizers and chemicals to control natural soil acidity, are raising serious questions about the sustainability of development. The cerrado expansion is also being steered by huge conglomerates like Cargill and Monsanto, decidedly profit-driven outfits for whom an agricultural revolution has little to do with world hunger (much of the soy they produce is used in bio-fuels and as feed for livestock). Writer Pat Joseph toured the cerrado and did a good job confronting the ethical conundrum in this article in Virginia Quarterly. I found several other articles that draw a variety of conclusions but cover more or less the same ground. This is a fascinating story, but in its broadest form, it’s a story that has been well reported.

Following the trail a little further, I found another chapter in all this that has received far less coverage. The “revolution,” though decidedly Brazilian, hasn’t been confined to Brazil. About 80% of the cerrado (so vast that it covers more than 20% of Brazil) has already been converted to farms or pastureland. With space running out—and with environmental groups pushing heavier regulation—Brazilian and American agro conglomerates have literally begun overflowing into surrounding countries. Farming techniques developed on the cerrado (recovering untenable soil, genetically modified strains, agro-economies of scale) are now being implemented in neighboring Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia.

Paraguay in particular stands out. Between 1997 and 2007, soy production increased five-fold in Paraguay. Soy now accounts for more than 50% of the country’s exports. Paraguay’s economy grew 14.5% in 2010, an incredible statistic given the state of the global economy. But here’s the catch: the number of poor people in Paraguay also grew, from 35% of the population in 2009 to 37% last year. The soy boom has not benefited the majority of Paraguayans. In fact, Paraguay remains one of the ten most unequal countries in the world in terms of land ownership. Here’s why: of the 600,000 soybean growers in Paraguay, only 24% are Paraguayan. About 40% are Brazilian and the rest are conglomerates from countries like the U.S., Germany, and Japan. And in Paraguay, the arrival of these conglomerates, replicating the efficient methods and scale proven in Brazil, have contributed to the overwhelming displacement ofcampesinos, small farmers who traditionally worked the countryside (here). In line with global patterns of displacement, the campesinoshave made their way to settlements on the outskirts of big cities. A large number of the displaced have ended up in a slum called Bañados outside of Asuncion, Paraguay’s capital.

This is a sad narrative, but it is here, against this backdrop, that I want to pick up the story. Something innovative has been happening in one sector of Bañados. In a ragged stretch where landless campesinos fight a swelling river each year, some of the poorest families on earth have access to affordable healthcare, a low-cost pharmacy, a soup kitchen. Children benefit from tutoring and adults from skills classes. Bañados is home to a micro credit program that lends tens of thousands of dollars each year and has a payback rate in excess of 97%, all of it executed without the formality of contracts or government oversight. There are social workers, conflict resolution channels, and an operational judicial system. In other words, amid the most grinding poverty imaginable there is a functioning society. And all of it, from lending networks to healthcare administration to a form of neighborhood tax collection, is self-directed, conceived of and run by a coalition of about 1000 families who have no government mandate.

The coalition, largely a response to a feckless government and an unjust land distribution system, is known as CAMSAT (Center of Mutual Help “Health for All”). Founded twenty years ago by a Spanish priest, CAMSAT was dreamed up as a community-run healthcare program for an area whose unemployment rate hovers around 85%. It has become a de facto government, only better. The families of CAMSAT have divided their barrio into eight zones, each of which has its own coordinator and a number of community-appointed delegates. These delegates convene several times per year in a kind of general assembly. The coalition, like a government, has no guiding objectives other than the welfare and betterment of the neighborhood’s residents. Goals and target areas change as the community’s needs change, and these give rise to specific programs and initiatives. Families who are part of CAMSAT—and more than 50% of families in this barrio in southern Bañados are—pay a monthly quota on the order of $0.03, which subsidizes these programs. So efficient, transparent, and well-run is this organization that the United Nations Development Programme, in a 2007 report, stated that CAMSAT is a model of community development and organizing against poverty.

I propose to go to Bañados to write about this incredible community. Against the backdrop of a debate over new agricultural techniques in Brazil, and in the shadow of a recent Paraguayan dictatorship and a current crisis of government mismanagement, I want to bring the story of CAMSAT to life by focusing on the individuals who are responsible for its success. While there are a number of ways this story might be told, the approach that comes to mind is a narrative profile of CAMSAT’s founder, Father Pedro Velasco. My initial research has revealed very little English-language coverage of the topic. The best English resources I’ve come across are this essay, which is a translation of a piece written by Spanish journalist Raúl Zibechi, and this short video, which does an excellent job telling the story behind the displacement. 

I would love to bring this story to a broader audience, XXXXX. If the topic appeals to you, I’d like to take the following steps:

• draw up a list of anticipated expenses
• make initial contact with CAMSAT members and relevant sources in Paraguay
• begin discussing the approach to and shape of the story

I’m of course happy to answer any questions you have and I’m eager to hear your thoughts about the idea. I think the topic fits well with XXXXXX’s positive ethos and with its willingness to grapple with the complexities and pitfalls of the modern age. I’m available anytime to speak on the phone or over email.

Thanks, XXXX. I’m excited about this story and would love to work on it for XXXXXX.

Best,

Greg

See what I mean? A long pitch, but one that shows I did my research and have a story. He liked the idea and said, pending approval of expenses, they’d send me to Paraguay to see it through. And then he said, “now about the two stories I asked for in the first place …” He asked me to keep rooting around. Here’s what I came back to him with on the creative slums front:

The idea behind local currency is simple. Special notes, backed by neighborhood banks, are printed in the community. Local retailers choose whether to accept these notes. Those that do accept them offer discounts on merchandise to people using the new currency—an incentive for the consumer. In return, money that had been flowing out, either because commuters were spending elsewhere or because large retail chains were encroaching on local enterprise, stays in the community. Retailers benefit from increased volume, consumers from cheaper goods, and the community from strengthened business zones that boost local employment and keep buildings occupied. The Wall Street Journal article you sent does a good job summarizing this system by focusing on the barrio of Silva Jardim, where local currency has been in circulation for about a year.

At the end of the Wall Street Journal article, the author mentions Cidade de Deus (City ofGod), another favela that began circulating its own currency in September. As the article points out, the 5 CCD note carries the likeness of Benta Neves do Nascimento, a 78-year-old community activist. It turns out that all but one of the notes carry pictures of inspirational locals. The 2 CCD note uses the image of João Batista, who created an NGO to help malnourished children and teenagers. The 10 CCD carries the likeness of Julio Grooten, a Dutch priest who established a day care center and built an influential local church. Both Batista and Grooten have passed on, but Nascimento is still working hard for her community, as is Geralda Maria de Jesus, the 82 year-old on the 1 CCD note who has lived in Cidade de Deus since its founding. With these two women, I see an opportunity for a story that picks up where the WSJ article left off.

I propose to use the new CCD currency as a frame to do a person-centered piece about the history of activism and enterprise in Cidade de Deus, once considered one of the most dangerous favelas inRio de Janeiro. The story offers unique narrative possibilities—the two living women honored on the bills account for the entire history of Cidade de Deus, made famous outside ofBrazilby the wrenching movie “City ofGod.” This was the second favela in Rio to be “pacified” in advance of the Olympics and World Cup and is now considered a touchstone in the local and national fight to buoyBrazil’s informal settlements. The piece will not be a complete historical account of the area, but rather will examine the implementation of local currency and community banking against the backdrop of a history of activism that made it possible.

