It's Been a Minute.
A Monday hello.
Hi. It’s me. (I’m the problem, it’s me.)
I apologize for being somewhat M.I.A. over the past month or so. I had a good run for a while. I was cranking out interviews and sending weekly greetings every Monday and publishing bonus content on Wednesdays and thinking constantly about how to make Creative Reverberations better, more attractive, more exciting, ALL THE THINGS!
And then…I hit the proverbial wall.
I burned out. Bad.
It all got to me—the fatigue of running my own publication and making almost no money from it, while simultaneously getting rejected or ghosted by traditional outlets, as the news spins out of control and social media devolves into a mess of AI slop and bot-written posts.
Next Avenue, one of my stable writing homes for the past 5 years, will be gone soon, so I’ve been sending pitches to various digital magazines, only to be told that they no longer have money in their freelance budget. I put up a post in a journalism group on Facebook, asking if my fellow entertainment journalists know of outlets that are taking pitches, and the responses were incredibly bleak. Most outlets have stopped working with freelancers or aren’t taking pitches from writers they’re not already working with. Even when something is accepted, the pay is often so bad it negates the point of doing the work. On top of that, so many writers are hustling to get assignments that it’s nearly impossible for editors to even read, let alone respond to, all the pitches they receive.
So, that triggered a bit of a rant that I posted on LinkedIn. It started with this, in which I vented about the continued pay decrease facing writers year after year. Which spurred this observation, in which I shared my realization that all of the stuff we’re led to believe is important—likes, follows, profile views, reposts—are completely irrelevant and mean absolutely nothing and we’re all chasing after these amorphous things for no reason other than to make some tech bro-created algorithm happy. Which was followed up by this, in which I kinda-sorta-but-not-really joked about the pressures placed on freelancers these days.
Somewhere in the midst of all that, I decided I needed to take a step back. The truth is, I want so badly for this publication you’re reading to succeed. But I don’t know how long I can keep it up if I don’t get more subscribers. And I don’t know how to fight the algorithm and all the other shit being thrown at us all the time in order to successfully turn casual readers into subscribers and unpaid subscribers into paid subscribers.
I also don’t know what I should be doing to thank you—yes, YOU—for being here week after week and taking this crazy ride with me. I don’t know if I should be sending more content or even what type of content. There’s a fine line between sending enough to justify your subscription and so much that it becomes spam.
(Always feel free to reach out if you have feedback!)
Anyway, all of it got to me, so I took some time off from posting anything but the weekly interviews. I celebrated my 50th birthday. I visited friends and family in Boston. I went for daily walks. I traveled to Baltimore with a friend and came away inspired by the art, architecture, and history. (I also got to have breakfast with the incredible Debi Young, who I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing twice over the past few years.) I painted. I read books. I snuggled with the kitties and hung out with my husband and son and tried not to freak out about the loss of work that seems to be hitting everyone lately.
And now, I’m back in your In Box. The plan is to continue with the weekly interviews. And maybe do more than that when I can. But I can’t let myself get burnt out again. It’s no fun.
I hope you’ve been well these past few weeks, and that you’ve enjoyed the most recent interviews. I can’t tell you how much I love their work. Anderson Rocio’s music is SO good and her story is really unique. Ngozi Young’s work on Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest was fantastic. I’ve become a huge fan of Whitehall since their publicist introduced me to them. And, as I shared on Instagram, Bruce Holsinger’s Culpability was one of my favorite books of the summer. Highly recommend.
If you haven’t already, please check out their interviews. You can find all past interviews here. I’ll share the next one with you on Friday. Until then, have a wonderful, creative, art-filled week!
Wow, that made me want to grab a valium. Kidding... I'm sorry it all seems so bleak. Have you ever thought of writing a novel? Not that you would get rich doing it but I kmew a few people wo did just that and some of them self published - they got a great deal of satisfaction from doing it; well most of them. You certainly have the talent to do it if you so desired.