I get email

You beast.  You lovely monster.  The three-headed gatekeeper of dreamlands.  I'm tempted to run from your nasty spell and cry myself silly until I don't believe in you anymore.  But you have seduced me with your conviction.  There is no arguing with your fervor.

My wife just came in and saw that paragraph and I'm sure freaked out a tiny bit as she calmly asked, "Who are you writing?"

I quickly explained how I read your article about why not to be a writer and how powerful and terrifying it was and that I needed to write you for my own sake and that it was not a love letter.  

She said as she smiled sweetly, "I know."

What does she know?  That I shouldn't be a writer?  That she thinks it's cute that I'm playing my writing games on the computer late at night?  That it actually is a love letter but not to susannahbreslin@gmail.com but to myself?

Well thank you Susannah Breslin for sliding a broken plate full of rusty knife points and dirty glass shards onto my seat cushion just as I was sitting down.

You are absolutely right.  I shouldn't be a writer.    

And yet, who should?

[redacted]

Diary of a freelancer

I'll be doing a new series on my Forbes blog this month: "30 Days of Freelancing."

I decided to do the series for a couple of reasons.

1) I didn't feel like I was getting enough done, and I wanted to get a bit more meta about the process.

2) I was focusing on getting less done, and I wanted a forum where I could explore that.

Those two things seem contradictory, but this is the nature of human existence.

Have you heard of the slow food movement? It’s part of the slow movement. Apparently, there’s something called the slow work movement. Pete Bacevice is its philosopher.

I decide I’m a recovering workaholic. The slow work movement will be my Alcoholics Anonymous. I will take 30 days to become a slower worker.

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Be a death revolutionary

My latest post on Forbes is an interview with Caitlin Doughty, who works with the dead.

You’re easy on the eyes. Do people ever get turned on because you work with the dead?

I get comments like, “You give [me] rigor mortis,” which are weirdly flattering but also totally skeevy. But sex and death, eros and thanatos, are two sides of the same coin.

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I get email

Hi and good morning!

I just finished reading you article (subject). It is very well-written but I think I have to raise to issues:

1. First, I have the feeling it is not complete, that more need to be discussed why I shouldn't be a writer.
2. I consider myself to be a freelance writer. To-date, aside from having ghost written a business school blog, I haven't had success in finding another writing assignment.

And it is giving me doubts.Can I write?

I know it sounds stupid, but how do I know if I can or cannot write in the eyes of others?

[redacted]

[VIDEO]

Meet a smut cutter

I dig this interview I did with AVN Hall of Fame porn movie editor Sonny Malone for my Forbes blog.

Do you ever get tired of watching people have sex?

Yes. I can’t lie there.

My home office is decorated with a lot of “Steamboat Willie” and Disney things. I sometimes need the distraction away from the sex.

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I get email

I hate your article about becoming a writer. I had my mouth open tasting words and picturing the good life I will enjoy as a writer. Just I was about to dive into absolute fantasy and dreamland of money everywhere , you walk up and dumped acid in my mouth with this article.

I will follow you on twitter however , don't know why but I am curious to see what else you have to say(LOL).

Thank you

[redacted]

Get that job

I interviewed the awesome Kelly Internets of The Daily What for my Forbes blog.

We discussed Colonel Meow.

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Don't be a boob

Read my latest post on Forbes: "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You More Creative."

The day after my last chemo treatment, I went to a porn convention and wrote about it. What was I thinking? I had to double-check the dates just now. I must have been out of my mind. I was very tired. And bald. But I had something to prove to myself. I was angry I had cancer. If I’d run into cancer at a bar, I would’ve beaten the crap out of it.

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This is obscene

Please read "The Obscenity Police Are Coming," my latest on Forbes.

Basically I got tired of writing shit advice posts on my Forbes blog. How to do this. How to do that. The only reason people write advice shit is because they don't know how to do the thing. So take heed when you take advice.

I wanted to stop doing that. Which wasn't a super easy choice. Because shit posts about stupid things tend to get you a lot of traffic. Then people write you emails telling you how inspired they were by your words. And before you know it, you are a shit-turner-outer. Because it gets you paid and it gets you appreciated. So why would you stop doing that?

