NaNoWriMo!

Though I have nothing to show for it yet, I have taken the plunge! I am now signed up as a participant in NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. During NaNoWriMo, ambitious writers set out during the month of November to write a 50,000 word novel. I’m already four days late in getting started and I have no idea when I will actually be able to begin writing my novel, nor do I have any concept for my novel. It’s a mystery to me, which I suppose is good because then it will be a mystery to the reader as well. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my creative writing class this term, it’s that wandering into the unknown as the writer is scary, but it will make the story that much more interesting to the reader. The first mystery to solve is where I will find the time to write that much…

Nothing like a little pressure, right?

It was only this past summer that I even heard about NaNoWriMo. It’s funny how I’ve been so involved in all kinds of writing for so many years and I’m only now learning about this speed writing month. I’ve heard from a number of people that the novels that are written this month are utter crap, but I choose to be optimistic. I’m sure my own work will be the runt of the literary litter, but there’s nothing like whipping out that rough draft and polishing it into something better – maybe even good enough to not be completely embarrassed by it.

Alas, four days late in beginning my first attempt at NaNoWriMo and here I sit with unfinished homework, half-written articles, and a mostly finished blog post about what I want to do. I should just be doing it already… There’s nothing like healthy procrastination.

Thinking Ahead

It seems as though life is so overwhelming sometimes that to think any further than the end of the day is completely overwhelming. Even thinking as far as‘what’s for dinner’ can be a bit of a nightmare.

Freelance journalists don’t have that kind of luxury. So instead of thinking about the end of the day, or even tomorrow, I have to think about what is happening four-to-six months from now. What will be a timely, important and captivating issue next year? This is not a way that I am accustomed to thinking about happenings.

Journalists also have to be flexible. The way the media has been changing, even a freelance journalist has to keep the day-to-day issues in mind. Twitter makes it impossible for any journalist to ignore what is happening right this second. The balance between right this second and six months from now is a tough act, but a necessary one. Even journalists who openly despise Twitter (such as myself) have still learned to use it because it is invaluable resource for what is happening now.

And chances are, what is happening now will be happening again this time next year, or six months from now – the point being that what is happening now will happen again. I’m quickly discovering that it is important to think this way because in collecting information about what is happening now, I am prepared with this historical depth for when it happens again.

Tedious and difficult as it may be to be so concerned with the now and the six months from now, it is a skill that must be mastered if I hope to be a successful journalist in the new developing media world. Even if it means planning ahead six months or Tweeting when I would rather pull out my fingernails.

Rejection via iPod

At almost midnight, I stood in the lobby of a Holiday Inn with nine other members of the U.O. Bowling Club, and checked my email on my new iPod Touch. I had spent the whole weekend traveling to Reno, bowling in a collegiate tournament (because bowling nerds get to go to all of the fun places) and taking the wrong way home, which added about 2-3 hours to our drive. We didn’t get free Internet access in the hotel we stayed at in Reno, so it had been almost three days since I had checked my email.

Exhausted, sore and irritated, the convenience of my Internet-accessible iPod succeeded only in allowing me to retrieve a dreaded rejection letter from a publication where I had sent off an essay.

I didn’t bother reading the remaining 15 emails in my inbox – a lot of email for a weekend. Instead, I pocketed my iPod, waited for our room keys and thought about the next publications that I could send my essay.

Rejection is a way of life that I’ll have to get used to in the freelancing industry, and for being a new writer trying to make a career out of selling my own work, I think I took the rejection quite well. Sure, a little piece of my soul had dies every time I realize someone doesn’t want to publish my work, but I suppose every new rejection will give me more to write about. And I suppose that’s a really good thing, because now I know I will always have a lot to write about.

People have been concerned about the changing media and how to adapt and what life will be like as more and more newspapers fail in the changing industry. This rejection, received in the palm of my hand, in some strange place and in the middle of the night is one more example of how technology is changing media and the journalism industry.

