OK, it’s been fifty million years since I sent out a blog post. I’ve been sucked into a vortex of:
1) Getting the book that very appropriately has “devil” in its name, The Devil’s Castle, done and delivered. Still working on this one.
2) What I’m calling the Dorothea Buck project, recovering and presenting the work of Nazi sterilization victim and psychiatric activist Dorothea Buck. This has included finding a translator for her amazing book, On the Trail of the Morning Star: Psychosis as Self-Discovery, and placing the translation.
Then it turned into editing, footnotes, writing an introduction . . . It comes out this winter from Punctum Press. I loved all of it. I love Buck. She’s playing a lead role in Devil’s Castle. But I think I’ve gone beyond good literary citizen to dual citizenship. Tiring travel sometimes!
3) Keeping up with all the other writing I need to do, like my Madwoman Out of the Attic column for Psychology Today.
The last of which leads me to one helpful writing tip I can think of today. And this tip has to do with media writing, opinion pieces, short-form journalism, i.e., not a long-form story such as you’d find in National Geographic. We’re talking more like the pieces that feed into Google News and similar platforms every day. On sites like the Huffington Post, the Hill, Vice, and oh so many more.
Obviously digital media varies widely: oriented toward different audiences and often specializing in different topics, like science, pop culture, politics, LGBTQ+ issues, etc.
The one thing MOST digital media has in common is timeliness. I get messages from friends and acquaintances with some version of, I have an interesting story about my experiences with x or y and I wonder if you could suggest an editor/publication. (Or occasionally, would you send it for me, which in case it isn’t screamingly obvious is a big don’t.) Sometimes I can suggest someone, but the editor or publication’s fit is often only half of what you need.
The other is timeliness. It is wonderful if you have something very specific to say about compulsive lying when, for example, a George Santos is found out. Or a story of some specific effects of abnormal heat when we’re baking through a summer like our last one. But topicality also has to do with times of the year. Not just terrible family stories before Christmas.
Every month and every day of the year has themes, if you look for them. There are some bigger themes like Pride Month and Mental Health Awareness Month. March is Women’s History Month, but within that, there’s an International Woman’s Day (March 8), Women’s Suffrage anniversaries, and so on.
This is one example of how to pitch your work as timely. Editors may not care that there’s a National Tater Tot Day (February 2). Or maybe if you have an amazing story about hiding from aliens who demanded your tater tots, they would. Who knows?
My point is that if you see yourself writing for the media—why not?—it’s a good idea to keep lists of important dates and tie-ins. Another way of achieving topicality is to look into birthdates, death dates, or other key dates in the lives of well-known people who are connected to what you’re writing about, even if the connection is conceptual. Or similar historical anniversaries.
I’ve said this here before, but it’s easy to think our particular positions in/knowledge of the world won’t be welcome. If they’re smart and interesting, you don’t have to be a “name.” Just relevant.
Finally, a request: For my book A Mind Apart I asked random people how they think. Not the what—the how. And the answers were fascinating. One person experienced cognition as an inner elevator that stopped at certain floors for particular topics, eg, family problems might be fifth floor. Another person had an inner government that actually debated. And yet another passed thoughts through differential equations.
Write me if you want to share how you think. I’m collecting answers for a book project. I’d love to know. Credit always given where wanted.