DM's quest for work

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

You’re a *specialist*.

[Drunk Monk]

You’re a *specialist*.

Damn straight. 



I just might have secured a regular position with Den of Geek to cover a specific show. It's looking very promising. As it stands, I have four submissions queued up with DoG, all ready to drop when they get the opening. And I just got another review pitch approved there so that's what I'll be doing for the rest of today.

[Greg]

Extra primo good, sir.

I'm checking my inbox every ten seconds for the remainder of the day.

[Drunk Monk]

It's not a lot of money but deadlines are motivating. Gotta stay sharp somehow.

[Drunk Monk]

I had a positive telemeeting with ymnotca. The ceo is being very flexible and has offered a halftime position should fbu remain halftime, or a possible fulltime position if fbu falls apart. He also offered possible smaller gigs if fbu goes fulltime. 

This was a big week for me on DoG - two pieces were published - my Double World review & my Azreen feature
https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/double-world-review/
https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/how-wir...tion-hero/

I have three more in the queue with them and am being looked at to do a future interview and possibly an episode guide. I've got two pitches that I should pitch later today too.

[Greg]

Cha-ching!

I stand by the pun.

[Drunk Monk]

i get that a lot. the pun, not the payout.

the reviews are fun and while it's some money, these two combined articles won't quite cover the week's groceries. reviews don't pay as well as features, and neither pay that well over all. so it's about frequency. given the time on task to write these, it's very low pay but that's the nature of being a writer nowadays. i was somewhat reassured that the pay rate for kfm is only a little less than that of dog.

[Greg]

You don't have to tell me about the KFM pay rate. Granted, I am still dining out on my Ray Park cover shoot.

I hope your other gigs pan out to something more substantial.

[Drunk Monk]

Turns out KFM's writer compensation has a tad high given our circ. Our video/photo comp was low but that was because we had an in-house crew, or at least that was the claim.

[Drunk Monk]

My last scheduled webinar goes live in 4.5 hours. I'll be spending the afternoon prepping. 

The webinars have been good gigs. It's a bit unnerving to be in front of the camera for me, especially right now, and without any help but me and my laptop. But I made a few benjamins off each one. I hope there are more in the future.

[Drunk Monk]

Well, that went okay - better than the second one but not as good as the first. Now that it's done, I'm no longer beholden to the USAWKF, which is good because I've been at odds with that org since I became a publisher and doing these for them felt a bit like selling out. But it was funny too - they sent me a certificate of appreciation - just a color print out on slightly better stock - no foil or watermark. I texted it to Jr. Claw Jonny and we had a good chuckle over it. I'll probably give it to him later. 

Now I'm just juggling 4 jobs. Five Branches is my biggest. I'm a half time independent contractor and will be up for review at the end of this month. Hoping that goes full time. KFM (TC) is social media updates as a freelancer now. I'm on the board at Immortal and this one pushes me a lot because it's a lot of stuff I've never done before. And last but not nearly least, Den of Geek, which is strictly freelance. That pays the least but it's the most fun for me. All four of these are keepers, even if Five Branches goes full time. The rest then become side hustles.

[Drunk Monk]

Den of Geek, aka DoG, aka D' Geeks, aka The Den, just bit at another pitch of mine, and even suggested that I split it in two (which means twice the pay). So I've got 4 pieces in the works for them over the next week, along with a final review of the vid interview I did with Daniel Wu so long ago, which is finally coming around.

DoG published another piece of mine yesterday: https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-old...t-to-life/

Okay, I really need to get off DOOM and get to writing. Yo Muse! Bring me mah sammich! No? Well, okay dear. Whatever you say. Yes, I'll clean the bathroom first. And take out the trash. And walk the dog...

[Drunk Monk]

So now I'm tuned into a NCCAOM & ASA presentation on BLM issues for FBU. It's become an problem there with students rallying for BLM support. FBU is actually driven by people of color, just not the B color. One of my first tasks was to draft a statement about how FBU was addressing BLM issues. 

It reminds me of how we used to get complaints that we didn't run anyone but Asians on KFTC's covers. We were the only newsstand magazine to even run azns, save for when Yao Ming trended perhaps. The first speaker is pretty good but a tad academic. She mentioned the issue with 'oriental' which has always confused me (the O in NCCAOM stands for oriental). She's a good presenter though - she drops some nice analogies.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Crafting the diversity statement for the program H teaches in has been taking up her time this Summer. I hear about it a lot. Necessary, important work, but heavily nuanced with blindspots that are surprising

[Drunk Monk]

It's a complicated issue, made more complicated by scholarly analysis sometimes. That's how some of the presentation felt. At the same time, there were some thought provoking points. Someday, I'd love to get to know H. We've only met in passing - at Dan's memorial I think may have been it and I was in no position to engage someone new then. I'd love to pick her brains face2face on this as I'm being positioned as part of the FBU BLM task group. I'd also love to know what a Stanford instructor sees in a yeti maestro because that just seems out of his league.