Though it’s tough to pin down a specific outline without on-the-ground reporting, a general approach might look like this:

1. Anecdotal lead about new currency (currency in use or the printing process, for example)
2. Nut graph
3. Women on the currency—an introduction to Geralda Maria de Jesus, who helped found Ciudade de Deus
   1. historical section that uses this woman as the intriguing central character and puts the neighborhood in context (founding, reasons and scope of violence, challenges, etc.)
   2. this section sets the stakes by showing how difficult things were, showing what it means that this community can now have a local economy
4. The idea for local currency—stepping back to look at the process of developing a local currency in Cidade de Deus
5. How the community got to this point—an introduction to Benta Neves do Nascimento, the other woman on the currency and one of Cidade de Deus’ prominent activists
   1. this section bridges the history we got in section III with the implementation of local currency in 2011. Again, the use of a strong central character gives me the opportunity to show community activism (particularly Benta’s NGO) and innovation instead of simply recounting it
6. The currency in use, looking ahead, local reactions, broader implications, etc.

For more information, here’s a link to an article that gives a bit of background about the new currency and introduces these two women: http://infosurhoy.com/cocoon/saii/xhtml/en_GB/features/saii/features/main/2011/09/27/feature-01. As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

The editor liked this a lot, but he thought it might be a good idea to broaden this specific case study and use it to get at the bigger idea of creativity coming out of these areas (which is probably what he was asking for all along … something I maybe should have recognized). So, back to the drawing board. I came up with a modified pitch. Meanwhile we spoke over Skype about the organic agriculture piece. I had done some initial interviews with some obvious sources on the organic agriculture scene (are you an organic agriculture scenester, by any chance?). The editor liked that approach and gave me some room to start reporting the topic out until I found a specific story. I traveled to Paraguay in the interim (expenses were approved) and wrote that story. Total blast. Here’s the final slum innovation proposal, which he wanted in the form of an outline and which he green lighted last week. I’ve switched directions a bit since then, but this captures the main idea (forgive the formatting, which seems to be getting jumbled).

Creative Problem Solving in Slums

Slums, barrios, and urban settlements are being recognized as bastions of creativity and enterprise. In the face of unique challenges associated with poverty, overpopulation, and inadequate health and education resources, urban populations have had to think beyond traditional models. While the developed world has long viewed impoverished urban centers as peripheral, even onerous, growing recognition of the creativity emerging from these areas has sparked new interest in their makeup and potential. For the first time the question is being asked: What can people and communities who reside in slums teach the rest of the world?

1. Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) is an organization and distribution network devoted to sharing and promoting the creative problem solving emerging from urban centers. The piece will open with a recap of the institutional recognition that solutions were showing up in unexpected places and that these solutions could have utility elsewhere. This philosophy is also reflected in the UN exhibition Design with the other 90%: Cities.
2. Nut graph: There is a new recognition of the creative solutions coming out of slums and a new push to identify and share that information in both the developing and developed worlds. The nut graph will present three concepts that will then make up the remaining architecture of the piece: creative solutions arise from difficult circumstances; outside organizations can help unlock the creative potential that exists within urban communities; networks can help share this information with the developing and developed worlds
3. Case studies: Each of the three case studies will elaborate on one of the concepts listed above

a)      Slum 1: An illustration of how a set of extreme urban circumstances gives rise to an innovative solution

b)      Slum 2: An illustration of how an outside organization has worked with a community to promote urban problem solving

c)      Slum 3: An illustration of how an innovative solution in one slum in one part of the world was shared and adapted for use in another slum in another part of the world

More research is needed to know which creative solutions will make the perfect case studies, but here is an initial list of innovative urban solutions I find intriguing:

1) mobile phone education in Africa (link); 2) urban farming in Detroit (link); 3) slums how-to manual (link); 4) interlocking soil bricks in Uganda (link); 5) community life boats in Bangladesh (link); 6) fabric from local plants in Mexico (link); education innovation in slums (cherry-picking one example he talks about)(link; link); 7) community currency in Brazil (link);

So that’s it, the birth of three stories. I’m working this story right now and have an end-of-month deadline. Meanwhile I’ve done some more interviews on the organic agriculture piece, did some extra-credit field work on organic agriculture down in Paraguay (that’s organic sugar cane in the photo associated with this post), and have a solid narrative to pitch to the editor. This is a pretty heartening example of how things snowball and it underscores the importance of relationships in this gig. And follow up emails. Follow up emails are big.

I’ve written before about the way I use technology (particularly when interviewing people in Spanish). I thought I’d start by going over my field kit and explaining how I used everything on my recent trip to Paraguay.

The kit:

Olympus LS-10 digital recorder

Olympus DS-40 digital recorder

Lumix GH-1 camera

Nokia n86 smart phone

Kodak zi8 handheld camcorder

HP mini netbook

Panasonic RP-HX70 folding headphones

WD portable external hard drive (not pictured)

3×5 Notecards and rubber bands

Uniball Signo 207 pens (my pen preference changes frequently and occupies an inordinate amount of mental bandwidth)

Tenba Mini Photo/Laptop Bag

Websites/software: Notepad, Skype, SpanishDict.com

Let’s start with the digital recorders. The LS-10 is an amazing recorder. Palm-sized, with two mickey-mouse ears for mics, it captures broadcast quality sound. Do I need broadcast quality sound? Absolutely not. In reality this device is overkill for me. That said, I love it. It’s made of tough aluminum and feels solid as a brick. It picks up every sound in a room but somehow cuts through annoying background dissonance (construction noise, fridge condensers, chatter). It also has high and low cut filters, adjustable sensitivity, and a number of record modes that range from uncompressed .WAV files to space-conscious mp3s. It’s got SDHC removable storage, too, which is absolutely life saving if you have lots of interviews and no chance to transfer files off the device.

When I show up for a scheduled interview, I usually make some small talk, thank the source for their time, and then ask if there’s somewhere quiet we can sit. I’ve found that it’s important when interviewing people to have a distinct start to the interview. In other words, if you show up and your subject starts giving you information before you’re through the door, it pays to slow them down, get control of the exchange, and ask if you can settle in somewhere cozy. The obvious reason for this is that if you’re recording your interviews (I record all of mine) you don’t want to miss anything. But there are other reasons. The information you get from a source is shaped by any number of factors. Sometimes a source is so eager to start talking (because of nerves, excitement, etc.) they’ll ramble on in a million directions that aren’t always easy to track or particularly useful. If, however, you sit down, take some time to explain what kind of article you’re working on, and go over (very generally) what kinds of things you’re interested in hearing about, you’re going to have a much more directed, useful interview. You also get to choose the first question that way.

This isn’t to say, of course, that you should artificially constrain your interview. It’s good to be surprised by a source and if you know everything ahead of time, what’s the point of the interview? But it definitely pays to be in a position of control. Sources often relax when they feel like they have some guidance. I’ve learned after a lot of trial and error to take my time when I start an interview, give my interviewee some early direction, and to not be afraid to ask a source to slow down, back up, or go over something in more detail (especially when it comes to describing scenes which I may later want to recreate). Just being in that mindset, I think, helps me conduct better, more responsive interviews.

You maybe noticed that there are two audio recorders in my kit. Yeah, there are very few times when I’ve needed two. But, as chance would have it, I actually ended up needing both on my trip to Paraguay. The reason? User error. The DS-40 is my older recorder. It’s smaller and dead simple to use. I tagged along with an organization called Un Techo Para Mi Pais (A Roof  For My Country) my first day in Paraguay. The organization helps build houses for impoverished families. They took me to see some of their work in a very hard up neighborhood on the outskirts of Asuncion. Since the DS-40 fits better in my pocket, that’s what I started with. I recorded a ton of audio: a long conversation in the car ride over, the trek through the neighborhood, conversations with several families we met along the way, interviews with two directors of the organization. I ended up with about three-and-a-half hours worth of audio. I could have cut that down. It’s not an efficient way to do things, but I didn’t want to miss anything and my brain doesn’t work fast enough to write shorthand notes in English while listening to 100 MPH Paraguayan Spanish. (More on transcribing in a second.)