The downside is that there is almost no distance from these rejections, and they will probably haunt me during vacations and mental-health days, when I don’t want to be disturbed. But I guess I’ll just have to suck it up and use this instant-rejection to my advantage, and submit my work to other publications a lot more quickly than I would have otherwise.

The Things I Didn’t Learn

I’ve noticed that I ramble on about this being my last year of undergrad studies and ‘oh no, what now?’ attitude. Time for a break from that to consider what is still to come.

So, what is still to come? The more I think about it, the more I look forward to having a little extra time to read. I used to love to read. It’s how I got sucked into writing. During my middle school years, I spent a whole summer closed up in my room with a glass of lemonade on my nightstand and a book in my hands. And the book changed every two to four days.

Once I hit high school, I was assigned a lot of books I didn’t particularly like. Books that didn’t hold my interest, didn’t make sense, and weren’t fun to read. I can’t even name them now. As ashamed as I am to say, Spark Notes and I were good friends while I was in high school. Not that I didn’t try to actually read the books. I did. And some I loved (to this day, To Kill A Mockingbird is one of my favorite books). Then there were books that even if I did actually read the book, I got into class and couldn’t answer quiz questions because I had no idea what had happened.

My love-hate relationship with reading continued once I started college. Once again, I was assigned a lot of reading that just didn’t stick with me, didn’t make sense. I renamed many of them: “101 Cures for Insomnia.” I always knew I was in trouble if I was falling asleep in my reading in the middle of the day.

If I were to have this conversation with my mom, she would say, “Sabrina, you’re stressed, you’re tired and you’re overwhelmed.” In translation, what I was reading wasn’t the problem, it was how I handled the workload. My mom’s words were always simpathetic, and she’s always been proud of me for my efforts and accomplishments, but her views of my work ethic may be jaded, thinking that I put too much pressure on myself, partly because of the many nights she had to let me sit at the table crying over my mathbook.

Because of nights like that, I’ve adopted the phrase: There’s a reason why I write.

The point of all of this is that with so many years of enormous workloads and readings I didn’t choose, I stopped reading things on my own. During the summer I would make attempts to read again, but I always found it exhausting because I felt like I was back in school again and just wanted a break before starting the same ol’ routine in the fall.

My outlook has changed now that I know that there won’t be another “fall term” to go back to. At least, not for a while (after all, grad school is always an option). Knowing that there is this freedom ahead, I am starting a list of all of the things I want to read, both for gaining additional knowledge and for the sake of entertainment.

I suppose this is the one thing that is a little heart-breaking about my higher education. I’ve lost track of something I used to love to do because there were too many other things to do, too many other expectations. The closer I get to the end, the more my love for reading and learning new things grows. And there’s something to be said for seeking those things out on your own, rather than doing it because someone else told you to. So, as grateful as I am for my college education, and for as lucky as I feel to have had the opportunity to gain this higher education, I am grateful that it is almost over and I can learn the things I didn’t learn in college.

Critique

After spending 16+ years in school, studying, working, multitasking – I am forced to decide what I am going to do with myself. This is a daunting task, and it seems every morning my choice has changed. Despite these changes, there is one constant: I want to write.

I am halfway through the last fall of my undergraduate studies at the University of Oregon, finishing my degree in journalism. The past few years have been overwhelming, rewarding and terrifying. But the closer I get to completing my schooling, the more freedom I have to take courses that I didn’t have the freedom to take before. So, of course, I choose writing courses.

This term, I am enrolled in a feature writing course and an introduction to fiction writing course. Over the past two or three weeks – a majority of the term so far – I continually ask myself if I’ve set myself up for failure. At the end of the school/work day, I ride my bike home, exhausted and brain-dead, and have to muster up the enthusiasm to sit down at my computer and pound out something meaningful, colorful or inspiring. For the life of me, I try. But somehow, everything I write feels forced as though I’m trying too hard and have forgotten everything that I’ve spent years learning how to do. It’s frustrating and embarrassing, and when I am so close to finishing my degree, I feel as though I’ve made a horrible mistake; I am not meant to be a writer.

Then today in my fiction writing course, a small wave of relief settled some of that unease.

