So You Want to Write a Novel

These really don't get old. Click here for the journalist version.

"How many editors will Random House assign to my novel?"
"Minus 13."
"--Because it's going to need a lot of editing. I'm not the best speller."

Medill: The Last J-School Standing

This word cloud was created by running Medill's 2008 online course descriptions through Wordle.
See more here.

If you're at all familiar with this blog or the melodramatic happenings at my alma mater, Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism et al, then you've likely formed some opinion of whether a marketing program belongs under the same roof as a journalism program. (Hint: It doesn't.) This week, The Nation's Michael Tracey wrote a 2,000-word piece of despair that places Medill in the center of the downfall of the journalism school (referred to by the affected as "j-school"). He covers a lot of ground, but he makes a few key points: 1) marketing and journalism are "profoundly antithetical enterprises," and their blending in education is not good for the reputation or credibility of journalism; 2) as a leading j-school, Medill's seismic shift spells trouble for the future of all j-schools; and 3) j-schools aren't necessary and we should just do away with them altogether.

(I highly suggest that you read the original article in order to fully appreciate my rage. Look, I'll even give you the link again! Click here!)

Okay, so from the outset, I'll reiterate Tracey's first point, the discomfort with combining marketing and journalism education. Medill has been shoving the two together under the direction of Dean John Lavine, who hit the ground running in 2006 with proposal after proposal that seemed destined to turn Medill into an arm of the Kellogg School of Management. In a symbolic birthing ritual, this spring faculty voted 38-5 to approve a name change from "Medill School of Journalism" to "Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications." (Ugh, it hurts to type.) It's simply a bad idea; just because both journalism and PR/marketing deal with language doesn't mean that they should be lumped together. Tracey quotes director of the Yale Journalism Initiative, Mark Oppenheimer: “We should all be a little concerned that the same schools that teach people to see through bogus claims are also the same schools teaching students how to perpetuate bogus claims.” Right on, totally agreed, no argument here.

The thing that makes me so queasy is that journalism is supposed to be about truth. It's free, it's honorable, it's necessary to functioning society. It is a check on power, a protector of our right to free speech. I loved calling myself a journalist because it made me feel like part of something exciting and cutting-edge and noble. But marketing is about sales. It's about tricking people. It's about convincing consumers they need the newest iPhone, or that a company is socially conscious, or even that this charity is more worthy of your money than another charity. It's about manipulation and persuasion -- a version of the truth, maybe, but not truth. Given, not all journalism is going to clear that bar (hi Bill), but it's at least supposed to try. So that's why everyone (who isn't John Lavine or the 37 other faculty members who voted for the name change) thinks this unholy marriage is a terrible move.

Tracey actually goes off a bit on Dean Lavine, and I felt myself turning into a member of the choir. "Amen," I thought when he recounted the bit of drama a few years ago when an undergrad caught Dean Lavine using unattributed (and very likely false) quotations from students in praise of a Lavine-esque course titled "Advertising: Building Brand Image." It was embarrassing for all involved, and it made Medill look stupid, and I still haven't really forgiven Dean Lavine for that. It was inexcusable.

But I get what he's trying to do. I appreciate that Dean Lavine wants to make sure our $200,000 education is worth it, so he's trying to teach the business aspects of journalism too. How to market your story and yourself to a particular audience. How to manipulate people into reading. It's misguided, but I can see why he thinks that marketing and journalism go hand in hand. But that sort of thing just feels so slimy to a crowd that's being taught to be fiercely objective. We should be talking about paragraph structure and contextual analysis, not branding and pull-quotes.

After fleshing out all the reasons why j-school shouldn't house a marketing program and inflicting some violence on Dean Lavine's reputation, Tracey goes on the offensive against the entire concept of j-school. It's true: you don't need a license to be a journalist. A lot of people who work in the field didn't study journalism, and a lot of people who did study journalism found jobs in other industries. So what's the point? Tracey asks. Anyone can be a journalist, so take that time you're spending "learning" journalism and use it to study other things -- arts, science, whatever you're passionate about. Your proficiency in those passions -- not your knowledge of the inverted pyramid and search-engine optimization -- will make you a good journalist.

