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Great questions. I have a base rate I don’t go under and my editors know this so they don’t offer me less, and if it’s more legwork or word count or whatever, I ask for more, every time… depending on the publication. I don’t know, I don’t really negotiate? Like…either they take my pitch, at my rate, or they don’t, I can find another place to publish it. I love saying no to people to be honest. I consistently write high traffic stories for whatever publication I write for and I have a very specific lane, so it’s like…whatever. So if they can’t meet my rate and I don’t think it’s worth the “exposure” I just don’t bother. I write less for the internet more and have other projects that pay better, so I can work on my own terms. I think the most important thing is to have a network of people who can watch out for you - disclose your rates at publications and between editors to the people you trust, because there have CONSISTENTLY been times when my trans friends, my friends of color, have been offered like, 20% of the rates the white women or I get at a publication. When that happens I stop writing for those places, or I tell them to ask for more. It’s really important to look out for one another. In general, every place is varying levels of garbage so you gotta know which is less flaming trash and more liveable.
I would check in on rates every six months or so, once you’ve consistently “proven” your traffic, skills, whatever. Budgets change, things get moved around for ‘the right’ people.
Precisely:
The historical burden of womanhood might seem, to an outside observer, an especially heavy one. I suspect that many of the male writers who profile women are in awe of their subjects’ tenacity. Maybe that’s why so many of them get hung up on femininity. They could be enlightened, egalitarian men who love to see women succeed; they might find it inspiring that, as the old chestnut goes, Ginger did everything Fred did, but backwards and in high heels. But this fascination often oversteps its boundaries, turning profile subjects into curiosities, even though the most interesting thing about any person has never been her gender.
The spread of the black death.
Poland
Poland, tell us your secret.
Poland is the
oldnew Madagascar.If I remember correctly, Poland’s secret is that the jews where being blamed all over europe (as usual) as scapegoats for the black plague. Poland was the only place that accepted Jewish refugees, so pretty much all of them moved there.
Now, one of the major causes of getting the plague was poor hygiene. This proved very effective for the plague because everyone threw their poop into the streets because there were no sewers, and literally no one bathed because it was against their religion. Unless they were jewish, who actually bathed relatively often. When all the jews moved to Poland, they brought bathing with them, and so the plague had little effect there.
Milan survived by quarantining its city and burning down the house of anyone showing early symptoms, with the entire family inside it.
I reblogged this tons of times, but the Milan info is new.
Damn Italy, you scary.
Poland: “Hey, feeling a bit down? Have a quick wash! There, you see? All better”
Milan: “Aw, feeling a bit sick are we? BURN MOTHERFUCKER, BURN!!!!!”
Also, this might have something to do with it: from what I understand, O blood type is uncommonly… common in Poland. Something to do with large families in small villages and a LOT of intermarriage. The black plague was caused by a bacterium that produced, in its waste in the human body, wastes that very closely mimic the “B” marker sugars on red blood cells that keep the body from attacking its own immune system. Anyone who has a B blood type had an immune system that was naturally desensitized to the presence of the bacterium, and therefore was more prone to developing the disease. Anyone who had an O type was doubly lucky because the O blood type means the total absence of ANY markers, A or B, meaning that their bodys’ immune system would react quickly and violently against the invaders, while someone with an A may show symptoms and recover more slowly, while someone with B would have just died. Because O is a recessive blood type, it shows in higher numbers when more people who carry the recessive genes marry other people who also carry the recessive gene. Poland, which has a nearly 700 year history of being conquered by or partnering with every other nation in the surrounding area, was primarily an agricultural country, focused around smaller, farming communities where people were legally tied to, and required to work, “their” land, and so historically never “spread” their genes across a large area. The economy was, and had been, unstable for a very long period of time leading up to the plague, the government had been ineffective and had very little reach in comparison to the armies of the other countries around for a very very long time, and so its people largely remained in small communities where multiple generations of cross-familial inbreeding could have allowed for this more recessive gene to show up more frequently. Thus, there could be a higher percentage of O blood types in any region of the country, guaranteeing less spread of the illness and moving slower when it did manage to travel. Combine this with the fact that there were very few large, urban centers where the disease would thrive, and with the above facts, and you’ve got a lovely recipe for avoiding the plague.
Interestingly enough, as a result from the plague, the entirety of Europe now has a higher percentage of people with O blood type than any other region of the world.
WHY IS THIS ALL SO COOL
When Tumblr teaches you more about the plague than 12 years of school ever did.
Just to throw a nod in, as a medieval historian, this is all credible, and is the leading theory as to the plagues effectiveness at this point. So. Enjoy your new knowledge!
Diseases are weird.