Ordinarily this wouldn’t have been a problem. On its lowest quality setting, this little recorder can do something like 16 hours. Unfortunately, I forgot to put it on its lowest quality setting. About halfway through the day, the recorder stopped. All full. Again, this was a stupid and avoidable user error. But user errors are a reality of life (a bigger reality than I’d care to admit) and I’m glad I built in some redundancy. With another recorder in my bag, I was good to go.

So what am I doing with all this audio? First I transfer the files to my portable hard drive. And then comes the dirty part. All that audio has to be converted into text. While I dream of efficient audio-to-text programs (in, er, Spanish), I haven’t found anything yet. Transcribing has to be the biggest pain in the ass of the research process. An hour of audio in Spanish takes me at least two hours to transcribe. I often need multiple listens and inevitably I need to look things up (this, incidentally, is where spanishdict.com comes in handy — an online Spanish-English dictionary and translator).

My transcribing setup is pretty straightforward. I unfold my travel headphones (hotel rooms and airports were consistently my transcribing bases during this trip), plug them into the recorder (both the LS-10 and DS-40 have great playback interfaces, which is important when you consider how many times you have to press pause, fast forward, and rewind during transcription), and sit with my little HP mini netbook to clack away. I use Notepad for transcription and not Microsoft Word. This is simply because I don’t want to be distracted by formatting considerations, spell check, etc. I know you can turn it all off, but Word is what I write on and it’s hard to not play the perfectionist with a crisp print-view word doc open. This stage is just about getting the words on the page. It’s easy enough to go in later and clean everything up. (One tip I culled from an online freelancer’s forum: go through all your transcripts and bold text that seems relevant, important quotes, facts, etc. This makes it much easier to utilize transcripts down the road.)

Of course audio is just one component of research. I use my camera quite a bit, as well. I’ve got a decent camera that’s more than capable of capturing publishable photographs (this was a consideration during this story, since there’s no way Ode Magazine is going to send a photographer back to Paraguay). I take pictures of all my interview subjects, both for publication and also so I can nail descriptions of people and of the places where we met. A photograph is an excellent tool for jogging the memory and allows me pin down descriptive details with confidence.

With this in mind, I also use my Nokia n86 pretty extensively. First, it’s always in my pocket. If I’m ever without my field kit, I still have pretty complete functionality. I can record audio, take video, snap decent quality pictures, etc. I tend to snap atmosphere photos with my phone — the shots that simply serve as visual notes to capture a scene, weather, landscapes, small details. I dump all these images onto the portable hard drive. I refer to them constantly while I’m writing and some of my best descriptions come straight from photos. I’ve done spur-of-the-moment interviews with the phone (most excitingly with a former paramilitary member in the middle of a Colombian jungle during a five-day trek). And it takes decent video, which, again, helps with atmosphere.

All this said, the pen and note cards are probably the only pieces of indispensable kit in my bag. This trip I used a stack of 3x5s held together with a rubber band. In the past I’ve used steno pads, small legal pads, Moleskines, softcover saddle stitched notebooks, and a bunch of other varieties, shapes, and sizes. I can’t say I really have a preference (except maybe a preference for variety). the nice thing about the note cards is that I can rearrange them, which is helpful if I come back to a subject later in my research and need to add information. I can also write directions and phone numbers, remove a single card, and stick it in my front pocket where it’ll be easily accessible. Important when negotiating taxis in a foreign country.

Basically I always have my note cards and pen at hand. I make sure to have every source write out their own full name (which I actually had to rethink this trip, as some of my sources couldn’t write). I gather contact information on the cards and have them at the ready to jot down an observation, an idea that might be relevant to the story, my daily research schedule, to-do lists, etc. They’re a mess and a jumble by the end of the day, but they’re chock full of important info. I group the note cards in whatever order seems logical and have them available for reference while I’m writing the article. Nothing fancy here.

That’s about it for my collection strategy. My organizational strategy is ever-evolving, but for this assignment I find myself arranging all my research into a single document called “Research by Topic.” Basically, I pick topics or events that I think will make their way into the article. So, for instance, the biography of the main subject of my piece, a guy named Padre Pedro Velasco, will become a topic written in bold. Underneath the bolded words Velasco Bio I cut and paste everything pertaining to Pedro Velasco I have. That means excerpts from transcripts, news articles, pictures, notes. I make sure to write the origin of all this information, which is something I’ve forgotten to do in the past. It’s a huge frustrating pain to have to re-find the source of a golden nugget of information. With this done, I’ve got a nice little file, a way to reference Pedro Velasco’s bio without wading a second or third time through every bit of research I’ve done. Once I’ve got a number of topics in this document and have gone through all my research, I’m ready to start my article. Inevitably I’ll fill in more topics, reduce or combine topics, and discard others altogether. This is just one helpful step toward organizing my research.

So that’s it. That’s my general research strategy for this trip. There is one more thing I wanted to mention about my research kit, though. It’s functional and I use it constantly, but it has another important purpose. It gets me excited about going into the field. I love gadgets and I love the image of the field reporter. It’s silly and maybe a little embarrassing, but something like a bag that perfectly holds all my things gets me incredibly excited — in no small part because I start to imagine myself interviewing someone on some dusty road somewhere, the bag slung functionally over my shoulder. I have tons of bags. My wife makes fun of me for it. And it is funny. But hell, it’s part of what gets me excited to be a writer. Same with the audio recorders, the phone, the cameras. There’s value in that. Why fight it?

With that in mind, allow me to introduce my newest addition. I bought it in a little shop in Paraguay for $40. It’s new, but it had obviously been sitting there for some time. The leather was dry and brittle. I got it home and started treating it, working it in, super-gluing loose threads. Now it’s soft and deeper-hued and feels perfectly sturdy. I stuck a photo divider insert inside — a perfect fit. And you know what? I can’t wait to be on some dusty road with it, gadgets tucked snugly inside.

I’m writing this from a hostel in Bogota, where I’ve been for the last few days waiting for my visa to Paraguay to come through. I mentioned last post that I just landed three new assignments: two in Brazil, one in Paraguay.

As (lousy) luck would have it, both Brazil and Paraguay require entry visas from U.S. citizens (most Latin American countries don’t, which is one of many privileges we enjoy and often take for granted when traveling abroad; if you want to see reciprocal  justice in action, check out Brazil’s very up front reasoning for requiring visas of U.S. citizens: link). Since the visa process usually takes 3-5 business days, over which period you have to surrender your passport, getting two visas is both time intensive and expensive (embassies for both countries are located in Bogota, which, for me, means room and board while waiting for approval). Since you’re never sure exactly how long the process will take, it’s risky to book airline tickets too close to the date you submit your visa application. That risk is doubled when you’re talking about two visas. I didn’t have two or more weeks to pad around Bogota. That’s one reason I’m splitting these trips up. I’m on my way to Paraguay now and plan to travel to Brazil in late January.

The other reason is the mind-crushing avalanche of logistics. It’s hard enough to travel as a tourist. When you’re traveling as a writer on deadline, you’re also trying to set up interviews, fill daily schedules that account for taxis, bus trips, airplanes, cross town or cross country meetings — all things that are difficult or impossible to schedule from afar with any degree of accuracy. You’re also trying to keep the evolving shape of your story or stories in mind throughout. Those things quickly fill the mental cubby holes and leave you an exhausted mess.

And then there are the little things that seem so … trifling. Like the fact that I don’t speak Portuguese. Which means I’ll need an interpreter for every exchange in Brazil. One of the Brazil pieces is about agriculture, which means finding interpreters in rural areas (I got some great advice from colleagues to look in university English departments for all my affordable big city interpreter needs, but rural areas are tougher).

