Stu Ditzen: Passion Without Payback

Stuart Ditzen: Finding "immense enjoyment"

The words of Stu Ditzen were ringing in my ears as my husband and I toured the house we would buy within an hour. We had been looking for several months and Stu had told us we would know when we had found the right one.

"It will say 'Hello!' to you when you walk in," he had said.

That was more than 35 years ago. Back then, Stu and I were  reporters at the Philadelphia Bulletin (as in In Philadelphia, Nearly Everyone Reads The Bulletin.)

Luckily,  after The Bulletin folded in 1981, we were both hired by the Philadelphia Inquirer and our careers continued.

Now, in the 'unretiring' stage of our lives,  we caught up with each recently other over lunch.

I was surprised to learn that since leaving paid journalism a few years ago, Stu has written 30 short stories and is deep into his second novel. 

He's doing what he always wanted to do, he told me, following his passion, even though he has yet to get any of his creative work published.

What are his days like? I asked.

"I get up in the morning and I write for about 3 hours," he said. "Recently I’ve been writing short stories. I generally try to write a story in a month but that doesn’t always work out. And then between noon and one I hang it up, have lunch. My dogs are sitting there looking at me very expectantly so my next job is to take them for a walk,  a nice long walk. After that on a very good day – fortunately I have a lot of good days –I come home, get a good book, sit down in a very comfortable leather chair and start reading,  And probably take a nice nap. That’s the day.  I love it. Wonderful routine."

I remember the care that Stu would put into his writing, and his ability to elegantly prune stories to their essence -- and the time he bailed me out of a difficult editing situation. I'd been asked to edit a complicated legal story written by someone whose reporting skills far exceeded his ability to write. The verbiage was out of control, the point buried in boredom.  I couldn't see my way through the thicket and asked Stu to rescue me and rewrite it. As I knew he would, he came back with a story about one-fourth as long. From the clutter, he had pulled the diamond out of the rough.

But whereas Stu's reportorial gems regularly made their way into the newspaper, his current  work --the culmination of his career -- now remains hidden from public view. His literary agent, while loving his stories, hasn't been able to land him a publisher. The rejections keep coming.

Why, at a time of life when you can simply feel good about yourself, would you want to hold your work up to such hurt? 

The pleasures, for Stu, far outweigh the disappointments.

"You have to try to keep working at trying to get published and dealing with the frustration of being rejected and not getting published and trying to set the disappointments and sometimes the depression of that issue aside and just keep focusing on the pleasure of writing. Because there’s immense enjoyment and fulfillment in writing when you do it successfully, when you’re satisfied with what you’ve done --a good story, a well-written story," he explained. 

"You feel that intrinsic internal sense that you’ve really done the best you can do with a wonderful story. But of course you’d like to get it published.  You want somebody else to read it.

Tonight, I read one of his pieces.  A couple unable to find closure after a terrible and mysterious loss, years before. A sister's disappearance. A child's dementia. And a couple left searching. Wondering. Trying to find a way back to each other. An endless loop.

Like my house that said "Hello!" to me, the story and its telling spoke to me, stuck with me.

Another story involves a bizarre wedding crasher and a deeply personal conversation that you might only have with strangers -- another tale that stays with me.

Stu can't share his stories on line until the contract with his agent expires in a few months. 

Let me know, though, if you'd like to read one. 

Email me at dottyinky@gmail.com

Polio: A Journalist's Frustration; The World's Failure

Polio leaves victims as beggars. Photo by Peter Tobia

As a journalism student, I once heard a former newspaper editor talk about his frustration that after many years of exposes, hammering at corruption and social ills, the same problems continued. And so, when that "been there, done that" feeling swept over me.  I knew it was time for me to leave daily journalism as well.
The issue of eradicating polio is one of those that I helped to champion. The world thought it was near the brink of success back in 1999.  That didn't happen but -- good news -- as I reported recently in writing about former Mayor Michael Bloomberg's crusade to do the right thing -- the United Nations declared polio vanquished in India just in March.
Now, though, we are back to the past. Today, the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency around polio. Fifteen years after India was thought to be the last holdout of the virus, polio  is now found in 10 countries. Pakistan, where health workers doing rural vaccinations have been murdered, is a particular hotspot. Of the 74 cases of polio reported globally so far this year, 59 have been in Pakistan. Syria and Cameroon are also high on the list. A total of 417 cases were reported overall last year.

Lest we forget what polio looks like and the horrendous toll it takes, here are photos taken by Peter Tobia, when he worked with Huntly Collins on a series I edited for the Philadelphia Inquirer. The project took them to India to document efforts to finally wipe the scourge from the planet. Maybe some day….

By the way, Huntly reflected on her own transition on leaving the Inquirer here.

And you can read the polio series she wrote here: 

A Trek to A Remote Holdout

In India, a Surgery that Saves

A Rotary Club mission

Memories of Iron Lungs

Post-Polio Syndrome

What Eradication will Mean

(

Avery Rome: Call it a "Gap Year!"

