Happy 1/2 New Year!

It's halfway through the year, and time to take stock of those New Year's resolutions.

For the first time, I set some writing goals and am glad to see some red checkmarks next to the things I've completed:

Attend Gospel Music Week and come one with one new contact or assignment. (The problem of course was I came with two new contacts and assignments, both with Megacorp ... and we all know how that ended up.)

Complete one writing course. (I took the Travel Writing Class at Writers and Books in Rochester. It spawned a desire to read more and to expand my writing horizons. Plus I met some new friends, including my ultra-liberal, Nader-supporting friend Matt, with whom I've enjoyed a fun email friendship. It's always rewarding to maintain a friendship with someone who thinks differently than you do. It helps you to see things from other people's perspective, and sometimes you even learn something.)

Get my passport. (OK, not really travel-related, but if I ever plan to travel and write about my experiences, I'll need it.)

Consider going to a writer's conference. (I did one better and actually went to a writer's conference - the Erma Bombeck Writers' Conference. It's turned out to be the best thing I've done so far this year.)

Take advantage of my EPA membership and submit one article in the freelance contest. (I did, and I won 4th place!)

Read at least six books, and not books I'm supposed to be reviewing. (That was a no brainer; I had that done the first month or so. I was keeping track of books I read but I stopped and now can't remember what I've read. But it's a lot.)

For everything I did do, there's something I didn't:

Write a book proposal for one of my book ideas

Research my grandmother's family in Italy

Write one music review a month and submit it to a paper. (OK, so I've sort of achieved this one. I am writing something music related every month and just sent my first trial issue of a music newsletter. Maybe this can be moved to the finished category ...)

Continue my column for the Home Times. (This month, we decided to stop that column. The editor said the paper was consolidating issues for the summer for budget reasons; I wanted to take the summer off. Who knows if it will start up again.)

Pursue writing opportunities for Rochester Music Coalition newspaper. (I was invited to one meeting and then never heard from them again. Turns out, the paper folded. Phew, I'm glad it wasn't me!)

Write an hour every day, even if it's in my journal. (Ha, ha.)

Organize my office. (HA! HA! Although I did move my office into the dining room, so now I have two rooms to organize.)

Take one exotic or unusual trip. (Does Ohio count?)

Go to one major league and two minor league baseball games. (When does the seaon end ... I have until October, right?)

Make more money writing in 2004 than I did in 2003. (I'm almost to last year's figure ...)

As I look at the goals, one thing jumps out at me: I've done a lot more than I thought I would. I'd like to pursue the book proposals, because I feel a call to get two onto paper, and I need to organize and move back into my office, because we can't function with my work in the dining room.

But I stepped completely out of my box. I went to a humor writers' conference, for goodness' sake, and I'm neither a humor writer or even humorous. I made some new friends, and kept in touch with one of the speakers (although I'm not so sure he's thrilled with that). I started writing a monthly humor/life column. I'm giving the music newsletter a shot. I'm talking with another author about collaborating on a book. I'm even volunteering to help with media at Kingdom Bound in August; it's one of the biggest Christian music festivals around.

All in all, 2004 has been a pretty successful year. Whether or not I check everything off of my list, I'm happy that I've made progress and took some chances.

So happy last 1/2 of 2004!

I often wonder if I'm the only writer who suffers from doubt about whether or not I can actually do what I am in fact doing: writing. About music. About life. About whatever I'm paid to write about. Just when I think I've found something I think I do well, I get a reality check that makes me think, "Now why did I ever think I'd be good at that?"

I am getting ready to launch a music/entertainment newsletter/news service to the newspapers that I write for. My goal is to get the avalanche of information that I get from record labels and publicists to the publications in a condensed and ready-to-print format - and perhaps make some money at the same time. (Some, not a lot)

Because the music industry is so vast and diverse - and that includes the Christian sub-industry - I can't keep up with every band and every genre. But I try to focus on artists that people might not hear about and artists that are making an impact on both Christian and mainstream markets.

Today I sent out the first column on a trial basis and received a question about whether or not I'd only be covering Christian entertainment, and only rock and contemporary music? I explained that while I included stories about worship artists and gospel artists, and next month would cover indie and urban music as well as some new books, I did have a better handle on modern rock than on praise and worship or even much adult contemporary. And general market stuff? Good grief, I wouldn't know where to begin.

And then I got the newest SevenBall Magazine and I realized that I don't have a handle on a single thing. I've heard of most of the artists in this issue, but hadn't received any press information or CDs on a lot of them. It's like pulling teeth for me to get on one particular label mailing list and since the audience of the magazine is probably under 25, I'm left asking myself, "What in the world do I really know about rock music?"

