14 years ago today
Oh, hi friends!
Fourteen years ago today, I moved to New York. I think we should celebrate our big anniversaries of change, when we do something outside our comfort zones. (I know you have your own!)
Going for a walk down memory lane in Gmail I found the first invoice I sent for writing work in New York — $75 for writing an article about how to survive bringing kids to the office. (Did I have any experience with children or working in an office? No. Did I write it anyway? Yes. I was a born freelancer.)
I’m remembering I wrote book reviews for $25 a pop, applied to a writing internship at Dylan’s Candy Bar, and kept setting up “networking” coffees.
I remember everyone who took the time to meet with my 21-year-old self, including Rachel Chang, who I ended up working with 10 years later when she wrote for MONEY, and another editor, Camille, who I connected with through Ken Shapiro, the editor-in-chief of a travel magazine I interned at during my senior year in college. (Opportunities come through people, remember?)
Camille gave me the best advice in those early days, which was to choose my first job carefully — that it would set me on a certain path. Which path did I want?
Well, I still didn’t know what, exactly, I wanted to do, but I always knew what I didn’t want to do.
I also found this cover letter I sent to a website called First 30 Days which was all about helping people through big changes in their lives. I actually got the editorial assistant job! Making, I think, $30,000 a year?
Then I was laid off after seven weeks — a little thing called the financial crisis happened in the fall of 2008 and caused a media hiring freeze, remember?!
I can still remember sobbing on my walk home and stopping to buy a chocolate chip cookie because you always need a chocolate chip cookie after getting laid off.
But let's look back at that hopeful cover letter from July 2008:
In the past five weeks, I've graduated from UCLA, moved out of the sprawling, sunny city I called home for four years, said goodbye to most of my family and friends, and moved to New York. A lovely nook in my aunts’ apartment and a few contacts scattered about the city awaited me and my suitcases stuffed to their expandable capacities. (One of my biggest choices was narrowing down my books to four: Walden, On Writing Well, I Was Told There'd Be Cake, The Aspects of the Novel; my clothes to warm-weather essentials: rain-conducive sandals and dresses now surely wrinkled beyond recognition.)
Everyone I know thinks I came to pursue my dreams. Actually, I came to define them. I can think of nothing more exhilarating (or terrifying!) than carving out a niche for myself alongside 8 million others also on a search.
So precious, right? I still see myself in there. (And I can't believe I double-spaced after each sentence...!)
I guess if I’ve learned anything in the past 14 years full of layoffs and surprises, invoices and coffee meetings, leaving what no longer serves me and embracing new mediums, it’s what I knew all along:
I can still think of nothing more exhilarating (or terrifying!) than carving out a niche alongside all of you.
And your story is never over — not until you say it’s over.
Oh, and write it all down. You’ll be very glad you did.
Today’s interview is with Paul Kix, who is one of my favorite types of people—a true multihyphenate. He’s a magazine writer who has a must-read newsletter and a podcast and just watched one of his features get adapted into a film. Now he’s sharing his storytelling expertise in a new online course called The Storytelling You, which just launched. I’ve been going through the course and it’s exactly what 2008 Kara (and 2022 Kara, frankly) needed—inspiring, actionable advice about how to find and tell better longform stories, whether that’s in journalism, the documentary world, or really any medium that thrives on character, plot, and an arc. I know you’ll find his insights as eye-opening as I do!
Why is it important to you to embrace new mediums?
It's easier than you think to reach for something new if you stand on the foundation of something sturdy. For me, my sturdy foundation is my understanding of story, the underlying tenets of why great stories endure. I've gone from writing and producing in all those mediums to now teaching what I know about longform journalism because I want people to have not only the knowledge I do, but a confidence that they themselves can do it, can do anything they wish as a longform storyteller. And, if you choose to learn from me, you'll have my knowledge and this confidence in a matter of days, and without the exorbitant cost of some—I don't know—MFA degree or mid-career residency.
This might sound crazy, but why should we all care about longform journalism?
Because the best longform journalism—be it in magazine form or serialized podcast or documentary film—informs the audience while enlightening it, too. As a nonfiction author and magazine writer I'm biased, but I think longform journalism does the work a society needs to flourish. It tells deep and complex truths about ourselves and it does it in a form, the story, that borrows its techniques from the best novels and movies. It's win-win.
When it comes to writing and now teaching, what is your “brass ring”? What are you always reaching for?
To produce work that outlives me. That could be in a book I write or whatever, but I find it's increasingly with this course I'm teaching. To hear how writers brand new to the form are selling their first pieces, to hear how struggling writers are getting in dream publications—they thank me but honestly, I thank them. The high I get from helping these writers is greater than any personal accomplishment. It's shocked me how much I love this stuff. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "The surest way to be happy is to seek happiness in others." She was dead-on.
What's one thing the last year taught you, and what are you working on next?
Everything is figure-out-able. All you need is a little confidence in yourself. I love that quote from Carlos Santana you linked to last week, Kara: "The main cancer on this planet is that people don't believe in their own light." It's so true, because when you believe in your own light, that light can shine anywhere.
Next, there's a serialized podcast I'm thinking of doing, an extension of a magazine piece I wrote. Mostly, though, it's making sure the people who learn from me solve the problems that plague them.
Where can people find you online?
Honestly? For the next week it's through the course. My whole focus is on that thing right now. [Kara note: Learn more about it here!]
Do you like these daily emails? Please share with a friend!
You can also support my work by checking out my motivational journal, Do It For Yourself, designed to guide you through your creative and work projects, and my upcoming journal Do It Today, which encourages you to find time for the things that matter most to you.
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara