The way I’ve got it divvied up is that Brett does the easy networking (the socializing with food kind) and I’ll do the hard-core networking. So this morning I went to this speed dating kind of networking where everyone lines up and you get 90 seconds to pitch, they get 90 seconds to pitch and then there’s 90 seconds more to wrap it up.

I don’t really see myself getting any work from these kinds of events. I wouldn’t mind a one-shot job from a small business but truthfully I know that my living lies in bigger companies who can keep sending work my way. The people who come to these front-line networking events are usually in sales either for themselves or for their company. Like one person I talked to sells clothes at those home parties people do? And someone else was selling their hotel as a venue for conferences. Neither of those people are in any position to hire me. But here’s why I go to these things now while I have time (because I hope to be so busy in the future that they slide off my to-do list):

  1. I appreciate finding out what’s happening in Columbus. For most of my writing career I’ve been telecommuting and except for a brief stint as a stringer for a Jewish newspaper here in town (cut short by Madison’s arrival) pretty much all of my writing work has either been for national magazines or for custom publishers in other towns. I like seeing what my city has to offer.
  2. Besides telecommuting, my only grown-up job (read: not childcare or food service) was at the shelter, which was absolutely NOT a corporate environment. I don’t really understand the 9 to 5 world. I’m still learning the dress code and the language and — most significantly — the values. This outsiderness I think is an asset in some ways because it’s awfully easy for me to separate the rhetoric from the reality. It’s very easy for me to cut through what someone’s saying and ask questions to figure out what exactly it is they need. But I’ve definitely got a learning curve to understanding water cooler thinking. It’s pretty foreign to me.
  3. A big huge part of networking isn’t getting a job from that handshake; it’s connecting other people so that they will, hopefully, connect you. So even though I’m very unlikely to buy wash-and-wear culottes (and even less likely to host a party given the fashion taste of my friends) or to put together a business conference at a local hotel, I very well might meet someone who’s looking for just the right outfit for her next vacation or is thinking about holding a workshop but isn’t sure where. Sometimes networking is about finding other people work and prospects but one hopes they will do the same for you.
  4. I also know that the things I’m learning here definitely apply to having a creative career. Networking face-to-face is making me less intimidated by editors or by the business side of publishing. It doesn’t seem as rarefied a world as it used to because I’m understanding in a very concrete way that it’s a business. I’m also understanding that the more I can appreciate how it for the number-crunchers and the more I can help them, the better luck I’ll have being successful.

For a long time I really resisted the reality of being a writer in America today, which is that it, like any industry, comes down to profit. I wanted it to be about artistry and craft and skill and it can be, but it’s also about marketing and money. It’s HUGELY about marketing and money. I was watching someone I know from a distance who’s had a recent surge in success and a third person was ranting about how unfair it is (life is unfair) and I said that this person was having this surge because this person was great at marketing. If I were a numbers guy, I’d totally hitch my wagon to that train even though I agree that this third person is more talented, a nicer human being and has a better body of work. But this third person doesn’t want to sell-out. I get that but it’s hard to be successful at a game if you don’t want to play the game.

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