Pure Speculation

Summer is almost over, and with the likelihood of a Hurricane Cristobal out there in the great beyond, I feel more than a little apprehensive.  But I've been feeling down for other reasons, mainly my latest attempt to further my writing career.

A woman I know who wrote for a local paper in my area until recently has been freelancing to pay the rent since she left said local paper, and she gave me some advice in early July on how to get more active in freelancing - namely, try to come up with more ideas and establish professional associations with editors.  So, for the first time in two years, I jumped headlong into on spec writing, where you toss out ideas to editors in the hope of finding someone who actually likes it.  I returned to my niche topic - street performers.

You can guess what happened.

While surfing the Net, I found a picture of a most unconventional street performer in New York's Central Park - an accordion player wearing a unicorn head and dressed in a man's suit and women's shoes, with painted fingernails.  An androgynously dressed accordion player wearing a unicorn head?  There's got to be a story in this! I thought.   

Well, I'm sure there is, but I'm likely not going to tell it.  Immediately after hearing about this performer (and seeing this performer on YouTube), I decided to go into the city and see this act for myself.  I've been to Central Park twice since then; I haven't come across this accordionist.  But I did encounter a cellist performing in Greenwich Village during my travels, and I left her my card expressing interest in writing about her.  A week later, I got an e-mail from her, with a link to her Web site, saying that she'd love to let me write about her.  I then told her that I had to find an interested editor before I could proceed, but I kept her updated while I looked for one and I even sent her a Facebook friend request and started following her on Twitter.  I did find an editor, an editor for a local paper in the city, and I let her know, but I didn't hear from her a second time . . . ever.  In the meantime, I had an old, professionally unpublished article about another busker, a mime artist from Manhattan, that I offered this editor for his publication, which I said  I could update.  I figured if I could at least get this old article published - and get paid for it - I could proceed with my proposed article about this cellist. I certainly wasn't going to put a lot of work into a new article for nothing.  So I told the mime artist I could get the old article published and asked for updated information, which I got. I rewrote and sent it back to the mime artist for review before I sent it to this editor.  I haven't heard back from this person yet.

Long story short?  I'm back where I started in early July.

So, my latest attempt at on spec writing has fizzled out, and I have to put my on spec ambitions aside soon as fall comes and I have new responsibilities.  I may yet in the future be able to get my old article on this mime artist published, get my new article on this cellist started, and I may even connect with this wacky accordion player.

But right now I'm more likely to be caught in a hurricane.

Nothing is more depressing than thinking you're on your way only to end up where you started. :-(