I forget how useful critique sessions can be, and they force me to remember that I am my own worst critic. Not to say that my writing is fabulous, amazing or any other overtly positive adjective, but these critique sessions remind me of what I am good at and point out where I need work. That’s what the point of critique sessions is.

Yet somehow today was far more encouraging that I thought it would be. I suppose it helps that I was the first one in my critique group to subject myself to the lashings of my peers, but the experience still proved to be constructive. It’s true what instructors and professors say about critique too: telling someone how wonderful her writing is doesn’t do any good, and it’s best, and necessary, to just tell it like it is.

I’m thankful that I’ve been through enough writing courses to be able to handle this constructive criticism. Like nearly all writers, I’m quick to want to defend my work and my ideas. Today, I sat quietly and absorbed, with the exception of asking for opinions of parts that I was unsure about.

And the best part was that no one told me I sucked at writing and needed to find a better use of my time! I was thrilled.

Not only that, but, as terrible as this sounds, sometimes reading what other people have written really makes me feel better about my own work. Now, I know how that sounds, but I can’t help but wonder how some people passed high school English or writing classes. I think that by the time people get to college they should have a solid grasp on at least the basics of grammar, particularly capitalization and punctuation. With that, I’ll give credit to one of my peers: his punctuation and capitalization sucked (and I’m sure my skills leave something to be desired), but he did tell a good, interesting story.

So maybe I don’t totally suck at writing. Though, depending on who you ask, maybe I do. Feeling like I may have spent the last few years wandering down the wrong career path is terrifying. It’s possible, however, that I have in fact spent the past few years studying a professional field where I have no right to be. I’d like to think the situation isn’t that dramatic, but who knows? Maybe after being in the journalism industry for 5 years I’ll discover I want nothing more than to teach high school algebra.

I highly doubt it, but I may change my mind by morning.

The beginning of the end

Today was the first day of my last year as an undergrad.

I’m not quite sure what to think. I’m in a place where the work that I’m beginning to do isn’t just for a class, it’s for my career. It’s a transitional period – a period of flux, and one in which I need to be taken seriously as a professional, but because I’m still a student, that’s a difficult feat.

This is the the time when I pull it all together and show, through my writing, that I’m not just a student.

Cheers to the beginning of the end.

The Student Journalist

(NOTE: The following blog post was originally posted on June 17, 2009 on my blog “Journalist: A Personal Account”, which no longer exists.)

For the first time in over a year, I am taking a week-long vacation. No school. No homework. No work. No internship. Nothing.

It’s quite liberating, actually.

At the same time, that is how I have ended up with three new blogs and the intention to post once a week to each one of them (maybe more than once a week, depending on my class workload).

This particular blog is going to be my personal outlet for all things college/student related, particularly concerning subjects such as internships, the journalism industry, transitions, and what it means to be a journalism student in the midst of such a state of flux. It is rather surprising how much people are writing about the journalism industry and how little people are writing about the journalism student.

I suppose it makes sense. A student is a student. But those pesky journalism students… They have the real challenge: the challenge of trying to predict where exactly the industry is going on how to become a professional part of that industry before it arrives. It never sits still.

So this is my journey. I am journalism student on the final leg of my undergraduate expedition. So how am I handling it? I am finishing school as a mere technicality as I pursue the professional industry a year before graduation. Makes sense, doesn’t it? If journalists have to constantly anticipate future change, wouldn’t it make sense to start now on what you are hoping to have a year from now?

How’s that for an enigma?

Unpaid Internships

Your face is a great resumé builder!

(NOTE: The following blog post was originally posted on June 26, 2009 on my blog “Journalist: A Personal Account”, which no longer exists.)

Anticipation, excitement and fear builds within me as I approach my final year of my college education. Several of my friends just graduated with degrees in journalism ranging from news editorial, magazine, public relations and electronic media and I can honestly say I have no idea what any of them are really doing right now.

Which leads me to ask myself: What will I do once I graduate?

A class I took last winter provided a couple of great websites to look for jobs and internships in the journalism industry: JournalismJobs and Ed 2010 | WhisperJobs. Both websites offer a plethora of opportunities for all kinds of positions from right out of college to magazine editors.

