Open Mike: Keep Trying

["Open Mike" is the anything goes, often off-topic Editorial page of TOP. It appears on Wednesdays, except on those occasions when Yr. Hmbl. Ed. is running a bit behind himself. —Yr. Hmbl. Ed.]

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My friends will have to be patient with me. I don't know how aware you are of the universe of discussion about writing mechanics, but it's extensive—writers work hard doing what they do, and they find a myriad of ways to struggle with it. Just the descriptions of how writers work is an endless variety—everyone has to work out his or her own method. Anne Tyler cannot listen to music when she writes; it interferes with her ability to hear the music of the words. Balzac wrote in the bathtub, and when his pen got hot he emerged hours later shriveled as a prune. Hyemeyohsts Storm labored for years on her deeply flawed but also magical monolithic masterpiece ostensibly about plains Indian culture, going so far as to translate it, allegedly, into Lakota and then back again into English; whereas logorrheic L. Ron Hubbard cast off books left and right like my Butters sheds dog hair...and Butters-hair collects in drifts in the corners of the rooms of my house like dry snow in blowing wind.

Anyway one of the key skills of the kind of writing I do is suiting the subject to size, biting off just enough to chew on, neither too much nor too little. As a former magazine editor, I can testify that it's a skill not everyone has.

...And it's a skill I have definitely not yet learned when it comes to the "Baker's Dozen" posts. What I have done recently is misstep twice. First, I asked for pictures from people younger than 29. Turns out very few of those read TOP, which I guess makes sense...we stick with our age cohort. Young people don't identify with a guy whose world views started to take shape in the '70s, which to them is the mythical world that might or might not have existed before anything was actually real, like the 1920s are to me. Then, disturbed that that call for work had so little reach, I overcompensated, and asked for black-and-white pictures. Not further specified, just black-and-white pictures. With which I have been inundated. I might be coming up on a thousand submissions by now. I'm not saying you should stop, because I am greatly enjoying seeing the work; but I've gotten so many submissions that the idea of reducing it all to thirteen pictures has become almost absurd on its face.

My sin is simply that I lack the judgement so far to suit the concept to the scale of that feature. I'm going to have trouble putting together as many as 13 pictures by younger people (although some of the pictures I've gotten are very fine), so that feature might end up with six or eight photographs in it. And then I'm going to disappoint a whole lot of people who sent me superior black-and-white photographs that I won't have room to present. Both of these missteps are my fault, the result of poor calibration between the concepts and the calls for work.

No tooth
My other writing problem this week is that I'm procrastinating over the Book of the Year post. I'm actually not very confident of my abilities as a writer; it's a longtime, persistent character defect of mine. I know what I want to say about it, but I mistrust my ability to say it. I'll get back to work on that, but sometimes writing is like pulling teeth.

...Then again, I recently had a tooth pulled, and it went okay. It was easier than I thought it would be. I just had to face it, and deal.

So you see? This post is 675 words, more or less, and the topic suits the length. Didn't say too much, didn't run out of things to say. I've had a lot of practice. I'm pretty sure I'll get better at the Baker's Dozen posts, too, with practice. In the meantime, as I say, you'll have to be patient with me. And, dare I hope, forgiving.  :-)

Mike

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Andrew Eckert: "You might not have many young readers, but I'd wager that they take more from TOP than most other online photography resources. I've just celebrated my 32nd birthday, so I don't make the cut for the under-30 group, but I'm still technically a 'millennial,' and I'd count TOP as a major influence on how my approach to photography developed. Then again, I'm probably among the last group of people whose first camera was a standalone object rather than an app on a phone, so even my perspective might be a little dated."

John Camp: "I was a newspaper columnist for a few years, and had to do three columns a week. It was like a very slow death, and I eventually went back to straight reporting with great relief. I honest-to-God don't know how you do this blog thing, especially at your quality levels. Of course, the need to eat occasionally is always helpful in freeing the creative juices.

"As for the black-and-white photos, why not create some subcategories? As you said, reducing a thousand to thirteen is going to be a problem. I can see getting the number down to a hundred, or even fifty, but after that, it's throwing darts. Maybe B&W portraits, B&W landscapes, B&W street, etc. You also buy yourself a few free columns that way...."

[Former Pulitzer-Prizewinning reporter John Camp, who writes thriller novels under the name John Sandford, has well over 30 New York Times bestsellers to his credit. —Ed.]

Comments

[Fred Haynes]

Mike,
Not to worry! There's not one of us out here in reader/commentor land.who doesn't have our own set of idiosyncrasies!

[Stan B.]

I'm somewhat surprised you didn't get enough from the under 29, after all- hipsters thrive on the '70s. As for the B&W- completely, totally, 100% predictable.

[Keith]

Any writer would have blamed the tooth for any writing issue the week before and week after.

[cdembrey]

You start a conversation
You can't even finish it
You're talking a lot
But you're not saying anything ...

[Anthony Shaughnessy]

I did think at the time I submitted my B+W shot that you would have that problem. I still submitted the shot though.
Anthony

[Peter Komar]

Perhaps you should copy SONY, NIKON, OLYMPUS and FUJI on this recent post of yours. There might be a slim chance they would put 2 & 2 together and figure out there is indeed a need for a digital B&W sensor camera, based on your number of submissions for the bakers dozen black and white. We can only hope someone out there is listening, please camera manufacturers give us what we need, we promise we will buy them.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

It's no surprise that you're having a tough time with your "Baker's Dozen" feature. It's not about writing. You've essentially set yourself up to run frequent photography contests with absolutely no compensation for the effort!