Avery Rome: On a 'Gap Year'

I ran into a former colleague a few months ago – a woman who for many years held a top editing job at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Avery Rome had decided to take a buyout about a year after I did, and I asked her what she was doing.

She said she was trying out all kinds of things – working in a community garden to raise fresh crops for a local food cupboard, studying Russian drama, taking Coursera classes (on movies, ancient Greece and the modern novel)  --  and loving it.

“I’m really curious about things I haven’t done,” she said.

When she told friends who were still working what she was up to, they didn't say much. Maybe they couldn't connect. And so, Avery explained, “I’ve recently come up with the phrase for what I'm doing. It's ‘a gap year.’ That,” she said, “people can relate to.

“Sometimes I think people who are still working scroll through what you’re telling them and ask themselves, ‘Would I do that? Would I do that?’ If what you’re doing doesn’t interest them, they change the subject.

“Starting a new career or teaching literacy might explain my not being a journalist, but lollygagging is hard to understand.”

Here’s some of what Avery is loving about her gap year.

Gardening, for one.  “I find it a great meditation and I think about all kinds of things. I just love getting that close to nature, learning about bugs and plants. I love using my hands now. A part of me just wants to do physical things.”

Less stress is another. Like so many of us, she poured herself into the survival of her company. “I like not worrying about how to hold the paper up,” she said.

Having what she calls “loose days.”

“Loose days mean you can go and help out your kids or your grandkids. I have a friend whose husband is ill. I spend time with her. I show up. That freedom to be charitable, if you will, to be giving rather than receiving is a great joy.”

Giving herself permission to indulge in ways she hasn’t before. Like not necessarily getting up early. And having time to read the paper before the day starts. Or watching movies any time.

“The Coursera movie course, called The Language of Hollywood: Storytelling, Sound and Color, was great. It gave me license to watch movies in the middle of the day,” she said. “You can’t drift like this when you’re raising kids or paying off a mortgage. This leisure is a gift of this time of your life. I see daylight more than I have in the last 34 years. I’m much more aware of the weather. My life now would be really boring to someone who is driven, someone who’s a high achiever. So I back off in those conversations and I just ask them about themselves.”

What’s next for Avery when her gap year ends, if it ever does?

Avery says she might get involved in politics, supporting candidates who could do a better job. Or study to be a master gardener. And she has by no means abandoned her craft. She will be teaching a writing course this spring at the University of Pennsylvania, where she has long taught. And she wouldn't walk away from a big project.

“The whole thing is finding the balance. If you float too much, you think why aren’t you busier? I don’t know what we’re measuring ourselves against.”

A Pope's Gutsy Choice: Would You Do the Same?

Pope Benedict XVI: Time to say "Vale!"

The Pope has given us pause. When is it time to step out of a job? Why did he decide to toss his lifetime gig? Illness is cited as a reason. Also, and perhaps more importantly to him: the inability to meet his own high standards. Pope Benedict XVI is leaving before the world realizes it's time for him to quit, before he disappoints himself or is an embarrassment to the Church.

Even those still functioning at peak performance struggle with the decision to pack in a career. Also, the timing and manner of that departure are critical to how they feel about themselves afterwards, not to mention their transition to something else.  

Here are some previous posts on the question of when to leave a job and the emotions surrounding it:
On leaving at the top of your game: Elaine Woo
On leaving when you don't want to: Sofia Escobar
On the difficulty of taking a buyout: a blog about my own decision
And here's a study of contrasting decisions (or lack thereof) and their life-and-death consequences : Happy Fernandez and Ariel Sharon, in The Forward

If you're reading this on a phone and wish to subscribe to this blog or comment, please go to www.unretiring.blogspot.com

UnRetiring: Surprising Stories of a New Generation

Leaping into new adventures

A year ago this month, I “retired”  from  my lifelong career in newspapers. I left filled with the anxiety common to my generation.

What would I do? Who would I be?

Like a move to a new city, people said, “Give it two years. You’re in transition.”

To what? And why wait?

I decided to do what journalists do: I began to interview others who were going through what I was going through – the transition from career to what I call the “next great thing.”

 And because I cringe at the word “retired,” I called my blog “UnRetiring.”

This new stage of life is in the spotlight now. It’s new because so many people are living healthy so much longer. Just as adolescence now seems to stretch to age 30 or so, “middle age” is creeping into Medicare land. And it’s exploding because the Boomers, the oldest of whom are 66, are now stepping into it.

Over the year, I have been surprised by the ways people are reinventing themselves as well as by their range of emotions.

I’ve talked with people who feel guilty if they’re not somehow contributing to bettering the world. And others who feel totally guilt-free, thrilled to be mostly just improving themselves. I’ve learned how much harder it is to enter this stage of life if you were forced out of the old one through a downsizing; the ego bruising lingers on. And I’ve laughed a lot, learning about late love affairs and unlikely leaps.

