After a bout of writer’s block and much thought, I’ve decided the best solution to cure the struggles with feeling insecure about my writing and trying to get published and explore other writing opportunities is quite simple: more writing. It’s sortof like that Pepto Bismol commercial where a girl calls a help center because her friend is having a cherry overload and the customer service rep says the solution is more cherry. Or maybe I watch too much television.
I made some pretty aggressive resolutions this year in terms of my writing and I’m glad I did because they motiviate me to pursue what I love further. It has now been 47 days since the new year began and I am doing my best to balance a freelance writing career with a full-tim job as an editor. Needless to say, it’s difficult. I have published a couple articles online, but nothing gives me more of a thrill than print or a publication that reaches and affects a large number of people in the U.S and abroad.
It has been almost two years that I have graduated school. In my dreams before I left school, I imagined myself as a reporter for a publication like LA Weekly, writing short stories on the side, developing ideas for a novel and inching towards my ultimate goal of writing for a national magazine and the New York Times.
Quite often, life does not work out the way you plan, especially when you’re still wrapped up in the protective cocoon known as school. While I am very thankful I have a job, especially one in the field I studied and have such passion for, I want more. I want to be the young reporter who breaks news stories, who affects people’s lives, who encounters amazing people and new experiences through the articles she writes. I want work long hours and work hard, if it means writing something I’m proud of, if it means writing something that others want to read.
Anyway, enough romanticizing on my soap box for today. I’m sticking to my resolutions. For now, I’ve compiled a list of publications that I’m going to pitch ideas to. Hopefully, one of them (or more I hope) will bite. In the meantime, I’ve made a lot of meaningful connections with writers, journalists, editors and PR people on the amazing phenomenon known as Twitter. I hope to grow and continue these relationships. I’m hopeful and looking forward to accomplishing the first in a series of goal I’ve set out for my life.
“If you believe that some day it’s going to happen, some day it probably will happen. You just have to make sure you’re there when it’s happening, and ideally you’re at the front of the parade, and the principle beneficiary of when it happens, but it’s not a kind of thing where you just sort of sit back and wait.”
- Steve Case