Add to all this the fact that Brazil and Paraguay each take about 15 hours to get to from Colombia (no direct flights to Paraguay, few to Brazil). That’s two full travel days at either end of a couple weeks of research for three very different stories. My last post was about communicating with your editor. The ball of stress I became trying to figure out how to do all this in one trip was my impetus for reaching out. I’m glad I did. Now my single odyssey is two much more manageable trips. So to Paraguay I go.

The most salient tip I have in this post is to do as much logistical work as possible before traveling (note: this part I’m writing from Paraguay as I wrap up my research). If you do nothing else, make sure you fill up your first day in the field with interviews, tours, appointments, and meetings (as much as is logistically possible, which, again, is often tough from afar). You’re freshest on your first day, you’re excited, and it’s best to make the most of that energy. You’ll also buy yourself some breathing room. There’s nothing worse than to be left expectantly waiting to land crucial interviews toward the end of your trip, a plane trip looming. If something goes wrong, you may miss an important opportunity. That’s not the kind of fear you want to carry around throughout the research phase.

I worked hard and got my first day-and-a-half pretty well booked. There were some barriers to that, though. My story is about self-organizing in an impoverished community on the outskirts of Asuncion. I’d read several articles from various Asuncion periodicals online and had read what few articles in English had been written about this community (mostly passing references). The community group itself, which is called CAMSAT, didn’t have any presence on the web. It’s amazing how dependent we’ve come. Contact information was incredibly difficult to come by. I got a few hopeful leads from online postings about year-old events, some of which included contact information. But none of those yielded solid contacts either (after several calls went unanswered and several emails bounced back, I started to get discouraged).

So I began to work around CAMSAT. Many other organizations are active in Asuncion, some of which were mentioned as co-sponsors of events in which CAMSAT participated. I reached out to those organizations. One thing I’m particularly happy I did was to avoid over-defining the subject of my story when getting in touch with these orgs. I simply said I was writing a story about community self-organizing in certain neighborhoods of Asuncion, that I wanted to learn more about their organization … and, oh yeah, do you happen to have any contact info for CAMSAT? I think organizations were quicker to respond than they would have been had I said, “I’m doing a story about CAMSAT; can you help?” And I’m also finding ways to use these organizations to make my story much richer. I was invited to a local prison, toured informal settlements that provide great comparisons to the community I’m focusing on, and ended up getting all the contact information for CAMSAT I needed. Tomorrow I’m also going to go help build a house for a family outside of Asuncion. Whether I use that in the story or not, it’s pretty cool.

Next post I’ll go into how this assignment emerged and I’ll include some correspondence with my editor. But here’s a final thought: I’m a new freelancer, I don’t have the experience or the record of clips that veterans in this gig have. I also don’t have the preexisting personal relationships that often open doors. So, without going into specifics, how did I get an editor to agree to shell out thousands of dollars in expenses … twice?

Good fortune, certainly. But there’s also this: I worked very hard on my first story for this editor and made sure to meet and exceed my obligations. I stumbled on this current story, did as much research as possible, and then confidently told my editor that I was capable of pulling it off. The other stories developed from ideas he had. I took his ideas, which he only mentioned in broad form, researched the hell out of them, and gave him coherent proposals that again suggested that I was the one qualified to write them.

Am I? I have no idea. Or rather, I have a good idea how to approach this research, and within that scheme I know I’m capable, but I’m also traveling 3000 miles for each story, landing in countries I’ve never been to (one, Paraguay, where the Spanish is notoriously challenging, the other, Brazil, where I don’t speak the language), and committing myself to writing about people that I’ve had only fleeting contact with. There’s something a bit foolhardy in that. And I’m anxious, bordering on outright scared. But there’s also a recognition, I think, that this is my time to be a freelancer, to take chances like these, and to make sure that if/when I fall on my face, it’ll be doing something ambitious. A bit of recklessness is a good thing in the freelance gig. I guess the trick, as in all things, is figuring out how to balance the recklessness with reality. Speaking of which, I’ve got some transcribing to do.

(Note: the photo that corresponds to this post was taken in the stairwell of the headquarters of CAMSAT (Centro de Ayuda Mutua Salud Para Todos), a community activist organization doing incredible things in the impoverished Paraguayan barrio of Bañado, Tacumbú. Camera: Lumix GH-1)

Of course I’m really thrilled to have the assignments. And after talking with my editor (they’re all for the same magazine), I’ve got the timing worked out to avoid unneeded stress (and working too much while my family comes for a visit). There’s a lesson here. TALK TO YOUR EDITOR.

I’d written one article for this editor previously, but to date we’d only communicated by email (strange as it seems, these editor-writer relationships, for all the emotion and anxiety they sometimes entail, often develop exclusively online). These three new story ideas developed quickly over a week-and-a-half long email exchange between the two of us. And all of a sudden my editor was offering me big assignments. Not only that, but big assignments that would  require heavy duty international travel (Paraguay and Brazil, both of which, for reasons I’ll go into next post, are not easy places to get to).

So … assuming the editor wanted to save money by sending me on one trip to the FAR south to cover all three stories, I started to do some calendar math, started compressing my schedule and trimming bits and pieces off my research plan to save time. And then I got really stressed (read: started drinking beer). I wanted all three stories, felt, maybe invented, pressure to cram my research into one quick trip, and didn’t think it would be possible or particularly fun with such a tight schedule. And then, at the behest of my wife, I did the smartest thing I’ve done in a long time. I asked the editor if we could have a quick phone (er, Skype) conversation before committing to the assignments.

I know how obvious that may seem. It’s a business relationship, you should be clear and open and up front. That’s perfectly true. But in the middle of the stress and elation that came with three new stories, calling the guy who’d just (in a moment of temporary insanity, for all I knew) assigned me the stories seemed like a risky endeavor. Especially since I was calling to say I’d need to break the very expensive trip into two even more expensive trips (next post: travel).

I’ve noticed a trend, something I attribute 100% to my being new at this freelance gig. When an editor waves a story (or three) in front of me, I become transfixed, drugged by excitement. And like any addict, I’ll do anything to keep the fix. Even if that means over-promising or committing to unrealistic schedules, which is really the last thing a professional writer should EVER do. A great magazine man named David Hochman has a personal saying: Under promise, over deliver. Smart guy. But that feels contrary to the new freelancer’s instinctual grab for the perfect assignment, no matter the cost. When you’re discussing a story idea with an editor, it feels very easy to fumble the ball. And to avoid this, it’s very easy to offer up unrealistic promises. My editor waved three story ideas at me and my instincts told me to say YES YES YES and figure out the logistics afterward. That would have been a bad move and I’m glad I avoided it. Maybe that’s a sign of growth. Or maybe I have a very intelligent wife.

To cut to the chase, the phone conversation was hugely constructive. It gave me a chance to talk to the editor in a collaborative way and resulted in a very manageable delivery schedule that wouldn’t require a single logistically hellish trip. On top of that, I really enjoyed getting to know my editor. He was kind and personable and intelligent. He was open to my ideas and seemed genuinely interested in hearing about my life outside the immediacy of looming deadlines. I can’t tell you how great that is. It feels like I have a partner while researching and writing these stories, and not just a judge at the end of the process. This first story (I’m on the road now) already feels less like a performance and more an opportunity to do great work.

Editors are busy people and it’s a good idea not to waste their time. But take it from me: if you’re between a rock and a hard place, pulling out your hair and worried to death about fumbling the ball, talk to your editor. She/he has your back.