I've been writing a "humor" column and sending it to my very loyal but small mailing list. I've gotten support from two newspapers that think I'm funny - one a Christian paper, one a general market community paper and each on one coast - so I've pitched the column to a few other publications. One editor told me not to write about myself so much, that people wanted to read about other people. Even so, I thought I was progressing with my humor and poignant look at life - and then I got an e-column from a writer I respect and realized that I'm as funny as dry toast.

I've been doing local publicity for a couple of bands, but what do I really know about publicity? I've been talking with an author friend in SC about collaborating on a book about teens and modesty - a topic I think I know well - but do I really?

And then, just when I think it's all for naught, I get a note or email that let's me know that someone - even one person! - is reading, and that I've touched them somehow. The latest was from a woman in Canada who said she's been reading my stuff for a while and wanted to know if I would be writing about GMA this year - something I didn't think anyone gave a rip about. But apparently, she found it informative and entertaining and wanted to know how this year's trip went. I've never met the girl, don't know who she is, but she encouraged me. Kind of like the girl who read my review of Relient K's last CD on some online publication - a review I almost didn't send out to anyone but that ended up running in a half dozen or more publications - and said she went out and bought the album and loves it.

So, like a puppy spurred to loyalty by one kind word from his master, I plod on, encouraged by the faceless strangers who take a moment to say, "Hey, thanks for writing."

And to you, thanks for reading.

So I'm over my rant from last week. My apologies for being a baby. A few days of reading, no writing, and pulling out old Oswald Chambers did the trick. Lounging around the plastic wading pool with Natasha didn't hurt, either.

Random Notes ...

I'm volunteering this year at Kingdom Bound, a huge festival at Six Flags in August. We've been going for maybe 7 years, and this year, instead of being media and doing interviews and stuff, I'm volunteering. Donna asked me when I saw her at GMA, so I said sure, why not. I figured they'd give me some lame job. But apparently I'm going to be Linda's gal Friday ... I'll either be at the tent helping with the press conferences, or I'll be driving artist's around in a golf cart. Yup, I'll get to haul around Stephen Baldwin, or Jeremy Camp, or Nicole C. Mullen, or Relient K. Yeah! I get to drive a golf cart!! I might even have one of those little radio thingys so I can talk to Linda from across the park. How cool is that?

I also have an assignment to interview Sanctus Real at the festival (I'm volunteering w/media, and then being media), which I hear may involve riding on some of the rides. Ack!! I've met them several times before, and for whatever reason Matt remembers my name (good businessman), so I'm not worried about being "star struck". I'm worried about passing out on the teacups.

And speaking of random, last week Margaret and I went to Williamsville (Williamson? I can never remember which it is ...) for KB volunteer training. On the way home, we stopped at Anderson's for lunch, and in front of me in line was Thomas (Tom?), the lead singer for Elektromat, all grubby and dirty and on his lunch break from his day job (roofing houses). I wasn't sure if it was him at first, so I kind of whispered, "Thomas?" and he turns around, looks at me and says, "Joanne. What the heck? What are you doing here?" We ended up eating with him and his friend Murray (I think that was his name ...) Anyway, what are the chances of that happening?

I also volunteered to work at Vacation Bible School at our church in July. I'm not really big on spending a week with 200+ kids, but I get to use a headset radio and wear a security t-shirt so I figured, to borrow Tom's favorite phrase, "What the heck?".

I sent out my monthly e-newsletter with a tongue-in-cheek look at some books ideas I'm working on - and got some feedback that I should really consider writing the missionary one. Ha ha, this from people who would love nothing better than to see me plopped down in another third world country without a blowdryer or flat iron. (If you didn't read the column ... why not? Do you mean that you're not on the mailing list? You'd better go back to the main page and join. Now ... go on, we'll wait for you ... ready? OK.)

Anyway, I'm thinking about taking the summer completely off from minor music writing so I can focus on some of these book ideas. I am taking off July from the Home Times, at their request but it worked out perfectly for me. They're condensing issues or something for the summer and won't need me for a while (or ever, who really knows). I also write for a paper in Canada, but that's been a trial thing and it's a bit difficult to communicate what they really need from me, and then a paper in AZ is looking for some music stuff ... I think I need a month off from it all to really go over a terrific idea I have, which is to syndicate to these papers a music column. I've been thinking about it for almost a year, and I think it's an idea whose time has come.