Only that's not good enough. So I decided I would stop writing shit, and I would start working on getting better at doing journalism again. So I did that.

I wrote about cupcakes first -- "A Cupcake ATM Dispenses Love" -- because that was easy. I felt sort of intimidated -- intimidated by cupcakes: sigh -- so I told myself it was a photo essay. And I took a bunch of photos to distract myself. Then I told myself the text was just captioning for the photos. And then it was done. So I posted that.

Of course, that was sort of silly. So I wanted to do something more serious. So I wrote: "Is Apple a Sin Stock?" That intimidated me for other reasons. Because it was about finance. And I don't know anything about finance. Or Apple, really. Other than I use their products.

So when I called up, say, the portfolio manager, I wrote the questions out beforehand, and I didn't say much other than ask the questions, because I didn't want them to realize how much I didn't know. I ended up really liking the portfolio manager. He was interested in the ideas of things rather than numbers, and I liked that. We had something in common, which I did not expect.

I also talked to a priest for that piece. I asked the priest if something bad that had happened to me was because I had sinned, because I was a sinner. He said no. He said that can't be the case because bad things happen to babies, and what have they done wrong? He said why God makes us suffer is a mystery, and when he said this I understood that he meant pondering this question, why does God make us suffer?, was maybe the thrust of his life, and if maybe I spent the rest of my days pondering this question, that would be enough. Because there is no answer. Only the question.

Then I read about how Romney would maybe launch a war on porn if elected, so I decided to write about that. "The Obscenity Police Are Coming" is what I called it. Usually, I write the title first. This time, the title came later.

I talked to an anti-pornographer, and a pornographer who went to trial and got off. I talked to a lawyer who defended a man who dealt in scat and bestiality porn, and then I talked to the man who made the scat and bestiality porn.

That man is Ira Isaacs. I talked to Ira years ago, before his first trial had started. Now it was three trials and an appeal to the Supreme Court and four years later, and Ira had been convicted and was telling me how long his sentence might be.

I like Ira. I always have. I told Ira I would visit him in prison. And I meant it.

I also told Ira that I would let you know that if you want to donate to his defense fund, you can email him here: stolencarfilms@yahoo.com.

I also talked to a porn star and budding pornographer named Sovereign Syre. I couldn't link to her blog from my Forbes post because she posts too many sexy naked photos of herself, but you can look at her naked here. 

One of my favorite parts of the piece was the fact that photographer J.M. Darling allowed me to publish a photo he took of Sovereign at the top of my post. See. I think that photo made the piece. Thank you, Mr. Darling.

At first, the post didn't get a lot of traffic, but then it did, because it blew up on Reddit. Probably by the end of today it will be the all-time-most-read piece I've done for Forbes. So far it's gotten 153,000 views. At one point, it was the #1 most read post on Forbes.com. And another post I wrote, "The Hardest Thing About Being a Male Porn Star," was #3. 

Now I want to do more in-person reporting. The Apple piece and the obscenity piece were mostly phoners.

I am best in the flesh. So that's where I am going.

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Presented without comment

 

All Time Top Pages

1. The Business About My Breasts (157,970 views)
2. Adult director Max Hardcore released from prison (106,028 views)
3. The Hardest Thing About Being A Male Porn Star (98,264 views)

Is investing in Apple a sin?

Over on my Forbes blog, I ponder the question: "Is Apple a Sin Stock?"

This piece was really interesting to research. I particularly enjoyed talking to the Vice Fund manager and the Jesuit priest.

Suffice to say, I don't spend a lot of time hanging around portfolio managers or priests.

“If you take cigarettes from a smoker, and alcohol from a drinker, and an iPhone from what we might consider an over-user of Apple products, would the withdrawal behaviors be equal?” Sullivan wonders. “I think they could be.”

Hopefully, I'll be doing more of these types of pieces moving forward.

My next one is on Republicans, porn, and the future.

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I get email

I want to be a male pornstar, without having to be in gay porn, I dont care what it takes except being gay

[IMAGE]

Cupcakes

Yesterday, I went to exercise my journalism skills by covering a cupcake story. You can read about my good time here: "A Cupcake ATM Dispenses Love."

I was sort of ambivalent about doing this story. I mean, it's not porn journalism.

