love this interview with Hairpin editor Edith Zimmerman

Very good instincts. So what was the very first meeting like with Choire and Alex?
I didn’t meet with them until the whole thing was set in stone. It was mostly [former Awl publisher] David Cho I was dealing with. I was friends with Alex from before, and I was email friends with Choire. And then it got started, and then finally I did have a sit-down with Alex about the site, because I was freaking out because this all happened to incredibly fast. I was just afraid of embarrassing myself. I was like “What do I do? How do I do this? Oh my God!” And they gave me few pointers, but for the most part they didn’t give me any help, which at first was incredibly scary, but now I’m really grateful for that. Because if I had been waiting for everyone’s approval on everything, I would have never have become confident in my ability to put it together.

….

So the chief danger in this line of work is getting burned out from the grind.
Yeah, it got pretty grim. Relatively grim. Jesus Christ!

You can say “grim,” it’s okay.
It was tricky, because it was such an adrenaline rush and so exciting at the beginning, because it was like this could be the worst and it could be really professionally embarrassing for me if this just sucks. For the first few months it was like really, really long days but not because I felt I had to, but just because there was no other option. That was the only way to do it. I was just compelled to do that. And there was just not very much sleep, and there were a couple spots where I was feeling really tired. And it was just coming out in my writing, I could hear it, and I was annoying myself. I didn’t like anything, which is a drag when you’re supposed to be writing 10-15 things a day and making people interested in things that you find interesting, and I just didn’t give a shit about anything, and I was tired.

How many items were you doing a day at Vulture?
At Vulture, I was writing about between 10 and 20 little posts a day. So it would be like a YouTube clip with a title and one-liner. Totally doable. But then I was trying to write longer stuff for The Hairpin.

And it’s all you — it’s not just the faceless blogger and the news cycle bullshit.
And editing other people’s stuff. So I got kind of burned out, but now everything is perfect because Jane and I both do it. That was life-changing. I have to remember what other things I do — I finished at 3 and I have no idea what else to do with myself.

Well, now you administrate, you supervise.
I go to the gym, I have hobbies and stuff. I have no idea.

(Source: Blackbook)