Anyway, my fingers are tired. That's all the news that's fit to print - over and out!

I have been burned again by yet another Christian publication. Burned might be too strong - how about singed?

I was asked to write two pieces for a major Christian publisher, hereafter to be known as the Megacorp. Two different articles, two different Megacorp publications, both in a short time period. Both editors gave me the same general summary of the terms of the deal, so I did both pieces. One was fairly simple, as I had in mind most of the article already when I sat down to write. Had to do one follow up interview, but otherwise very routine. The second was a bit more complicated. Required a long distance phone call interview, several hours of tape transcription, and the putting off of several other jobs to meet the deadline. In short, lots of work and lots of writing, but the promise of a fairly nice check.

Piece number one shows up the Megacorp website, I get a check in the mail, and then have a question so I call the editor, who says it's spelled out in the contract - which I never got. Realizing that he forgot to have me sign a contract (despite the fact that the accounting department isn't allowed to send the check without the contract) he zips one off to me in the mail.

Except that it's nothing like we discussed. In fact, it's completely contrary to what we discussed. So I email editor number one to let him know that I have to get some feedback before I sign it.

Enter publication number two. I call the editor to ask her if I will be receiving a similar contract for the long piece and am told that in fact it will be the exact same contract, and I put the skids on the whole thing. The problem, I immediately learn, is that the magazine is going to print in a couple of days, and I need to let them know NOW if I'm signing the contract or not.

Now, I'm no legal eagle, and contracts are a lot of mumbo jumbo to me, but this one raised some red flags right away. My problem was that I wanted to make sure that I hadn't somehow agreed to sign this based on the editors' summaries when the articles were assigned.

Enter the lawyer. Four phone calls and several emails and I find a lawyer who will give me a brief opinion (for a fee of $75) on whether I agreed to this based on the editors' summaries and discussions and need to sign it on principle. If not, should I sign it at all.

While I'm waiting, the editor is calling me to ask if I'm going to sign the contract, and we're going back and forth over whether or not the contract is fair.

The problem isn't whether or not it's fair (although it's certainly fair to Megacorp). My problem was two-fold: 1) it contains a line that says I agreed that the project was work for hire before I even began work on the piece, which is not true, so I would have to cross that out and the Megacorp legal dept. says no changes are allowed to the contract; and 2) it says that I agreed to give the copyright to Megacorp and they become sole owner of the work, which is also not true and in fact a lie, since both editors said I would still retain some ownership of the piece ("We'll both own it," they said.)

In the end, the lawyer's answer was no, I did not agree to sign it based on the discussions with the editors. Further, he said as it was written, I shouldn't sign it ever.

You'd have thought that I was asking Megacorp to shut down their offices.

Of course, Megacorp has not apologized to me for running a piece without a contract, although the editors have apologized for not getting the contracts to me sooner. And I've been told that the second magazine wouldn't have gone to print without the contract, but I find that hard to believe since it was on its way to printing press and a contract hadn't even been issued. So I think that's a lie, because it would have been impossible to get a contract mailed to me and then back to them in time. If I hadn't called, that piece would be on the printing press right now, and we'd be in a mess of legal hassle when I refused to sign the contract and insisted they not publish the article.

Of course, the problem is that Megacorp is such a big company, it can walk all over writers because writers are begging to write for Megacorp. And because so many writers I've talked to are only concerned with the money they aren't even reading the contract. They write the piece, they sign the contract, they get their check, they don't even understand what they've signed away. So Megacorp runs their piece without a contract? They're not worried. A contract will arrive soon enough.

This is not the first time I've been burned by a Christian publisher. It's been my experience that the ones who shout Jesus' name the loudest on the front page are the ones that are the most likely to leave you hanging. The ones that show Christ in a consistent, trustworthy manner without broadcasting Him in neon are in fact the ones most likely to treat you with respect.

Which leaves me feeling really burned. (Can you smell the smoke?)Maybe I've just become jaded by the whole Christian subculture. Maybe my pride got the best of me when both editors praised my work and said how happy they'd be to have me write for them that I didn't take time to think before saying yes(confession time). But I can assure you that no longer do I do favors for people without contracts. No longer will I agree to write a piece without a signed contract or clear, official guidelines before I even sharpen the pencil to write.

In fact, I think I'm done writing articles for a bit, other than the few steady jobs I've got for people I know well. Time to get some sun, maybe take a road trip, pull out some old book ideas, and spend some time talking to God to see where I went wrong.

From now on, no leaping without looking.