I agree that journalists should not be hollow shells resembling people, but active and contributing members of society. Of course we should study other things and become experts in other areas; that's why most people go to j-school, to learn how to tell the stories that interested them in the first place. Some grew up in squalor and dedicate their career to social change journalism; others love numbers and have read the Wall Street Journal cover to cover every day since the age of 11. To each their own. And yes, anyone can be a journalist in the sense that anyone can write words and publish them, usually on the Internet. (Hi mom!)

But Tracey takes an ill-advised leap in suggesting we get rid of j-school altogether. His argument: "Think about the social function of the journalism major. Overtly or not, it creates an implicit regulatory structure, endowing journalism students with the right to manage the university’s newspaper by virtue of their participation in important seminars on media ethics and interview techniques. Conversely, non-journalism students are left with the impression that reporting is best reserved for those who've been formally trained to do it."

To me this is so clear-cut: People who are trained to do something are generally better at it than people who aren't trained to do that thing. You become a better musician by learning about music, you become a better racecar driver by learning about racing, and you become a better journalist by learning about journalism. You don't need a license to practice, but throwing out the entire discipline would be absurd. It suggests that the entire corpus of knowledge -- the history, the ethics of reporting, the art of interviewing and dealing with sensitive subjects, the methods of research, the resources available -- is useless and can be replicated easily without formal training. This would be devolution, a step backward for a discipline that is already so desperately fractured and bleeding. Not to mention it's a slap in the face to me and everyone who majored in journalism, at Medill or elsewhere. I understand that journalism need not be regulated with a gateway fee of a specialized degree, but let's not forget that the specialized degree still has value.

Okay, look. I went to journalism school to learn how to write like a journalist. As luck would have it, the Medill wind shifted as soon as I arrived. Dean Lavine took over at the end of my freshman year from Loren Ghiglione (whose name I had JUST learned how to pronounce, goddammit), and we launched into three years of identity confusion as Dean Lavine tried to basically merge Medill with the Kellogg School of Management. Or at least that's what it felt like. My History and Issues of Journalism course -- a cornerstone of the program -- was reimagined and tag-teamed by three professors in a huge auditorium. We had assigned seats and they actually took attendance -- in a classroom of 150+ students, the entire Medill freshman class. It was a ridiculous exercise and I remember nothing except watching a movie about Edward Murrow.

But Medill does do some things right. The liberal arts education I received at Northwestern was top-notch; most of my peers had a second major (mine was in political science) and we all took courses in art, philosophy, math, science, economics, literature, and so forth. My journalism classes that actually focused on journalism -- literary journalism, magazine writing, law and ethics, and so forth -- blew my mind and forced me to think about the world in a whole new way. I completed two journalism internships, one at an extra-small investigate reporting operation and another at a large consumer technology publication. I got both the breadth and the depth of education that Tracey pines for, and I got it at Medill. You can teach journalism. I know because I was taught journalism. What's much harder to teach is writing, but that's a whole 'nother blog post.

I'm hoping against hope that Medill is going through some sort of teenage phase, but I can't help but feel glum about the future of my alma mater. Like many of my peers, I am not on the journalism track -- but it did directly funnel me in the direction I'm going now as I pursue creative writing. I have friends who work for newspapers and TV stations and magazines, and we still carry on ridiculously nerdy conversations about headlines and AP Style and industry gossip. A piece of me is a journalist, will always be a journalist, and that piece will inform every encounter I have with culture and society and language. For that I thank Medill, and I can do nothing but lament Dean Lavine's agenda and hope it doesn't turn my school into a disgrace.

Reality Bites, a mini-review

Nice tights, Janeane.

Speaking of twenty-somethings, I recently watched the cult classic Reality Bites, starring a young Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke, with Steve Zahn, Janeane Garofalo, and Ben Stiller, who also directs. It's a healthy dose of early 90s culture, and though it fits the format of a standard romcom, its cult status is deserved. It's well-made and acted and it gets to the heart of the things that terrify 22- to 28-year-olds*.

It's about the romantic, despairing, and hopeless pursuit of a dream job; it's about the confusion of first loves and complicated friendships; and it's about trying to find a path to follow, whatever that may be. (I know, I know, cue the tiny violins, but stick with me.) The characters strive to reconcile their circumstances and their lifestyles while going through a time period that every self-aware adult recognizes. Coming out as gay, getting fired from a job (or twelve), experiencing amazing sex, getting that first taste of realistic success, suffering an AIDS scare -- even if these aren't our lives word for word, we can see the vibrations and understand where they're coming from. The breakdowns, the celebrations, the joy, the despair -- it's a 98-minute lyric poem.

