Strong Verbs Are Just Better

People adopt different styles of packing when leaving a place. There are the light-packers who just throw in a change of clothes, grab their smartphones and are good to go. These ones are eager to leave, discard accumulated memories, and make new memories in a new place. There are the heavy-packers who just jumble the whole lot into their traveling bag. These ones are either too clingy to want all the memories or are oblivious of the fact that memories are even stored in their belongings. The light-packers and heavy-packers do not waste so much time burrowing through piles of items. Then, there are the selective-packers, who comb through every item, mulling over what to keep or leave behind.

Even now I hear the words as shameful: Thirsty. Needy. The worst things a woman can be. Some days I still tell myself to take what is offered, because if it isn’t enough, it is I who wants too much. I am ashamed to be writing about this instead of writing about the whooping cranes, or literal famines, or any of the truer needs of the world.

My goal here was not to name and shame any publications, but to show others how the industry writ large does not take these concerns from freelancers about late payment seriously, even when we try to hold them accountable. Some of these responses show that publications don’t even see contracts as terms that are legally binding. It seems that we aren’t taken seriously until we are relentlessly persistent, or pull out the big guns by finding a lawyer who can speak on our behalf.
It goes to show how the industry continues to exploit freelancers and think that a note — “so sorry!” — is enough.
“So sorry!” doesn’t work when you don’t want to pay a late fee because your rent to your landlord is late.
Your credit card company doesn’t care for “so sorry!” when you pay your statement late; they will charge a penalty.
Some healthcare companies will even decline you service if you can’t pay your monthly premium on time.
During this time period when I was so diligently following up on my late payments, I wondered what happened in the ecosystem of journalism that created this expectation that freelancers would somehow be okay if they went months without getting paid. Perhaps it is an extension of the idea that only people who are financially privileged enough can be freelancers. Therefore, if a payment is late, that freelancer will have a cushion and will be okay.

On the day I finally submitted the first draft of my non-fiction book, Troll Hunting, to the publisher my mother called: ‘What a relief! You must be so thrilled.’
‘It nearly cracked me in half,’ I replied with a flat voice. My mother changed the subject.
Trying to understand this lethargy, this peculiarity, I scan my past for something that might match. Something that mirrors the apathy and unwillingness to do anything apart from aimlessly scanning Facebook. Lying in bed staring at the ceiling fan turning.

In a deep state of exhaustion and loathing, I explain that the war is not over. That it won’t be over for some time. What proceeds is a quarrel bet­ween me and him – an all-too-familiar cannibalisation between LGBTQIA+ community members due to a political move implemented by straight people.
Me, trying to get him to understand what it was like for trans and gender-­diverse communities to be thrown under the metaphorical bus by the ‘no’ crowd, and to not be rescued by the ‘yes’ team. Him, telling me that I need to have perspective, that everything comes with time, that I need to wait my turn.
I’m so tired by this point that diplomacy escapes me. I tell him to fuck off. I grab my bags, storm out of my workplace, and go home to cry and pack for my flight to Johannesburg.