(Note: the picture that corresponds to this blog was taken in the barrio of Bañado, Tacumbú on the outskirts of Asuncion, Paraguay. Camera: Lumix GH-1)

So that’s where I am right now. If you’re doing this freelance thing for a living, the idea is that you’re always supposed to have work. You’re supposed to get the timing down just right so that new stories get off the ground just as old ones are being edited. That’s a hell of a hard balance to find. For example, my last round of pitches netted a story that came in at 1500 words. Cool. And then another pitch I’d sent out months before came back with an exciting 2500 word assignment. Groovy! And then another of the pitches from that latest round came back with a 3000 word story. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a hell of a nice problem to have. But all of a sudden I’m drowning in work. My brother was visiting, we had plans, and it led to a lot of stress and plenty of long nights.

So how do I avoid that? Is it possible to avoid that? Isn’t that sort of thing good for the writerly constitution. Answers: I don’t know, ditto, and no. More on that in a minute.

One obvious way to gain some stability is to land regular assignments from a handful of editors. I’m just starting this freelance thing, so I’m just now etching the mortal contact information of immortal Zueses into my little black book (should I drop the Zeus thing?).

Another sort of obvious approach (though this might be tougher) is to not be so jr. high excited about every story idea I start to develop. I don’t mean I shouldn’t be excited about every story (Christ, easier ways to make a buck, you know?). But I think I need to learn to prioritize pitches. I need to sit down with the, say, five ideas I’m developing. Maybe two of those stories are time sensitive, either because of the subject or because I’m working around a contact’s schedule. Okay, this is easy, give those priority. Send them out and wait a spell. That, of course, is the tricky part: how do I resist sending out the other three with the same urgency just because I’ve got a few days of down time?

So far I haven’t been able to do that. Sending ideas into the abyss of blind submissions is sort of like putting a note in a bottle and hucking it into the ocean. There’s some initial excitement, some hope, possibility. But then it’s like, wait, that’s a big damn ocean. And then the doubt sets in. And if I’m sitting on three other pitches in a moment of doubt it’s tough not to load those into their own bottles. And maybe that’s not the worst thing in the world, but it means I need to be prepared for the possibility of having a lot of work all at once. Again, worse problems to have. And I don’t mean to sound whiny. But when it starts to feel like a piece might be suffering, might be getting short shrift, then I’m not meeting my obligations to Zeus or (and I’m going to get hokey here, but also serious) to myself. I want to be a writer known for busting my ass, for working harder than the next guy, for delivering the best possible writing I’m capable of. And I want to have time to get inside a story, to approach it from a few directions, to find the spirit in the thing and figure out the best way to bring that to the fore. I need to maintain a work schedule that allows me to do that.

Anyway, short story long, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. But I’m doing it, and it’s working out, and as much as an equilibrium is possible in this gig, I’m going to find it. I’ll let you know when I do. Hail Zeus.

To be honest, I’ll speak volumes of Don Quixote-esque prose on a Tuesday and then drool all over myself asking for a spoon on Wednesday (la cuchara, by the way). And to be more honest, I’m probably speaking the same caliber of Spanish both days, just propping myself up or pulling myself down depending on mood. I came to Colombia with three years of high school Spanish, which sat on a dusty shelf for about eight years, and a couple adult-learning-center type courses. There was a base, but not a real grasp of execution or comprehension.

I’ve been down here three-and-a-half months now. I can communicate (with varying degrees of panache) everything I need to. I can tell stories, though timing is a real killer. Among the university educated, middle-class set, I can understand everything with ease. But here’s a problem: the most interesting people in Colombia (and maybe anywhere?) tend to be pushing a fruit cart, not working in an office. And the people pushing that fruit cart (or making shoes, like one recent contact, or working as prostitutes, community leaders, cooks, flower vendors …) tend to speak with a velocity and in a dialect that immediately sends me back to my “¿Dónde está la biblioteca?” days. These are the people I want/need to interview. Hmmmm ….

So the real question is, how can I meaningfully (and respectfully) pry the most intimate details of a person’s life when I can only understand some percent (well below 100) of what they’re saying? Do I even have a right to interview them? To this last question, which sits heavy with me, I defer to others. I feel that with a healthy dose of interest, sincerity, and apologetic humor, I’ve got the right to at least request information. I’d love to hear all sides on this, though. To the first question, which is logistical, I’ve developed a strategy that’s been working well and paying off in unexpected ways. And when I think about it, it’s really not all that different from my strategy interviewing people in English. It’s just more rigorous, which is maybe a lesson I should take with me back to the States.

First off, technology is wonderful. Yeah, yeah, it can be misused. But what chance would I have without it? For me, the most important pieces of kit when it comes to surmounting the language barrier are 1) Kodak zi8 video cam; 2) Olympus LS-10 audio recorder; 3) a notepad with a well-prepared list of questions.

Here’s what I do: when I meet a contact, often someone I pass on the street, I hit them with my strongest weapon — a propensity for looking utterly clueless and ridiculously out of place. I’m a 6’4″ redhead in a country that’s only just getting a taste of tourism. I stick out. So I use that. I approach with a big smile, curious eyes, and I ask some very basic question (e.g., “what barrio is this?”). That leads to more basic questions, or maybe a comment about how nice people are in this city (which is true), or maybe a bit of insight about how we don’t have aspect X of life where I’m from (Medellin is installing a set of public escalators to allow people easy access to their mountainside homes in the city’s western sector … we don’t have that where I’m from). There’s never anything dishonest in this exchange, though there’s definitely the affectation (or is there?) of a guy who doesn’t know thing one about the area. Throughout this initial exchange, which is never heavy enough to tax my Spanish, I keep it light, happy, complimentary. And then I introduce myself as a writer from the U.S. who’s interested in the area and wants to learn more. And then I close: “If I have any questions about the area, would it be okay to call or email you?” More often than not, I get contact information. Then I schedule a proper interview.

And this is where the tech comes in. I film (or at very least record audio from) every interview. The reason, simply, is that I’m going to miss an awful lot in the moment. Sometimes I’ll miss the nuance, other times I’ll flat out not understand. That’s a disadvantage, obviously, but it’s what I have to work with. During that first interview, I’m making a connection to the person I’m interviewing. I’m not scribbling furiously on a notepad, I’m not getting frustrated when there’s something I miss. I maintain total immersion in the moment, in the sentiment, and in the things I do understand (it’s not like I’m missing ALL, or even MOST of it … just SOME).

My well-prepared list of questions has hopefully inspired some interesting responses. When the interview is over, I go home and pore over the tape. Video is SO much easier to translate from. You’ve got body cues, you’ve got facial expressions, and you’ve got the visual memory to put you back in the moment. (It’s also a great way to see how people look in different emotional states, which is really helpful when you’re writing descriptions.) Once I’ve got a handle on what was said in the interview, I schedule another interview. Obviously you always want to react to what your subject tells you. When you can’t do it with 100% accuracy in the moment, you’ve got to go back to follow-up. Once more I set the Zi8 on a little flexible tripod thingy (the camera is small, not intimidating, and always positioned off to the side — with sustained eye contact, subjects almost always forget about it). I’ve got another set of well-prepared questions, most of them react questions from the first interview. I go through the process again. And again. And again if need be. It’s time consuming, but the net result is a very comprehensive interview. And, because I’ve got so much exposure to these people, because I’m building trust, I’m actually getting better information than I might have with only one interview. Like I said, a tactic to take back home.

So that’s it … nothing ground-breaking, nothing earth shattering, but a solid tactic that I’ve grown comfortable using. The most important thing, without a doubt, is to maintain a balance of humility and curiosity. And, of course, to never let a language deficit obscure the fact that you’re talking to a human being — a real person with important stories, outlooks, and opinions.