Speaking of leaps, I’ve been advised to be mindful of plunging in and to learn to say “no.” Instead, in exploration mode,  I’ve said “yes” to almost every idea that’s come my way, creating exhaustion and exhilaration.

Rick Cooper -- playing with locks

The number of people who worry for years about leaving their careers, even as they crave doing so, surprised me. I don’t know why it surprised me, since I endlessly had the same debate with myself – until I finally left, after 30 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer. .

Once on the other side, I found that organizations have sprung up around the country to help people who want meaning in their lives to find ways to do so. And I’ve also found people in transition eager to talk-- one on one, in small living room groups, and through this blog.

Today, in the first installment for philly.com, I’ll share the story of Rick Cooper, a New Hampshire locksmith I met by chance one dark and dreary night. My interviews will run daily through this Friday, then weekly on Mondays
http://unretiring.blogspot.com/2012/07/rick-rescues-damsel-in-distress.html

Read past interviews and get a glimpse of Dotty Brown’s own transition over the past year at www.unRetiring.blogspot.com

More on the Dreaded "E" word ...

Since I chastised the Philadelphia Inquirer the other day for calling "elderly" a feisty 66-year-old who held on to her money while being pummeled by a mugger, I got a copy of its stylebook entry for the word.

A newspaper's stylebook is where --after painstaking thought and consultation with many --

it documents guidelines for reporters' usage of all kinds of words and phrases. The Inquirer's stylebook was launched and carefully nurtured over a couple of decades by Gene Foreman, who was also a stickler for ethics and went on to write "The Ethical Journalist: Making Responsible Decisions in the Pursuit of News."

So what do you think of The Inquirer's stylebook entry below? Is mid-70s "elderly?" (I recently wrote about a man nearing 70 who called himself "middle aged." ) How old do you have to be to be elderly? 

Were my parents "elderly" when in their 70s, they brought their skis through customs and the customs official laughed and, in disbelief,  asked. "What are those?" (Whether elderly or not, they were insulted.)

Is "senior citizen" better?

Got better words for the media to use? Please let me know so we can nudge them in that direction.

elderly Avoid the uncalled-for use of this term. See senior citizens.   Edit   |   Delete

---

senior citizen Use this term only when referring to people of general retirement age, in the mid-60s, or older. Elderly and elderly people also may be used when referring to people in the mid-70s or above - but because these terms can connote frailty, be cautious in employing them.


P.S.  The reporter who wrote about the 66-year-old being mugged did break the style book rules.

Will you know when it's time?

Courtesy of Philadelphia Magazine

How will you know when it’s time to leave a job?  This is a question I mulled over for many years as I turned down one buy-out after another at my ever-shrinking newspaper. 

Was I still having fun? How much did I need the money? And, critically, what would I do with myself?
These were some of the things I asked myself each time the owners ordered up a “reduction in force.”

During one of those moments of indecision, I talked with a friend who worked for a medical foundation about what her job was like. We spoke for an hour and then suddenly she confessed:   “You have the job I always wished I could have.”

That clinched my decision for that go-round.

Over the years, I consulted so many friends, that they got sick of hearing me talk about it. After one buy-out period in 2000, when I finally decided to stay, one friend sent me flowers. The note said:

"Congratulations. And now, will you please shut up."

Time passed. The newsroom staff shrank from over 600 to about 240 in 10 years. Some of those who left were my friends. For Arlene Morgan,  an exciting job offer at Columbia University's School of Journalism landed just as she had lost faith that management had a vision for the future. She's now an associate dean running numberous exciting projects and programs.   Another friend couldn't shake her anger about the direction of her department. She went off to teach and write. And a third friend, Jane Eisner, also reached her bolting point, despite a well-read national column. She is now winning prizes as editor of  the Forward.

For those who stayed, the hours got longer and everyone had to shoulder more weekend shifts.

Still, we all felt we were serving democracy and bettering our community through our journalism. I loved mentoring reporters and helping them do their best work. And they voiced their appreciation. On balance, I was happy every day to get up and go to work.

But with last October's buyout -- which cut another 18 newsroom positions -- my gut told me that it was time.  I felt bottled up -- my creative juices no longer had an outlet.

One of my joys over nearly three decades had been the ability to quickly take an idea from brainstorm to print, often sparking an immediate public reaction. In a small way, I was making a difference.

But by last year, while I was still having fresh, exciting, important ideas,  there were no longer enough reporters to execute them. I was a conductor without an orchestra, an inventor without a tool shop, an artist out of paint.

Three months later, I can be as creative as I want every single day. My step is light (as is my wallet), but my heart is heavy for those who continue to do the hard and important work of journalism under ever more trying conditions. This week the publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and its joint web site, Philly.com, ordered that another 37 positions be eliminated through buyouts -- at least initially. That’s several hundred people weighing their futures and trying to make a decision.

I wish them well. Each will surely know, in his or her gut, whether it's time to take that leap to the (hopefully) next great thing.
What are your thoughts on when it is time to leave?  Email me at dottyinky@gmail.com and I'll blog about your answers, or comment below.