Volume 18: London Calling
What it's like to working with an editor across the pond and how I'm still struggling to tell this story the right way.
Good evening RPR readers,
When I was in eighth grade, my teacher, the great Lynn Heinley (Sp?), had a subscription to Newsweek. I don’t remember much of what I read in the magazine, but I do remember starring at the photos and trying to obsessively draw caricatures of the characters from the O.J. trial—especially Lance Ito and Mark Fuhrman.
Fast-forward nearly three decades later, and I’m writing an essay for that very same publication. I wrote a piece for My Turn, a section that features stories from a people ranging from unknowns (me) to people who used to be famous (Rikki Lake) or who are currently D-listers (Sister Jean).
You can read it here.
The article I originally turned in had the placeholder headline*, “Hurricane Ida flooded my home and nearly broke me -- I was one of the lucky ones.” In the essay, I basically tried to do what I’ve been doing since I started writing this newsletter: Honestly and accurately convey my personal experience with a natural disaster in a way that helps me process all the underlying feelings and emotions swirling around in the chaotic sea of my subconscious—and hopefully connects and/or entertains a few people in the process.
But like everything I’ve written so far about this experience, the finished product winds up being well short of what I intended. The Newsweek essay isn’t bad, and I’m proud of the finished product and happy for the publication. But it doesn’t quite do what I was hoping it would. (If you’re looking for a My Turn essay that does hit the way it’s supposed to, check out Amy Ettinger’s moving essay here.)
I’ve told the surface story about the flood, and the rebuild so many times by now that I kind of go on autopilot when I say things, “and then we lifted the kids out of the window …” One thing I haven’t done, however, is really delve into what it feels like to have your illusions of control obliterated by the power of nature. There’s a huge part of me right now that sees only worst-case scenarios in everything. I touched on that feeling a little bit in this essay, but I didn’t get it quite right. Always next time …
(*Writers rarely get the choose the headlines of their stories. Instead, a group of savvy editors generally picks a formulaic, click-through ready headline geared toward an algorithm that gives it the best chance of going viral. I will say this about the Newsweek team — they were kind enough to take my suggested edit to their desired headline — Our Home Was Flooded After a Hurricane. We Were Trapped Inside. — when I told them that we weren’t actually trapped.)
Robots reading my stories
A few unique things about working on this story:
The editor I worked with was from London, which made for an interesting experience since that city is five hours ahead of us. For instance, one day I got an email mid-morning asking if I could make changes by the end of the workday in London, leaving me scrambling to send something over by noon my time.
I think this is the first of the articles I’ve written that has that weird “Listen to the Article” button at the top. I really wish they would’ve just asked me to read because the narrator they have sounds like an AI Sam Harris.
Not sure what they of relationship Newsweek has with with local newspapers, but this got picked up in least a dozen of them, including The Sun-Herald, Fresno Bee, Kansas City Star and more than two dozen others.
Most of my original draft made it into the finished essay, but my ending cut axed (right call, too, based on the style of site). Here’s how it initially ended:
The flood insurance we’ve added should protect us financially, but I worry about whether I can withstand hit emotionally.
This isn’t just my reality. Extreme weather events are fast becoming the norm throughout the U.S. In fact, on the same day that Ida shattered decades-old flooding records in where I live, a tornado — a rare phenomenon in Pennsylvania — touched down in a neighboring town. An analysis of the summer of 2021 found that nearly 1 in 3 Americans lived in a county hit by a weather disaster. Last year was even worse, with natural disasters displacing 3.4 million people in the U.S. alone.
These alarming statistics are often used to tell the story of the rapidly accelerating effects of climate change — and for good reason. But it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that within these data points are scores of personal stories just like mine — many of which don’t turn out nearly as well in the end.
Bilski’s Bits
A classic feel-good campaign speech. Every time I’m having a really bad day and I need a laugh, I turn to this video by Stark County Treasurer candidate Phil Davidson, and it never fails. Most of the world has seen this, but if you haven’t, you really owe it to yourself to check it out.
An perspective-shifting memoir. When Breath Becomes Air isn’t new, but I just got around to reading it. I could try to describe it, but I may as well leave it to the pros: At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.
Books & Biceps. Like the name of author Jon Finkel’s newsletter suggests, this weekly newsletter gives you book recommendations and workout routines — all in under five under minutes. I highly recommend it.
That’s a wrap
And as always, feel free to leave your in the comments section (or in any post) or email me directly at jrdbilski@gmail. Finally, if you’re enjoying what you read, consider sharing with others using either of buttons below my signature.
Til Next Time,
Jared
Enjoyable to read
Always good read 📚 ❤️