I wrote about Braddock for my master’s thesis. One topic that interested me, a topic that Braddock resident and good friend Joel Rice first told me about, was the 1959 Braddock High football team. The team had its sixth straight undefeated season under legendary coach Chuck Klausing (College Football Hall of Fame) and set the national record for consecutive wins that year. At the same time, the town of Braddock was suffering through the longest steel strike in the nation’s history — a strike that, in many ways, precipitated the decline of the American steel industry as a whole. Talk about a thematic backbone.

I pitched the piece to Pittsburgh Quarterly and they were interested. Truth be told, I ended up doing a lot of work to get it ready for submission. Still, it was great not to have to start from scratch. And it was a testament to the power and importance of editing. For the first time in a while I was removing words as the deadline approached. The piece is better for it. Lesson: leave time before the deadline to edit your pieces.

Below is the pitch I sent to Pittsburgh Quarterly‘s editor. I mention in the pitch that I’d had contact with Matt Stroud. I’ve never met Matt, but I did know his name from a few articles he’d written about Braddock for Pittsburgh’s City Paper. I was all set to send my pitch to the PQ editor when I noticed Matt’s name on PQ‘s masthead. Again, we’d never met, but Matt obviously knew something about Braddock and I figured I’d give him a shot. I sent an email explaining I wanted to pitch PQ, explaining that I’d read his articles, and asking if he had any advice. He did. He offered advice about timing the pitch right — the editor was on vacation. He was encouraging and, when it came time to send my pitch to PQ‘s editor, I had an in. It’s hard to pitch someone cold, much easier with a name (sincerely) dropped. Lesson: I dunno … work the angles?

PITCH:

(keep in mind I’m pitching a regional mag here, the editors of which would have some knowledge of Braddock already)

Hi Doug,

I hope you’re well. I corresponded with Matt Stroud a couple weeks back, who was very kind with his advice and encouragement.  

With its famous mayor, a controversial Levi’s Jeans campaign, and the heartbreaking loss of its UPMC hospital, it seems that Braddock has been a constant presence in the news these last few years. While the attention is certainly deserved, a different story, one that played out a half century ago, may be a better window onto the town, the region, and the state of manufacturing nationwide. 

On November 6th, 1959, the day before the fate of the largest steel strike in the nation’s history was decided by a devastating Supreme Court decision, the Braddock High Tigers played North Braddock Scott for a chance to set the national high school football record for consecutive games without a loss. That Friday evening, more than 10,000 fans, many of them striking mill workers months off the job, piled into a stadium built to hold 5,000. The game came down to a final play.

I propose to write a piece about the record-setting Braddock High Tigers for Pittsburgh Quarterly. The dual narrative of the story—the intersection of a town’s moment of triumph and an industry’s moment of collapse—will appeal to readers of PQ attune to and curious about their region’s fascinating history and crucial role in national events. 

While this story is indeed national in impact—the strike of ’59 and subsequent Supreme Court injunction carried calamitous consequences for every facet of American manufacturing while the Braddock High Tigers and their now-famous coach (http://www.collegefootball.org/famer_selected.php?id=70045) raised the bar for national high school athletics for decades to come—the topic is nonetheless intensely local. For residents who live in or have connections to the boroughs that give the region its character, the story of Braddock, of that momentary fulcrum between heyday and decline, will be both familiar and revealing. 

I have had the privilege to research and write about Braddock for more than two years. In 2009, my writing on Braddock earned the Cecil and Helen Rose Ethics in Communication Award from the School of the Arts at Emerson College. Previously, I have worked as an arts and entertainment writer for the Santa Barbara Independent and as a freelance reporter, photographer, and editor. I am currently wrapping up pieces for Miller-McCune and Ode Magazine. You can find my most recent published work here: http://www.missiontimescourier.com/article/Community_News/Local_News/Rabbits_Spell_Trouble_For_Gardens_Lawns/29587 & http://www.jackmag.com.co/articles/expomotriz/.

I have interviewed Coach Klausing, as well as players from the heralded 1959 team. I have access to the mayor of Braddock and to dozens of residents who vividly recall that remarkable Friday. The piece will come in around 4,000 words and would be a good fit for your Fall 2012 issue—football season for families in western Pennsylvania.

Thanks, Doug. Please let me know if you have any questions. I would love to discuss the story further.

Sincerely, 

Greg Nichols

There’s a little bit of a back story here, and one that further emphasized for me the importance of persistence. Among the many urban development projects in Medellin, the Parques Bibliotecas (Library Parks) interest me the most. The Parks are essentially giant, beautiful community centers built in the heart of some of the most difficult parts of the city. In addition to providing computers, books, cultural programming, and classes, the Parques are also a sly way for the state to gain some ground in these troubled neighborhoods. In effect, these Parks grant the government access to neighborhoods that were previously off-limits. It might be best to think of each Park as a social service distribution center, a doorway into a community that has a history of mistrusting the government.

Of course I wanted to pitch something around the Parques. My first idea was to try Ode Magazine. Ode looks at innovative and inspiring solutions to problems around the world. Perfect, no? Well, I went ahead and sent the pitch and then … nothing. No word. A couple weeks later I sent a follow-up. Nada. I sent another follow-up (yup, I’m persistent). I still hadn’t heard, so finally I sent an email withdrawing the pitch. Maybe it wasn’t right for them.

Next I pitched Miller-McCune, which looks at policy issues and, like Ode, innovative solutions to difficult problems (pitch below). It took a while, but I finally heard back from an editor (the editor I pitched, whose info I got from MediaBistro.com, no longer works there, by the way; email me for correct contact info if you’re interested). They wanted the Parques story and needed it turned around quickly (about a month). Great. I knew I could pound the pavement and get the story finished.

And then, out of the blue, I got an email from (trumpets) an editor at Ode Magazine. They said they were interested in the Parques story (despite my having withdrawn it) and wanted to know if I’d sold it elsewhere. Ethics being what they are, I couldn’t in good conscience submit two Parques stories. Even if I took an angle on each, they’d inevitably merge or else be so hyper-specific that each would suffer. Damn.

Regardless, all of a sudden I found myself with an open line to an editor at Ode. I didn’t have a pitch ready that would be a good substitute for the Parques story, but by this point I had already interviewed a couple people about the Library Parks and urban development in Medellin. One theme that kept coming up was that the Parques were part of a much larger network of development. At heart, that network allowed for mobility (mobility of people, of resources, mobility as metaphor). So, I sat down and whipped up a pitch about mobility (also below). And guess what … I’ve got myself a feature assignment. This one also has a quick turnaround, so I’m swamped. But swamped is a good thing.

For all who are interested, here are the pitches for the Parques piece and for the rabbit-out-of-the-hat Mobility piece (which, it turns out, is a really cool topic to investigate). Hope you find them helpful!

Hi XXXX,

How does a city go from having the highest murder rate in the world in 1991 to being a bona fide tourist destination in the second decade of the 21st century? There’s no single answer, of course, but more than any other factor, residents of Medellín, Colombia credit the city’s ambitious public architecture projects, especially those implemented under wildly popular former mayor Sergio Fejardo (2004-2007).

The most compelling and successful of these projects are the Parques Bibliotecas (Library Parks). The central tenet of the Library Park model is to join architecturally ambitious buildings with green space to provide centers of learning and civic engagement in Medellín’s poorest neighborhoods, as well as to attract tourists, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs to areas of the city that were traditionally “off limits.”

To date, five Library Parks have been built, giving Medellín’s historically neglected citizens access to 90,000 books, 1,200 computers, and 1,035 auditorium seats. More than mere repositories, however, the Parks have become centers of education and important contact points between residents and family service programs. With increased foot traffic, local economies are booming. In one local’s words, the Parque España, which opened in 2007, has promoted “a night and day change” in the neighborhood of Santo Domingo Savio, allowing children to “play in streets where there used to be gun battles.” 

With the development of five additional Parks jeopardized by the politics of Medellín’s forthcoming mayoral election, this is an important time to investigate the project’s history, impact, and future, as well as the viability of implementing similar projects in urban settings in the U.S. and around the world. I propose to do just that in a 2,000 word piece for Miller-McCune. Interviewing architects, city officials, and program directors — several of whom I’m already in contact with — I will look into the origins and development of the LibraryPark project. In the course of my investigation, I will spend time with residents of local communities to get an on-the-ground perspective of the project’s impact.

I have worked as an arts and entertainment writer for the Santa Barbara Independent and as a freelance reporter, photographer, and editor. You can find my most recent published article at the bottom of this post: http://fieldblog.com/2011/07/12/keeping-the-tools-sharp/. To give you a better idea of my voice, I’m attaching a draft of a feature-in-progress. I recently arrived in Medellín, where I’m wrapping up an assignment for Flower Magazine. I plan to work from Medellín through the spring of 2012 and will not need reimbursement for international travel.

Thanks, XXXX, for your time and consideration. I’d love the opportunity to write for Miller-McCune and this story seems like a good fit. If you have any questions or would like to discuss the idea further, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Greg Nichols

Hi XXXX,

I would very much like to work with Ode and I’ve got an idea I’d love to run by you. Unfortunately, after withdrawing my pitch, I sold the Parques story elsewhere — I’m doing a narrow focus on the history of one of the five Parques in 1000 words. However, there’s another story I keep coming back to that resonates much more powerfully with what you seem interested in. 

Medellín’s redevelopment in the last decade is about one thing: mobility. Underlying important public works projects like Medellín’s mountain-spanning metrocables, innovative urban parks, army of cogestoras (social workers), and re-purposed green space is the idea that mobility, the capacity for people and resources to move around a city, is the path toward modernity. This is the fundamental tenet in the philosophy of Alejandro Echeverri, former Director of Urban Projects for Mayor Sergio Fajardo and the man most responsible for what Medellin has become: a modern city in the midst of spirited recovery. 

While the idea of creating social progress through mobility is not new, what is unprecedented is Echeverri’s wholistic vision. In Medellin today there exists a network of development that physically blankets the city — a giant and well-planned grid of social improvement. Impressive individual projects — such as the Parques Bibliotecas — have garnered a lot of attention, but few commentators have pointed out that the Parques, as well as the famed Botanical Gardens, the metro system expansion, the focused development of bike lanes and walking paths, targeted economic investment along specific ribbons in the city, and dozens of other urban works projects — all seemingly hyper-local assets — are actually part of a single plan masterminded by Alejandro Echeverri and aimed at creating a mobile society. With concrete, sod, and fiber optic lines, Medellin has literally given its citizens ways to traverse, and therefore influence, their city. 

The results have been dramatic. From huge reductions in crime to burgeoning micro-enterprise in previously isolated barrios, from access to health and education resources to a boom in tourism, mobility is overcoming some of urbanization’s most entrenched and universal problems.

XXXX, I’d very much like to explain how Medellin has done this and how other struggling city’s might follow suit — some already have. In addition to Alejandro Echeverri, I plan to speak with architects and urban planners, social workers, and Medellin’s large public and semi-public development organizations, all of whom have played important roles in developing a network of mobility in Medellin.

Thanks for your time, XXXX. I think this idea would be a great fit for Ode and I’d love to discuss it further.

Best,

Greg

Photography sidebar: it’s not terribly easy to take pictures of cars, especially not in a large, crowded exhibition hall. The light was glaring — industrial-strength fluorescent bulbs that either washed out color or over-saturated it, depending on the angle. What’s more, it’s generally tough to make a car look like it’s supposed to look, which is “in motion.” Mostly you get shots that look static and uninspiring. Adding to the problem is that I’m not traveling with a wide angle lens, meaning that with my 50mm, I needed some distance between the cars and the camera to get everything in frame. With a huge crowd milling around, this was difficult.

Still, I think I nabbed some decent shots. After cherry-picking the best of them, then editing, I was happy with the results. Just goes to show, when you’re shooting for an assignment, especially in this age of cheap digital memory, take LOTS OF PHOTOS! Try to make them all keepers, but don’t be disappointed when, inevitably, many of them aren’t.

Camera: Lumix GH-1

Lens: Yashinon 50mm f1.8

ARTICLE, Jack, 8/27/2011: http://www.jackmag.com.co/articles/expomotriz/

“Car Culture Revs up in Medellin”

Text and Photography: Greg Nichols

Filling the chic, cavernous interior of the Palacio de Exposiciones, the sixth edition of the Expomotriz auto show was a glossy showcase of mobility and style. With a quick gander at the massive feria one can discern that Medellín in the 21st century is all about sustainability, a rising middle class, and, of course, motorcycles.

One of the more unique exhibits this year is a line of electric bicycles built by Australian company Envirotech. The bikes are capable of reaching 80 kilometers per hour and recharge in just two hours. With Medellin’s population booming—3.8 million in the metro area—pollution and quality of life issues related to car travel are palpable concerns. Following a government push to install bike paths and promote Sunday rides on closed city streets, Envirotech is betting that Medellín’s burgeoning bike culture may be the answer to nagging gridlock and worsening air quality.

For European and North American auto aficionados, the biggest surprise at Expomotriz might be the brand presence of familiar auto companies. With the economy-range well represented by trusted favorites like Kia and Renault, this year showcased a handful of premium brands—BMW, Mercedes, Rolls Royce, Alfa Romeo, Volvo—virtually unseen in Medellín five years ago.

And it’s little surprise; Medellín has long had the ingredients for a healthy middle class: strong technical infrastructure, skilled labor pool, low cost of living, world-class health care. With companies like Hewlett-Packard putting down stakes in Medellin and a bevy of large public works projects generating an increase in jobs, a fledgling middle class is starting to buy the kinds of big ticket luxuries that were once non-existent in Antioquia’s mountain capital.

Ever wonder when people are finally going to get tired of the death-defying lane changes and comical disregard for highway safety that accompany motorcycling in Medellín? The short answer: no time soon. Medellín is a motorcycle city. Pulsar’s still dominate, but brands like AKT, Suzuki, and a swath of smaller Chinese brands are gaining ground.

Expomotriz is an annual event held every August in Medellin, Colombia.

Now creeping toward the end of our second month, the process of organizing my pitches (contacts, ideas, dates, decisions, etc …) is becoming increasingly hectic. Freelancing, even if your the best huckster in the world, is a numbers game. As such, information tends to pile up. Without an organizational strategy, the information can become overwhelming. This calls for — du du du daaaa — a spreadsheet! Yup, all that temping I did after college is paying off in spades.

So here it is. This is my life in pitches, exposed to the world. The pitch destinations are blocked out (because, well, that seems strategic) and so are the ideas (because you’re all thieving scofflaws!), but you get the idea. As you can see, by far the biggest response from editors is … no response at all. There could be a number of reasons for this. Primarily, some of my pitches may be falling flat. On the other hand, I’m getting some acceptances. It may also be that I’ve got the wrong contact info. My first stop when digging up places to pitch is mediabistro.com. If you become an “AvantGuild” member, you get access to their “How to Pitch” page (thanks to a good friend and great writer Sebastian Stockman for the heads on this one). The page has a couple hundred magazines with detailed information about the kinds of freelance content editors are looking for, the best part of the book (front, back) to pitch, and some common mistakes to avoid. It also gives contact info. It’s a wonderful resource and it’s pretty cheap. The yearly fee, which is sub-$50, includes a magazine subscription (there’s a limited but worthwhile selection).

