Close your eyes for a moment and think back to that time when you first decided to become a columnist, to become a writer. Imagine the dreams you had right then. They started without clarity, a fuzzy mist of hope, angst, and maybe, if we were lucky, a touch of confidence.
From that cloudy haze emerged an imagined idea – the “pitch-perfect” dream all true columnists aspire to. Funny thing, though, it’s an anachronism. Pretty much all of us are too young to have actually experienced it. But we’ve all seen it depicted in classic movies and old TV shows.
It’s the mystique of the film noir. The black-and-white soft lens of a glorious past. The aura of the diligent journalist pecking away on an ancient mechanical keyboard. Maneuvering in the dark shadows of the sleepless city. Uncovering dots that have yet to be connected. Then, as the words of our column flow from our fingertips to the next edition of yesterday’s news to the eyes of the people, we become the hero.
The hero who uncovered a corrupt city hall. The hero who championed the oppressed. The hero who brought laughter when it was most needed.
And then we awaken.
In a digitized world of limitless pantones, we find ourselves not living this dream, but drowning in a thrashing sea of change, its monstrous waves ignorant of our puny existence. Yes, we try with all our might, with all our talent, with all our passion, but the world has other things in mind. It couldn’t care less about dreams – anyone’s dreams, let alone ours. For every two steps we bravely take forward, a new tsunami suddenly surges forth and pushes us back three.
What was once a glorious past has become an unwanted shackle. They taught us the rules of the game, expected us to live by those rules, but yanked the rug out from beneath those rules…and us. We held up our end of the bargain. They didn’t. We played fair. They didn’t. We selflessly opened our heart. They crushed it with antiseptic accounting.
Through this despair, though, sparkled, at first, a few glimmers of light. A new dynamic. A new template. One that borrows from the old tradition, yet catapults ahead of the Goliaths that once (and currently) rule our world. In an ironic twist, their strength becomes their weakness, and our weakness becomes our strength.
But only for those with the courage to wake themselves from the reality they’ve been chained to.
Rather than buffeting ourselves against the turbulence, we can choose to ride atop the crest into a tomorrow that evokes the spirit of that film noir hero we always imagined becoming. And this window of this opportunity is presently open. For how long, I don’t know, but it’s open. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
It doesn’t matter where you are in your career. In five years, you’ll be in a different place. That’s the reality of our industry. You can have that place imposed upon you or you can choose your own path. For the latter, there are tools – old and new – available that could make you into a hero.
We are bringing those tools to Buffalo, New York, at the NSNC annual conference, June 20-23, 2019. We are bringing people who have used those tools successfully and will share their know-how with us. We want you to discover – or rediscover – ways to make your column writing more profitable.
Join us at the Hotel Henry Urban in Buffalo next June as we celebrate both our glorious past and reveal our prosperous future. It’s time for columnists to make more money, and that will be a major focus of next year’s conference. It’s an idea so crazy, it just might work.
