Comments on: Metta practice http://explorations.chasrmartin.com/2008/07/29/metta-practice/ Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. Wed, 16 Mar 2011 21:10:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Charlie http://explorations.chasrmartin.com/2008/07/29/metta-practice/comment-page-1/#comment-753 Charlie Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:01:43 +0000 http://explorations.chasrmartin.com/?p=316#comment-753 BTW, I remember quite liking Viva. BTW, I remember quite liking Viva.

]]> By: Charlie http://explorations.chasrmartin.com/2008/07/29/metta-practice/comment-page-1/#comment-752 Charlie Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:01:16 +0000 http://explorations.chasrmartin.com/?p=316#comment-752 Yay, comments! Yay, comments!

]]> By: amba http://explorations.chasrmartin.com/2008/07/29/metta-practice/comment-page-1/#comment-749 amba Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:30:07 +0000 http://explorations.chasrmartin.com/?p=316#comment-749 Although on the masthead and a vital, entrenched part of the editing team, I am still paid on a freelance basis (suits them because they don't have to give me bennies, which I get anyway through J's Screen Actors Guild; suits me because they don't have to deduct taxes; I'm supposed to tax myself, but can put it off), and because of that I go through this frequently. Even though I send an invoice every month, even though I attempt to get them everything they need work-wise when they need it, even though they know it's a hardship for me when my payment is late, time after time ten days pass -- about the amount of time it takes to get paid when things go well, and, I think, very reasonable -- and then we get to the two-week mark, and then I have to pester them. In summer, the people who sign and countersign the checks are often just on vacation, so tough. Once the publisher let it sit on his desk and simply forgot to sign it. Etc. The only way I can be sure this WON'T happen is to as the editor-in-chief to take special pains to expedite my payment, which is humiliating and makes me feel like I'm making nuisance demands. I have to meet a debt management payment by the end of each month (automatic debit) and it is a hair-raising squeaker way too often. My family bails me out from time to time, sometimes to help with extraordinary expenses, sometimes temporarily, when the check is late, all of which also makes me feel like a beggar and a liability. But this is part of the free-lance life. In the 1970s I was doing monthly book reviews for VIVA, the short-lived sister publication of Penthouse. Time and again I'd have to ask for my check, and once someone told me "Anthony Guccione [Bob's father, who signed the checks] doesn't like to sign checks." You know he signed the big ones, for the color separations and the ad salespeople and the printers. It's always the writer who gets screwed, first of all because we're being paid so little compared to the visual and administrative people that paying us must almost feel dispensable; and second of all because most writers are riddled with self-doubt -- it's a side effect or necessary occupational hazard of writing, somehow; the uncertainty that you can actually do it THIS TIME is essential to the life-and-death struggle to do it well. If you didn't feel your very existence was at stake, would you fight so hard and come out with something as good? (Or is that just me?) Anyway, it all adds up to a sign on our backs saying KICK ME. Or maybe it says, STIFF ME. Although on the masthead and a vital, entrenched part of the editing team, I am still paid on a freelance basis (suits them because they don’t have to give me bennies, which I get anyway through J’s Screen Actors Guild; suits me because they don’t have to deduct taxes; I’m supposed to tax myself, but can put it off), and because of that I go through this frequently. Even though I send an invoice every month, even though I attempt to get them everything they need work-wise when they need it, even though they know it’s a hardship for me when my payment is late, time after time ten days pass — about the amount of time it takes to get paid when things go well, and, I think, very reasonable — and then we get to the two-week mark, and then I have to pester them. In summer, the people who sign and countersign the checks are often just on vacation, so tough. Once the publisher let it sit on his desk and simply forgot to sign it. Etc. The only way I can be sure this WON’T happen is to as the editor-in-chief to take special pains to expedite my payment, which is humiliating and makes me feel like I’m making nuisance demands. I have to meet a debt management payment by the end of each month (automatic debit) and it is a hair-raising squeaker way too often. My family bails me out from time to time, sometimes to help with extraordinary expenses, sometimes temporarily, when the check is late, all of which also makes me feel like a beggar and a liability.

But this is part of the free-lance life. In the 1970s I was doing monthly book reviews for VIVA, the short-lived sister publication of Penthouse. Time and again I’d have to ask for my check, and once someone told me “Anthony Guccione [Bob's father, who signed the checks] doesn’t like to sign checks.” You know he signed the big ones, for the color separations and the ad salespeople and the printers. It’s always the writer who gets screwed, first of all because we’re being paid so little compared to the visual and administrative people that paying us must almost feel dispensable; and second of all because most writers are riddled with self-doubt — it’s a side effect or necessary occupational hazard of writing, somehow; the uncertainty that you can actually do it THIS TIME is essential to the life-and-death struggle to do it well. If you didn’t feel your very existence was at stake, would you fight so hard and come out with something as good? (Or is that just me?)

Anyway, it all adds up to a sign on our backs saying KICK ME. Or maybe it says, STIFF ME.

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