The problem, of course, is that like any online database, not everything is going to be up-to-date. The folks at MediaBistro.com do a really good job, but there’s a lot of turnover in the publishing industry. I got a taste of this when I pitched Miller-McCune, followed up, and then received an email back from a different editor explaining that the editor I pitched had left in May. Fortunately someone forwarded the email to the web editor, who forwarded it to the new print editor, and now I’ve got a new assignment. In a non-digital world, a paper pitch could have taken weeks to circulate. Another win for the internet!

The best bet, of course — and this is what I’ve been trying to do — is to scour the magazines you’re pitching, get an idea of the voice, the content, the length of the articles, and — IMPORTANT — the current masthead. This isn’t always available online, and since I’m out of the country it isn’t exactly possible to run out and pick up the latest copy of the Seattle Stranger (etc …), so sometimes you’ve just got to submit that pitch to “info@magazine.com.” Not a high probability game, but better than nothing.

Okay … a new post. I feel better as a blogger.

After I sent off a few emails with different ideas, an editor at Flower Magazine, to whom I’d pitched the then-rapidly-approaching Feria de las Flores (Festival of Flowers), asked to see some of my work. I sent her a few clips. Then I didn’t hear anything. Uh-oh. No response to a pitch is one thing. Editors are busy and it’s easy to move unsolicited pitches to the black hole of the slush pile. No response after sending along your finest stuff, though? That starts to eat at you. After a few days of radio silence, and on the eve of the festival (note to self: pitch with A LOT more lead time), I followed up with an email. Here’s a lesson in being persistent. The editor got back to me that day, wanted the story, and wanted my photos to boot. So, here I am with my first assignment in Colombia — byline, photo credits, and all. Happy days.

Since pitching is such a huge part of writing, I thought I’d include my successful pitch below. (Rest assured, there have been and will be many many unsuccessful pitches … maybe I’ll post some of those negative examples down the road.) I don’t know if this is any kind of model, but the editors at Flower, at least, found it appealing. If you have any suggestions for future pitches, don’t hesitate to send them my way!

THE PITCH:

Hi Abby and Liz,

It will surprise many that the U.S. imports more cut flowers from Colombia than from any other country. With Colombian imports accounting for a staggering 65% of cut flowers sold in the U.S., chances are good that the flowers in the last arrangement you purchased from your florist or neighborhood grocer started life in the hills outside Medellín. The thriving flower industry has been a crucial factor in the economic and social revival of Colombia over the past decade. For Medellín, a city whose transformation in recent years has been called miraculous, flowers have taken on a mythic significance. Every year, at the end of July, citizens of the “city of eternal spring” celebrate the beauty and restorative power of flowers with an extraordinary ten-day festival: the Feria de las Flores (Festival of Flowers). Boasting more buds than the Rose Parade and inundating the city with dozens of processions, performances, and presentations, the Festival of Flowers is a one-of-a-kind ode to color, fragrance, and creativity.

I propose to write a 1500 word piece about the Feria de las Flores, which begins on July 29^th. Though the subject might be slightly off the beaten path for Flower, I believe the story will be of great interest to your readers and would be a good fit for your “Flower Show” or “Artist in Bloom” sections. In researching the story, I will speak with horticulturalists, local gardeners, and flower sellers in Medellín. I will anchor the story in the fascinating history of the U.S.-Colombian flower trade and will also look at U.S. and international design trends that influence the ways that flowers are grown and arranged in Colombia. The finished piece will include lavish descriptions of the festival, of the flower arrangements, and of the Paisa culture that holds flowers so dear. High quality original photographs will also accompany the piece. I am currently working as a freelancer in Medellín and will not need reimbursement for international travel.

Thanks in advance, Abby and Liz, for your time and consideration. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call or write.

Best,

Greg Nichols

Camera: Olympus e-450

Audio: Olympus LS-10

Camera: Olympus e-450 w/Industar 50-2 f3.5 (the Olympus is TINY and the Industar is an old Soviet pancake lens — a perfectly portable setup for travel)

[Show as slideshow]

Camera: Kodak zi8 @720p

Here’s Cees Nooteboom, a Dutch poet who’s said to be short-listed for the Nobel. He read in both Dutch and Spanish, and came off as big-hearted and magnanimous in both languages.

Night fell. Here’s Kwame Dawes, a Ghanaian-born Jamaican poet.

There was a bit of drama when a small electrical fire broke out and the whole stadium was plunged into darkness (my battery also failed, coincidentally, and I didn’t get a new one in fast enough to catch the fire). Hardly anybody left, even with the lights out. The energy changed, people started cheering, shouting warm encouragements. Here’s a spontaneous song about Che Guevara, which came on the heels of a poem about Che by Atahol Behramoglu, a Turkish poet.

And finally, why not close the evening with another slice of heaven. Here’s a beautiful song by Chiwoniso Maraire, a U.S.-born Zimbabwean, about the strength of women. The lights were still off, so the stage is lit (dimly) by a single spot hooked to a generator. Maraire is seated — the woman standing is her translator. The video isn’t much for the eyes but the sound speaks for itself. That enchanting instrument, by the way, is called a Mbira, a member of the lamellophone family, and this particular type of Mbira is called a Nyunga Nyunga. What a sound.

It’s incredible how easy it is to let time go by without hoisting the pen — or tapping the keyboard — and it’s also incredible how easy it is for a writer’s tools to grow dull from neglect. I’m not exactly suggesting that you regress as a writer when you don’t write for a few weeks. I am suggesting, though, that without a routine, or at least without a consistent effort to get something on the page, you’ll never grow as a writer. And, too, there’s something about the stamina necessary for sustained writing that demands upkeep. Comparisons between writing and exercise have been done to death, so bear with me. But it is important to keep in mind that writing isn’t a skill that you possess. It’s a craft that you hone, so that the writing that comes out in print is — if that writing is worth someone’s time to read — just the tip of a very large ice burg. There is also the big icy chunk of writing — hard, ugly writing — that keeps you conditioned — sports comparison — for the stuff that does see the light of day. I used to stress this to my college students when they complained about the endless series of small writing assignments that led to larger essays. The best writers — at least the best writers that I know — spend a lot of time writing.

Which is why, two weeks after plunking myself in the happy purgatory of my mom’s spare room, I started getting the guilt. Man, nothing ruins a good time like that know-it-too-well guilt.

In the background of that guilt — even a writer’s guilt isn’t ALL-consuming — I was noticing something peculiar. My mom’s yard in San Diego, which backs onto a large green space — Cowles Mountain for you SoCal folks — was overrun with rabbits. The whole neighborhood, in fact, seemed full of wild rabbits. I mean FULL. Every morning rabbits nibbled the grass out back. Across the street, four rabbits chewed what was left of our neighbor’s yard. In the evenings, when I went out for a walk, they’d dart across the street ahead and behind me. I grew up in San Diego. I’d never seen so many rabbits.

So: I was full of angst about not writing AND I noticed something peculiar, a topic that demanded further investigation. Hmmm …

A quick pitch to the editor of our community paper — 1200 words about what residents are calling “an explosion” in the local rabbit population — and I landed myself a gig. Full disclosure: I didn’t know the first thing about rabbits. I didn’t even know what kind of rabbits I was dealing with — I didn’t even know if “rabbit” was the correct term, or if these were “hares” or “bunnies” or something else with which I had only a second grade storybook’s familiarity. But that’s one of the great things about nonfiction. There are plenty of people who DO know those things, and I was pretty sure I could find them. What ensued was a really fun week of immersing myself in all things rabbit. This isn’t the stuff of Pulitzers, but hey, it was a great time. I got to know my neighbors, got to stretch my writing legs, and got to put on my reporter’s hat. What better way to spend your last week at home?

Here’s the article: http://www.missiontimescourier.com/printFriendly.cfm?articleID=29587

And the full text:

Cameras: Nokia n86, Lumix GH1

Post-Pro: None … this was compiled in the frantic day before our move abroad.