cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blowing Up In addition to writing *about* me, the Huff1ngt0n Post just asked me to write a piece *for* them. This is a step in the right direction. Also I just got asked to appear on Australian radio on Thursday night. And I'm on Irish radio tomorrow morning. The Washingt0n P0st just upped what they are offering me to write my first feature for them. Which was really cool of them, since I would have done the piece either way and I wasn't playing hardball. $700 for 1,200 words. But I have a lot of driving and field work to do in order to make that 1,200 words happen the right way. $700 is not a lot of money for what I ham doing for them, but its my first piece for the Post and they want me to make this a regular thing. If I can do 3 or 4 of these a month then I will be very happy. Oh! A fucking awesome thing happened. So normally I get $200 bucks a shot for my articles for Sl@te dot com. Well, my last piece ran and it was HUGE. I mean, linked to all over the world. The Australian interview is actually not about my new book, but rather about my new piece in Sl@te. Anyway, the check showed up in the mail yesterday and it was for $400. Bless their pea-pickin' hearts. I had been writing for the science section before, and this last one was for the 'food' section. Suddenly, the fact that the food editor was a much bigger pain in the ass to deal with is not such an issue. At $200, I was never going to write another piece for her again. But for $400 a shot, I can hack it. Especially since I can feed articles to her as well as to the other editor in the science section. $600 a month from Sl@te for 2 pieces a month sounds pretty good. Right now the question is what the Post's appetite will be. Can I give them 3 pieces a month? If so, then I have most of a living worked out. And with my foot in the door in one section, maybe I can start doing a big feature once a month for the Sunday magazine. As an ongoing means of making a living, freelancing scares the shit out of me. But I need to be prepared to do it until I can sell the next book. Yesterday Helenah and I went to a winery to do a tasting, etc. Long story. We were at the bar there and were talking about the last time we had been there to film something last summer. And the winery employee said, "oh, was that with [Cellini]? We were really lucky to have him out here right before he got big." "I am [Cellini]." "Oh!" Then we got the grand tour, spending a solid hour down in the cellars with the wine-maker, tasting shit right out of the barrels that they are working on for next year. I really don't get any of the usual benefits of being even sort of famous (or notorious, or whatever I am). I don't get out very much. Usually I can't even afford the gas to leave the house for something non-essential. So it was nice to get recognized and given the red carpet treatment for once. 10:35 p.m. - 2012-10-01 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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