WHY FREELANCE (SCIENCE) WRITERS GET NO RESPECT

by Steve Nadis

In Cambridge, MA, where I live, everyone’s a potential freelance writer. It’s an easy job to stick on your resume if you don’t have to make a living at it, since there’s always the chance that someday you might actually write something. Until that happens, the pressure’s off, since no one is waiting for that story anyway. It’s tougher when your livelihood depends on this trade—especially with a few needy kids in the picture. The writing part is hard enough, but then you’ve got to deal with all the doubters who are convinced you’re a lazy bum who’s never worked an honest day in his life. This persistent lack of respect makes the job even harder, which is why a support network is critical.

As novelist John Gardner wisely put it, “Every writer needs people who believe in him, give him a shoulder to cry on, and value what he values.” The same is true of science writers who—for various psychoanalytical reasons I won’t go into right now (and which do not, by the way, involve the word “anal”)—need more support than most writers, who, in turn, need more support than most civilians.

But getting that support, the edifice upon which all science writing rests, is no easy task. My parents, for instance, are delighted to see one of my articles in print, especially when it doesn’t appear in a porno mag or journal about Motorcycle Mamas. But they still can’t stop asking, “When are you going to get a real job?”

It’s a constant refrain. Relatives routinely ask whether I’ve started working or if I’m “still taking it easy” (23 years later). My father’s friends also say things like: “You’ve got the right idea, taking your retirement early.”

Acquaintances, likewise, feel free to barge in on me at any time, with little heed to the vital work they might be interrupting. They see the TV on and assume I’m “goofing off,” without considering for a second that I’m in the midst of important research on daytime viewing habits. The sad truth is that the average person has no idea of what it takes to be a science writer and the grueling labor involved.

My so-called “working” friends share these misconceptions. The other day, after doing weights, swimming, and rollerblading along the river, I needed a minute to collect my thoughts for an essay about putative black-hole sightings in a western suburb. So I stopped for carrot juice and a charred muffin at a local caffeination outlet, where I bumped into Joe, a carpenter and neighborhood gadfly I know through volleyball circles. “What are you up to?” he asked with a knowing wink. “Just screwin’ around?”

I could have explained to him that I was working on a challenging (and potentially award-winning) piece—thinking, cogitating, letting ideas percolate in my head until they spill naturally, irrepressibly onto the parchment (pavement?). But what’s the use?

If only people would heed the words of writing guru William Zinsser—“It’s hard work.” A statement that applies to science writing, as well as to lesser forms of prose. But trying telling Joe I had to spend two weeks in Ixtapa for an article about the effects of El Niño on beach erosion. He’d probably just laugh. Or pull that infuriating wink. So what if, two years later, I still haven’t written that article? It’s in the back of my head, somewhere, and someday I just might get around to it.

So far, I’ve only discussed the science writer and his relationship to normal, everyday citizens—the kind of folks you might see huddled in a back alley (note: Has anyone ever seen a front alley?) or standing up at a bingo parlor to shout whatever it is you’re supposed to shout when you get “bingo!” (By the way, is it correct usage to say “bingo parlor,” or should I stick with the more conventional term, “bingo hall”?) It is, of course, essential for a science writer to earn the respect of those around him. Not only his colleagues in this rarified field, but also the readers who make the whole enterprise worthwhile and enliven magazines with trenchant questions about why the sky is blue and other equally provocative quandaries.

There is, however, another kind of respect that is even more important: I’m talking about self respect. If a science writer doesn’t have enough dignity to value his own work, how can he expect others to care? Furthermore, he won’t have the drive needed to get through the arduous daily tasks—like going to the beach (to study dune ecology), playing volleyball (to test principles of complexity theory), participating in the science writer support groups held at virtually every neighborhood bar, and joining the daily literary luncheons—obligations that every serious practitioner must attend to. Lacking the will to meet these commitments, the would-be science writer ought to throw in the towel straight off and become a Maytag repairman. Or, better yet, sign up for one of those no-show patronage jobs I’m always hoping for.

On the other hand, for those of us truly committed to the craft—who aren’t ready to exchange the aforementioned responsibilities for a regular 9-to-5 job—a vast world awaits us, ripe with possibilities. Bolstered by the approval of his peers and his own self-confidence, there’s no limit to what a science writer can do. He could write about science, which is the obvious thing to do, and the approach taught at most science journalism schools. The true artist, however, writes about science writing itself, which is the genre’s purest form and the one thing the public is really clamoring for.

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Steve Nadis lives in Cambridge, MA and writes about science writing. He also writes about science and has been published in Scientific American, Nature, Science, New Scientist, and Technology Review.