I read Annie Dillard's The Writing Life this week for my revision workshop and pulled this quote from it: "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." The simplicity of this statement just bowls me over. It's actually a beautifully freeing thing, because it implicitly awards the individual the choice of how to spend their time. It could have read "how we choose to spend our days is how we choose to spend our lives." Each day we're awarded 24 hours, and we spend them like currency -- this much on sleep, this much on work, this much on play, this much on dicking around and watching The Bachelorette on Hulu.

But those little choices each day build up, and as time passes they'll be what we remember because that's what actually happened -- not necessarily what we wanted or expected. So we seek this status quo, a state of being and set of habits, that will bring us the utmost happiness. For some that happiness is a secure job and a passionate love affair and a four-door sedan. For others it's a gypsy lifestyle, always on the move, always experiencing new things. There's no wrong answer, both the movie and Annie Dillard tell us, but you should probably at least be attempting to seek one out. You know, in your free time.

* I assume the quarter-life crisis will be over by 28. At least that's what I'm hoping, because I'm pretty sure the "I'm about to be 30" crisis will take over either way.

--

UPDATE, 12:13 p.m. - So after posting this, I continued daydreaming and waxing philosophic about being 24 and yadda yadda, and I had a thought. An extension of a thought, really, regarding how we spend our time like cash at a farmer's market, handing it out in return for various satisfactions. Why waste time, then, doing something you don't like -- spending on things you don't care for? I understand that people work jobs they hate because they need the money and that couples stay together for the kids sometimes. But a vast majority of the time, there's no one forcing us to conduct our lives any which way. So why wait around, being unhappy? It's like wasting money -- except that money is replaceable whereas time is not.

Oh...my...God...could it be? Could they have been RIGHT ALL ALONG?!!



Happy summer, everyone.

Twenty-somethings: Choosing a Lifestyle

So many lifestyle choices, so little time.

A quotation from New York Times columnist David Brooks as the commencement speaker for the Brandeis University 2011 graduating class:

"If you are like most college grads, you will spend the next decade of your lives moving from city to city, school to school and from job to job experimenting with different careers and lifestyles," he said. "While you do this, by the way, your parents will slowly go crazy. Everything will be contingent and uncertain."

As Brooks adeptly points out, our generation -- that is, the people born basically in the 80's and now spanning the powerful 21 to 31 demographic -- is behaving differently. Part of it is a necessary reaction to the economy and the job market; we must be willing to move for jobs. We become transient. I, who was raised by transients who wandered a full 3,000 miles from their birthplace, have resolutely made myself a home in Chicago. I extol its wonders -- lovely parks, Midwest attitude, North Ave Whole Foods -- while continually discovering new joys (Lake Shore Drive running path) and setbacks (pee smell that permeates the loop in the summer). It's a big city and I'm young/hyperactive and I like it here.

I know in my heart I probably won't stay in Chicago forever. There's too much of the world to see. I may leave for a few years and then return for good -- I'd like that, actually -- but I belong to the generational mindset that home is where I charge my cell phone. It's that attitude that has allowed my peers and classmates to fling themselves around the world -- Amsterdam, London, the Ukraine, not to mention Atlanta and LA and Portland and so forth. This, our twenties, is the time for adventure and experimentation.

With my location settled for now, and as I hazily hobble toward some sort of career path as a grad student, Brooks would probably agree that I can focus on experimenting with lifestyles. It's like trying on costumes. Do I want to be a jock or a bookworm? Should I spend my lunch hour socializing or exercising? What statement does my hairstyle make? In what clubs and boards and music ensembles will my time investment be worthwhile? Is there a job I'd want where a tribal neck tattoo would be inappropriate; and if so, how about an eagle and the U.S. flag emblazoned across my back? These, I submit, are the important lifestyle decisions of the typical (that is to say, self-absorbed American) twenty-something: It's about how you spend your time and what image you're projecting to the world and how true a snapshot that is of who you really are. It's why we're all so obsessed with Facebook and Twitter; social media is another foundation for building and maintaining a reputation. It's like being in high school again, but with slightly less naïveté and hopefully better hair.

Why not?

