My Mean Shrink Gave Me the Best Writing Advice Ever

Don’t pitch. Just write something that’s as good as you can make it.

When I was in my late 20s I went to a shrink in New York. This guy was kind of a dick. I thought he would be able to help me get my act together because I was afraid of him. I know, I’m an idiot. I know!

But there’s one thing he told me that I really wish I had listened to. I said I wanted to publish articles in better places. He said, write the article and then send it out to an editor. A whole article, I said. He said yes, a whole article. No, no, no, I said. You don’t understand my business. I have to pitch people. But everyone always says no.

Well if everyone always says no, he said, why don’t you try it another way?

But there is no other way! This is how it’s done, I said.

He just shrugged and we went back to talking about a bunch of crap that never amounted to anything.

So I continued to write for the places and the editors who would take my pitches and I never wrote anything I liked very much or got anywhere really. There is mostly nowhere to “get” as a writer—this business is extremely weird and getting weirder—but let’s just say there’s a place you really want to write for and you keep pitching them and they…