Out of Focus, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise
Last Monday, I attended a workshop set up by my fabulous state to kick-start my job search. Being a New Yorker, I walked in with an attitude (shocking, I know), thinking I knew everything there was to know. However, since I like to think I’m open-minded, I participated. I listened. I stayed for the next workshop on networking.
Part of the reason I stayed was the charm of the group leader. He’s part of an organization that donates these workshops on a pro-bono basis. It was more entertaining to be part of a workshop than to keep searching job-boards. It felt more business-like. It felt constructive.
He said my problem is a lack of focus. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this observation.
We went through the group and described the toughest problem we had ever solved. Here’s mine:
In 1990, when I started at DC Comics, I learned that, in November, on the same day, there was going to be a new Robin costume and Clark Kent was going to ask Lois Lane to marry him. This is a publicist’s nightmare, because it’s hard to promote more than one story at a time. The impact of each is diluted.
When I pointed this out, I was told not to worry about it. No one cared about Superman, they said. Sales of his titles were in the toilet, while Batman was a hot property. Tim Burton approved the Robin costume design. A new costume meant the issue would be a hot collectible.
I disagreed. I said that no matter how many people were currently buying the comic, the general public loves Superman. Because of the 1950s television show and the Christopher Reeve movies, the public feels like they have a relationship with the Man of Steel.
There was no money to promote the story. All the money was to be spent on Robin.
With no budget, I sent out the story as a press release to myriad news outlets. USA Today picked it up in the Lifelines column, and soon we were inundated with press. Mike Carlin made the first of what would be more than a dozen appearances on Entertainment Tonight.
As a result of my efforts, sales of the Superman comics went up. As a result of my efforts, Warner Bros. became interested enough in the characters to develop the “Lois and Clark” television series, which generated millions and millions of dollars for the company. As a result of my efforts, Terri Hatcher became a star, and today we have “Desperate Housewives.”
Oooops! Let’s step back a bit.
As a result of my efforts, Warner Bros. decided that Superman couldn’t get married in the comics until he was married on television, so DC had to kill him. The publicity generated by me with this story sold so many copies (and is still in print, still selling) that it set modern records.
I like to tell stories. I like to tell involved stories. I like conflict that reveals character development. I like to get a laugh. But what I’d really like is a job.
So, yes, I like to digress. I’m easily distracted by shiny things. I admire professional story-tellers who can use digressions to great artistic effect. It’s also a quality I seek out in my friends near and far.
In my pretentious youth, I thought that a great writer was distinguished by her ability to notice details. My favorite poets used the apt simile, the astonishingly revealing metaphor. In an attempt to become a great writer myself, I try to notice the small occasions. I’ll often get up from my computer screen to watch the sparrows look for nesting materials on my terrace, or see what kinds of vessels are navigating up the Hudson.
There are occasions when a lack of focus can be an advantage. I’m beloved by small children because I share their short attention spans. I get a lot of knitting done because I need to have at least three projects going at one time. I have more than 500 Facebook friends.
But I don’t have a job, and, with my birthday coming up next month, I’m aware that I don’t have an infinite amount of time to find one.
So I’ll try to hunker down.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go see what my cat is doing.
—
Media Goddess Martha Thomases was raised in an era when ladies never hunkered.
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March 28th, 2009 at 6:50 am
Ah yes, but you do have a view of the Hudson and a terrace with sparrows!
(BTW – I cared MUCH more about Superman than Batman and Robin. Still do, Heath Ledger notwithstanding.)
I wish I needed a publicist – I would hire you in a heartbeat -
March 28th, 2009 at 7:44 am
Your focus becomes your reality. If you focus on your lack of focus, it intensifies your lack of focus because that’s where you’re putting all your attention.
Focus on your positive aspects, your strengths, and on what you REALLY want in life. Not what others want you to do, not on what people tell you you should be doing, not on your problems.
If your favorite thing is publicity, focus on your strengths as a publicist. You have a good track record, as you’ve stated above, and you have good connections. You said you have more than 500 Facebook friends. If you just keep working those angles alone, that should be enough. Now combine that with your publicity skills to publicize YOURSELF the way you publicized other clients, you will succeed.
That is, if you really enjoy being a publicist. Maybe you enjoy something else more. Maybe you want to knit. Or write. Use the publicity skills to promote your knitting or writing.
I’ve found that whenever I pursue something I really love, I will have to make a hard choice. Do I love my health or do I love cookies? Do I want to do the kind of cartoons I love, or do I get a so-called “steady” job which will make me miserable and shorten my life span?
For me, it always comes down to one thing: Am I being consistent with the message I want my life to represent? When I’m dead in the ground, will my children say, “There was a man who stood by what he believed, no matter what the cost, and who never compromised his work even when what he had to say was unpopular.” Or will they say, “My dad taught me to give up on myself and do only what others say I should do, to back down when the truth was unpopular, to fear loss and cave in to bullies.”
That’s how I get focused when things get bad. You just have to figure out what the one thing is that matters, and if you lose everything else, you’ll be left with the one thing that matters to you.
Now get to work!
March 28th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Great article, it really caught my…oh look! A bird!
March 28th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Martha, this Kyle Baker guy you brag about so much: he makes a lot of sense.
Seems to me, we are blessed. Just a matter of perspective. You are one of the smartest, funniest, imaginative women I am so fortunate to know. As a fellow joblessgirl, I know how easy it is to become blobby. You have yet to succumb. May have your moments–nearly impossible not to. But I know you keep plugging.
I like what Kyle wrote and for me, the bottom line is belief in yourself. Yeah it helps to have others believe in you as well–and you do. Unfortunately, we can’t offer you much more than love and support–which I understand only goes so far. But, hey, there are plenty who lack even that.
You have 500 Facebook friends. I don’t know 500 people and may have only 5 friends. But you’re one of them and although it’s not a paying position, for me, that’s what matters most.
March 28th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
I’m amazed that DC would think the Robin costume was more important than Superman getting engaged. Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I am. By the way, Martha, thank you for making Desperate Housewives possible.
March 29th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Since separating from the Air Force in late 1998, I’m on my fourth job. The first I left on my own accord for a “better” position, only to be let go a few months later from the new job when the planned expansion fizzled out. After being unemployed for several months, I found a new position, and was there for more than a year. Unfortunately, then the company was purchased by a larger competitor, and during the first round of cuts, I was shown the door, along with a whole bunch of my co-workers. Even more unfortunate was the fact that we were all canned just about five weeks after 9/11 — right about the time the job market had imploded. Again, I was out of work — this time for about 3 1/2 months — before I found the job I have right now.
The point is that I went through all of the ups and downs one can experience in the job market, and while I can certainly empathize with you and my wife (who was just let go last month, out of the blue, unceremoniously, from a place she had been working for five years), nothing I say can really ease the pain and the self-doubt that comes with being out of work.
The best I can say is hang in there and keep trying, and know that those close to you are rooting for you every step of the way.
March 29th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
@ Kyle, R, pennie, swayze, Joe & Pat: Thanks for all the kind words. Perhaps we should all get together and put on a show?
March 31st, 2009 at 2:47 pm
I loved this piece. As I’ve said a million times ANYONE would be lucky to have you work with them.
“Lack of focus?” Funny-I was told by one of my instructors at Pratt Institute that I would never amount to anything and I was wasting his time.
Sooooo..when he was interviewing with me for a Art Directors position when I was President and CEO of Motown Animation and Filmworks I asked if he remembered what he said to me. He said no. I said “To bad I do.’
Some people just refuse to see any other way of looking at things except their own. You have a lack of focus like I have a desire to join the Klan.