The Opposite of Work
We have no secrets from you, most cherished reader and co-conspirator.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an email Scott sent to our newest writer, Erika Elizabeth. I hope it’s OK to reprint it. Last time we printed an email like this we lost a contributor within days. I sure hope that doesn’t happen this time. I like the thrust of Erika’s cuts.
By Scott Creney
I checked with Everett before I e-mailed you (I figured I’d check with him first). I sent him a link to your expressway site and told him you had great taste and he responded with customary ET enthusiasm. Are you familiar with Everett and his history? Here’s a real basic intro.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
And here’s an idea of where he stands values-wise.
So basically you’re free to write whatever you want. Reviews/essays/rants/etc. If you have an idea for a recurring column, you can create one. Everett’s run album reviews that were nothing but pictures, album reviews that were written in less than a minute, multiple reviews of the same album, and album reviews where the writer never listened to the album in question. If you can imagine a way to express a thought/idea/opinion about music, we’re most likely going to run it. Doing things differently is always appreciated, but then pretty much everything is always appreciated.You can write in whatever style pleases you (entertaining/engaging is preferred but dull & pedantic is acceptable too). Also, we’re able to embed videos w/o too much problem. This is a boon to the music reviewer because it means you aren’t required to describe what the music sounds like, so you aren’t racking your brain trying to find synonyms for ‘angular’. Sadly we aren’t able to embed Spotify or Rdio links yet. The technology is out there, I just need Everett to sort it out. He is currently raising three small children while working on his PhD, so his day-to-day life is busy & overwhelmed in ways I can scarcely imagine. In spite of this, he is w/o question the most supportive, patient, and smartest editor I’ve ever worked with. It’s one of the many reasons why I keep writing for the site despite a couple of offers to go to bigger places that might pay me a little bit. Everett lets you write what you want.So write something. Whatever you want. If you have any questions, or you’re looking for tips on say, how to get advance listens of an album or where to go hear stuff for free before it comes out, I can offer that advice.Tell me you wrote it and we’ll set you up in the system. Do you have experience with WordPress? Are you interested in figuring it out for yourself? If not, I’m more than happy to format your stuff (I still do Mike’s and Brigette’s). But if you’re interested in learning I can make you a pretty handy formatting guide. Totally up to you. It takes me five minutes to turn a word document into a web-ready article (now it does, when I started, it took me an hour).
Brigette probably did the most different kinds of stuff with the fewest amounts of articles. This will give you some idea of the freedom.
http://www.collapseboard.com/
And here’s some thoughts about music writing at CB. Keep in mind we all believe rules are meant to be broken. But in the words of Strunk & White, if you’re going to break a rule try to make sure you did a good job at it.
http://www.collapseboard.com/
Nothing is sacred but everything matters. The most important rule is to enjoy yourself. This isn’t work, this is the opposite of work. It’s freedom. Thanks for your interest. You’ve got great taste in music and you’re hearing more of it than I am. You’d be a great addition to CB.
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