I wondered if doing it made me a pussy, or if I was getting soft, or what else I could ask someone who was trying to use a cupcake ATM.

But I think it came out, well, cute. I like the photos, particularly the one of the dog.

Last night I told my husband that it's all about repeating. Do it over and over and over again, until you can do it with your eyes closed.

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I get comments

This article is utter drivel. Writing is a skill like any other, it can be honed with practice. It is not always fun or easy or forthcoming, it’s work just like all work. And there are many ways to be a good writer. Someone might have skills at constructing a gripping narrative, and still struggle with the prose on a sentence level. Another writer might create elegant lyric prose, wich seems lovely for a while, but has a tendency to meander and never seems to arrive at any given point. Some writers are funny. Some writers have a flair for ambiance. The key to success is knowing one’s own strengths and using them to the advantage, and working to strengthen one’s weaknesses.

Besides wich, it’s a well understood fact that good writing does not always equal commercial or marketable writing. In fact, many of the books on the NY Times best seller list don’t really qualify as “Good” in an academic sense of the word. Does that mean they’re bad? Yes, but bad-in-the-best-way is often better then good, and certainly more profitable, at the very least.

But don’t get me wrong, it’s not easy. There is room for cautionary tales… but Lori Moore did it better. Less mean spirited, more humor, more honesty. But then again, she’s Lori Moore

@ Susannah Breslin: I’m honestly impressed that you have the audacity to say in an open letter to the public, where even you’re favorite writer of all time might stumble across your article and read the encouraging words: “Most people cannot write well, and that includes you, and what we can conclude from this is that the person we are talking about here who cannot write well is, in all likelihood, you.”

Well well well, that’s an awful bold thing to say, especially for someone who includes a link to her personal blog– where you post excerpts of your unpublished novel for all the world to read, and critique the questionable use of pronouns and self-conscious quirky style. So, “Congratulations on posting that blog post, finishing that manuscript, churning out that personal essay that is sitting on your desk, hard-drive, the internet. But,” maybe you should lay off the cautionary tales and the hate mail to new, young, and hopeful writers still in the process of “finding their voice” and focus on your own. Everyone will be better off, including you.

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Playboy

I interviewed the awesome Damon Brown about his new book, Playboy's Greatest Covers.

SB: Which cover is your favorite?

DB: Tough call, but I’d say the October 1971 issue featuring the nude African-American model in the white custom-made Playboy chair. From a composition standpoint, there is a great contrast between Darine Stern’s gorgeous dark brown skin and the chair’s stark Playboy ears. 

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Help me

Here's why no one wants to help you:

Nobody wants to help you. Not with that project. Not with that idea. Not with that challenge.

Is it them … or is it you?

Here are five reasons why no one wants to help you, and five ways you can get them to help you.

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This is cool

William Gibson tweeted a link to "The Porn Convention." He also included the hashtag "#pornstorm." Interesting.

The top 10

Here are the all-time top 10 posts on my Forbes blog, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

1. The Business About My Breasts (156,202 views)
2. Adult director Max Hardcore released from prison (102,011 views)
3. This Is Why Your Employees Hate You (90,220 views)
4. How to Get Married (72,198 views)
5. 9/11 Stories: 'No One Talks About That' (70,187 views)
6. The Worst and Best Advice I've Ever Gotten (66,306 views)
7. The Hardest Thing About Being A Male Porn Star (62,467 views)
8. How to Get a Job If You're a Twentysomething Woman (61,585 views)
9. Why I'm Unemployable (60,654 views)
10. A Porn Star Book Is Selling with a Bespoke Twist (54,293 views)

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Are you better at working or living?

I, for one, know the answer to that question.

Being a workaholic is a problem.

I work too hard, I stress too much, I put jobs ahead of things I shouldn’t.

I had a horrifying realization today: I am better at working than I am at living.

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Scanning

"How Porn Went from Boom to Bust" is like a preface for the story I'll be working on this weekend. Definitely stay tuned there for more to come.

Yesterday, I got scanned by this machine. You put your arms in the holders, and then they feed you in and out of the doughnut.

At the end, you lie there while a nurse dabs ink onto you and then pushes a needle in real quick.

"This is like a prison tattoo, right?" I asked.

The nurse laughed.

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