If you're going to run contests I suggest getting help and running them in a more conventional, structured manner. And charge entry fees! Even small $10/3 images fees will add up...at nearly 100% gross profit. (Why do you think there are suddenly so many photo contests?!) It would also potentially be an enjoyable way for readers to support TOP beyond pure charity.

[Dave I.]

Mike,

You could add extra Black and White photos for each "missing" photo from the young peoples' submissions. Or add "Baker's Dozen - Black and White - Part Two.", or something similar.

I don't think too many would be upset at looking at more photos than were originally planned. After all, you're doing the difficult work of choosing among the photos. I don't have a good eye for what makes an interesting photo, even after years of reading about and looking at photos.

Post as many black and white "Baker's Dozen" as you'd like, as far as I'm concerned.

[Steve G, Mendocino]

Mike:

I'm about to start work on my Baker's Dozen B&W submissions, having been tied up until now on a theater project - a very successful dance show.

One possible solution would be to have the Executive Editor tell the Poor Guy who Has to Sort a Thousand Submissions to come up with some broad categories - i.e. Landscapes, People, etc. and do more than one posting over several weeks. I'll watch and wait patiently.

Steve

[Mark Bridgers]

"I'm actually not very confident of my abilities as a writer; it's a longtime, persistent character defect of mine."

That's not a character defect, it's the defining characteristic of writers!

[Not THAT Ross Cameron]

Wouldn’t be too hard on yourself re Baker’s Doz. You’ve undershot by a slight margin, and then overshot by a slightly larger margin :) The pendulum may swing a little more each way before you find a comfortable rhythm.
As a suggestion, have you worked out how big a pool of images you need from which to draw the doz., and can comfortably work with? You may also have to set a few limits on entries so you can cope - one or two images per person, one email per person, cut-off at the first X number of emails that fills your image pool.
It’s a work in progress, so don’t expect to nail it perfectly every time. Just so long as you don’t find a replacement for 9-ball to while away the hours :)

[Mark Sampson]

No forgiveness necessary. Keep up the good work. And may your holidays be happy!

[RubyT]

This post comes as something of a relief to me. I had been dithering about my black-and-white photos, suddenly dissatisfied with all of them, and now I can put them aside and await a future theme.

[Bob Johnston]

Well I for one read this blog not just for its content but for the wonderful writing.

[Dave Kee]

Start flossing, today.

[Dave Pawson]

"I know what I want to say about it, but I mistrust my ability to say it." We know there are writers you trust for your blog. Are there any readers you trust to view your output and feed back honestly to you?
Perhaps try one of your pieces, ask for feedback, then review their comments and see if you agree. That way you can grow your confidence in your friendly reviewer and hence confidence in your ability to say what you want?

[Jim A]

I come to T.O.P. for the writing as much as the content. Where else am I going to find great writing about coffee roasters, sportsters, and amazing photographers like Judy Dater.

Your recent missteps are probably due to holiday mayhem mixed with short term memory loss. :-) I know that's been my problem lately. "Your sin is left behind you, in the days long past". Yeah, I know, I'm a smart ass.

I wouldn't sweat the B&W thing. We're a pretty understanding bunch. Maybe you should just start over with a new subject line, a more specific subject matter or time frame, and a limit of 1 submission per reader. Whatever it takes to reduce your administrative overhead.

[Simon E]

Dave I. "Post as many black and white "Baker's Dozen" as you'd like, as far as I'm concerned."

+1. I can handle that with ease :-)

[Dave in NM]

Qu’est-ce que c’est ?

[Brian Taylor]

I'm not surprised you got far too many b+w photos. Perhaps you should just pick out a selection of portraits, abstracts, landscapes etc, from time to time, and present them as though that had been your intention all along. We won't let on. You could even invite yet more submissions in each new sub-category.

With the Winter Solstice duly celebrated I'm about to settle down to peaceful non-Christmas. I hope your festivities prove as enjoyable. :)

[Robert Roaldi]

Funny thing about people under 29. A friend was a location manager in retail and recently expressed tremendous frustration in dealing with his younger employees for various reasons. One of them was their lack of use of "traditional" digital media, i.e., e-mail. He told me that one guy would only text him or use twitter to announce that he'd be late, never occurred to him to email directly. Or telephone, you know, like, by voice.

We have this thing that is essentially free (almost) called the interweb, that includes neat things like email and web sites, both of which are more or less trivially easy to access, but more and more people are mediating their digital access through private corporations like Twitter and Facebook. I find this to be such odd behaviour. But I'm closing in on 65, so there you go.

[Rod S.]

Mike, I'm in tune with John Camp and Ken Tanaka on this one: you'll be throwing darts, which is an inherently unsatisfactory exercise and, therefore, stressful for someone as thoughtful of others as you. And taking on that stress for no compensation.

I urge you to abandon - yes, abandon - this call entirely. Send out a new call for B&W Intimate Landscapes, or B&W Grand Landscapes, or B&W Intimate Portraits, or B&W Environmental Portraits, or B&W Modern Architecture, or B&W Ancient Architecture, or B&W Shop Interiors, or B&W Kids At Play, or B&W Kids at Rest, and over time work through whatever listing you choose.

That way you will feel MUCH less stressed, because you'll be doing a good and fair thing.

Make this good idea last. Don't blow the B&W in just one hit!

And, as Ken said, ask us for a $10 fee for a submission of three.

After all, it's good exposure. Ha!

Best wishes, Rod.

[Arg]

Sadly, I left out the 'm' in 'com' when deciphering Mike's codified email address for the baker's dozen submissions. Only this morning I got an earnest email note from Mr Apple assuring me that he is still trying to send my images.

And now I see this note from you, Mike. Well I am nowhere near to being under 29, and you are swamped by submissions. So, maybe it is best if I don't re-send them after all... ...