Sunday, April 5, 2009

Heeeeerrrrre's Mandyyyyyy!!!!

Hola, como esta mi' gentes! Soy Mandy de Los Estadaos Unidos.... You thought I'd do it all in Spanish didn't ya? I suppose I am the niche hack du jour having over time weaseled my way into cushy little gigs by virtue of just being me...and willing to be controversial. Everyone has their own calling card, mine is ticking people off.

I've managed to reach my twenty year anniversary getting paid to write since selling my first series of articles about the secret society of gays in the military under the name Shannon McCool way back in 1989. Since then I ran through a couple dozen more pseudonyms before finally getting a chance to write as myself, and not confuse my following, only a few years ago. It's a long story I'd be happy to write for you if the price is right.

I'm an admitted hack and always have been. For me it works! In this day and age being a hack is nothing to be ashamed of. I'll never win awards nor will I try I to, rarely will any hack. A good hack however will never go hungry for lack work. While a journalist spends hours fretting over each word in an article, a hack churns out one above average piece after the other. A journalist gets the respect of their peers for a well crafted piece while the hack gets tickets to Yankee Stadium which are nicer and have a greater resale value.

So who am I really? I'm the person that blew off all the best advice everyone ever gave me that I was assured was necessary to be successful. I not only constantly write in the first person, uses contractions, too many commas, get overly sarcastic, and write about topics everyone said just wouldn't sell, I do it with typos. I infiltrated a market I was told few women, much less no gay woman would ever be welcome in. I'm the woman that learned if you know enough about anything and have a passion for it you have a nearly unlimited market. Most important I learned if you knock politely and someone fails to open the door, kicking it in is a perfectly reasonable second step.

Has it worked for me? You bet it has! I get to write for one of the biggest paid membership niche sites on the web free from regulation. I get to walk into the clubhouse after a game, stare at a kid young enough to be own who's poised to make more money in a year than I will in a lifetime, and say "Any thoughts on why sucked so bad today?" and get a laugh and honest answer out of it.

So I guess I'm living the hacks dream. You can too. All you have to do is put in the work and save every rejection slip you ever received so that when you're still working and find the newly unemployed journalist coming to YOU for work you can say "Gee...I just don't think you're hack enough to make it." Then again you may not be as evil me.

Is this what you wanted Sarah? Will you stop sending me invites now? lol

3 comments:

  1. It's Mandy! How ya doing? I haven't seen ya in a while.......Don't be surprised if an email shows up in your inbox soon, maybe even this week....

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  2. Oh no! Does this mean I'm a journalist trying to be a hack? (Or am I a hack that sometimes struggles and agonizes? :)

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