This year I have two cousins graduating from high school, five siblings graduating from various elementary-age grades (my twin brothers just finished kindergarten!), and a handful of friends finishing up Bachelor's and Master's degrees. Meanwhile even more of us are still trudging along, sorting through term papers and auditions and manuscripts, the terminal diploma months or years or decades away.

But the toil is the equivalent of the journey, especially if that journey (studying writing) has no set destination ("writing the great American novel" is so twentieth century). So all there is left to do is apologize to our parents, promise them we're happy and well-adjusted and thriving no matter what lifestyle we're attempting this week, and ask them to pretty please mail just one more check. Last one, I promise.

--
P.S. Completely unrelated, but you should check out my side-project with my buddy Kevin Rinz titled New Age Whitman. The summer blog/Twitter (@NewAgeWhitman) will culminate in a raucous drinking event in August. I'm really excited for the power trip that is ordering interns to reconstruct the eastern seaboard using empty Bud light cans. Follow along in the fun!

How to have a discussion

It's kind of pathetic how often "discussion" reverts to "screaming match," particularly when the two sides are so committed to their positions that they'll ignore evidence that contradicts that position in order to preserve it. (Case in point, Congress.)

Below is a nice outline. Let's take note of it, shall we, Mr. O'Reilly?

(click to enlarge)

I'm pissed

I spent a lot of time last Friday finishing up a blog post about memoir and narcissism, and then Blogger spazzed over the weekend and lost it and still hasn't restored it. Anyone else have this problem? Did it get fixed?

I suppose common sense would be to back up all these posts on Word docs...still, I feel wronged.

Nonsequitur: I started Bossypants by Tina Fey this morning on train. My. God. I was worried it'd been overhyped and wouldn't live up to my grandiose expectations for basically the funniest woman on the scene right now. I needn't have fretted. It's awesome: I'm 10 pages in but it's already jam-packed with humor and good writing and good humor writing. Pick it up immediately.

Another version of Velocity

Still uploading videos from Tyranny of Dave's show at Simon's Tavern in Andersonville last weekend. You've heard this one before, but I like this version. Didi is such a killer guitar player, it's ridiculous, and I just love singing this song. Lyrics are below if you're interested in singing along to everyone's favorite astronaut waltz. Buy the original track (with Dave's vocals) here. Hope you enjoy it!



"Velocity" by Tyranny of Dave
Here in the cockpit there's nothing but dreams and dismay
Sometimes it feels like this expensive tin can
Does nothing 'cept sit here and wait.
Now I'm hearing the countdown, but at seven my thoughts drift away.
As the countdown gets lower I move toward the ground
And as we lift off I finally touch down
Glad I'm not leaving and proud of my narrow escape
But I'm pulling away...

And they'll be with the one who's not right for them
And leave me in misery, floating in gravity.
And they'll kiss the one who causes me pain
It's not a question of vanity, it's just a trick of velocity.

Unbuckle my seatbelt and I want to get up but I stay
And Houston is yappin' and though I am dreamin'
I flip all the switches they say.
Is it me or the ship that starts to buckle and sway?
As I pitch forward my head hits the floor
And someone yells but I'm not there anymore
I burn on reentry and look for a soft place to lay...

As they sleep with the one who makes me lie awake
As I drift through the infinite, the air's cold and intimate
And they'll marry the one who's not right for them
Can you tell me what plane that is without looking overhead?
You should know by the sound, if you look up we'll both be dead
I'll fall to the ground into your open mouth.
There's no room inside you now so I'll have to get out
And fall back up to my craft
And answer those questions they'll ask,
Like what was I thinking about?

And I guess I'll marry the one who's not right for me
I've done it several times
And it's always worked out alright
You can't fight velocity.

Roman Road

My band played a show last night at Simon's Tavern in Andersonville. (Go for the glogg, stay for the live music.) Highlights include the many wonderful friends that showed up to support me and the guy sitting at the bar that wrote me a lovely note full of compliments. (A note! An actual written note! Chivalry is not dead!) My friend Shara took some video that I'll be uploading to YouTube this week. The first one, "Roman Road," is below.

We don't have any more shows lined up at the moment -- we need to find a permanent bassist -- but I'm having a blast and looking forward to more opportunities to make music with the incredibly talented musicians of Chicago. I'll keep you posted, but in the meantime be sure to "like" us on Facebook for more photos, videos, etc.

Now to find some caffeine...

Warning: strong language

And a panda.