As a freelance writer, the ability to do things quickly is hugely beneficial. Time is money, especially when positive financial outcomes are tied to output. When you’re getting paid by the article, well, you do the math. Show me a successful modern freelancer writer and I’ll show you someone who can write, or at least think, quickly. (This only applies to freelancers in today’s broken media environment, not the scribes of yore writing three articles a year for Tina Brown’s Vanity Fair.)
At Three Point Four Media, we’ve had to adapt to the idea that speed is not our friend. The metabolism of what we’re doing is just slower. Replies take longer. Yeses or nos arrive eventually and randomly. Earlier this week, we found out a project we had been talking about for 18 months feel through, which is a bummer, but it’s also not a total no because there’s some other avenue the client can go down with another branch of the organization, so check back in six months or a year from now and maybe there will be some good news.
Sometimes you gotta just go hit golf balls and wait for things to happen.
This all felt profound when I was thinking about it in the shower a couple days ago. Now that it’s down on the page, less so. But I’m not re-doing this intro. Slowing down is important; so is maintaining positive momentum.
An article
Billionaires buying mountain ranges seems like a bad trend. Also, this:
According to The Crazies, a forthcoming book by Wall Street Journal reporter Amy Gamerman, Leuschen has a mirrored trailer at the ranch where he artificially inseminates cows himself using the world’s most expensive bull semen. Gamerman said Leuschen enjoys “telling people that he had fathered more than 3,000 babies this way” while blasting “Love Shack,” by the B-52’s, on the trailer’s sound system. (Leuschen denied Gamerman’s claims.)
Love a good parenthetical denial.
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A project
We’re in talks with a company about helping them with their launch plan. Brand book, logo, talking points, the works. When we first heard about the project from a friend, it was one of those things I thought had about a 0.1 percent chance of coming together. After our intro meeting, we sent them a thoughtful (if I do say so myself) email about their timeline (aggressive!), some ideas we had about how to make things actually happen, and a scope of work. Expectations: low. But they replied positively, and there’s a second meeting on the books. We love meetings.
A great moment in small business development x newsletter fodder.
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A show
I find this show hilarious although, as we have previously discussed, my bar for entry is quite low.
The series follows Daniel, the first assistant director (1st AD), as he deals with the day to day problems working on Tecto: Eye of the Storm, which is a minor film in the franchise compared to the higher priority "team-up" film, Centurios 2.
Thanks Wikipedia.
The tagline is “Welcome to a set full of setbacks,” which is awful. The supporting cast—Daniel Brühl, Richard E. Grant, and Aya Cash finding something do to after the underrated You’re the Worst—is fantastic. There’s a subplot about the star of the film worried he’s turning into a sheep. Each episode is like 22 minutes. Give it a try. If you don’t like it, I’m sorry.
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A video
We talked about this back in August, but American marathoner Clayton Young returns with another docuseries. This one follows his journey building for and running the New York City Marathon, the world’s best racing experience and worst actual race. The title sponsor switched from Asics, a brand most people know, to Stryd, a brand most people don’t, so there’s a bit more explanation and selling in this one than the previous series. It’s amazing someone so chill can run so fast. A lesson there, perhaps. I do really hope he and his training partner, Conner Mantz, can compete in NYC. That would be cool as hell.
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A run
Bill is in town for meetings and book parties and other important things so we took the opportunity to get some miles into the legs. We went up the east side of Manhattan, which is fully under construction but going to be amazing whenever it’s finished. Some very narrow pathways right now. Outside some hotel, we jogged through a group of 50 people armed with smiles and Coors Light 18-packs, undoubtedly on the way to be a problem at some college football tailgate. Then we hit Sobaya for lunch. Heck of a start to a Saturday.
Thank you for reading this far. Another edition drops in a fortnight.