Here’s the problem: Too many of these job postings (particularly with WhisperJobs) are unpaid internships, some of which are asking for nearly full time hours.

What?

I’ll say this much–I have an internship right now that is unpaid. However, it is only 3 hours a week. It’s more of me giving back to my community and picking up a few skills on the way rather than diving head first into the journalism industry. One of my friends who just graduated got an internship at a PR firm in San Diego for the summer–unpaid. She’s hoping to be hired on by the time her internship is over. This is a very logical train of thought. Except that she works about 50 hours a week–

What?!

I didn’t have the heart to ask how she could afford to live while working through this internship, but I do know that she is living with some friends or relatives in the area, which explains a lot for how she is able to afford to do this.

Then I get to thinking about what I want to do. I want to get involved in magazines–writing, designing, multimedia, whatever–but where I’m living now isn’t going to help me with real on-the-job experience. I would have to relocate. All of my family lives in this state and I’m looking at needing to relocate across the country in order to really get my feet wet. An unpaid internship is just not an option for me.

My issue is not a new one, and I highly doubt it is going to go away any time soon. Particularly because print media is taking a significant blow and many magazines are folding under the pressure. I understand this, truly. At the same time, a company’s failing finances does not make it okay to take advantage of free labor from desperate college students.

And when it comes right down to it, that is why college students will take unpaid internships. They are desperate. They need clips to build a strong portfolio to get a good (paying) job. Any experience, even unpaid, is good experience.

So in this hideous world of media corporations struggling to adapt to changing media outlets and forms, desperate college students, such as myself, will bitch and moan about not being able to afford working for free but then turn around and take the very first opportunity that comes our way. It’s a vicious cycle that is not about to end anytime soon. I accept that.

I just hope I manage to be a little luckier than that.

Nothing Has Replaced the Writer

(NOTE: This blog posting was first posted on June 29, 2009 on my Literary Introductions blog, which no longer exists.)

I have to admit, this goal of mine to examine literary introductions has been somewhat of a flop, so I’m going for whatever book introduction I can find for now. Still pertinent I suppose in the process of deciphering if introductions are important to the information in the rest of the book.

The most recent introduction I have read was from On Writing Well, by William Zinsser.

One of the interesting things that I wanted to note was that Zinsser wrote his own introduction (at least to this edition) for the book. Though in reading the introduction it becomes apparent that this is actually the fifth or sixth edition to the same book and that he often updates it in order to reflect the impact of the changing of media. Overall, he tries to make apparent the point that even though writing styles change, good writing doesn’t.

This distinction was a breath of fresh air for me. As a journalism student, I’ve been exposed to a lot of debate / conversation about the impact that the transforming media has on new journalists. I’ve even heard some of the younger students question whether they should continue with a major in journalism.

It seems a silly to me that people believe that because the media is changing that journalism is going away. But that’s another blog. That discussion will be posted soon.

For now I’ll focus more on writing in general in the context of this book introduction, at least for a short while longer.

Though the introduction to On Writing Well was somewhat interesting, it didn’t seem pertinent to some of the content in the earlier part of the book. This could possibly be because the book is written in a quasi-textbook format and the introduction isn’t as necessary to the rest of the instruction. At the same time, it was somewhat enlightening to hear someone put in print that the outlet for writing isn’t as important as good writing.

The introduction also brought attention to the fact that all one really needs to write well is a space with something to write with and some sort of garbage can. This conversation emerges from Zinsser’s description of a photo on his office wall of E.B. White sitting at a typewriter with very little distracting clutter around him, the idea being that all a writer really needs to write well are the basic materials. That’s one of those things that can be very difficult for aspiring writers to keep in mind when they find themselves confronted by the vast density of today’s technology and Internet resources. Still, an important anecdote to keep in mind.

So was it necessary to read the introduction? Not really. But it held its own unique reward and reassurance in a time when writing and media is being looked at in an incredibly different way.

House of Leaves

(NOTE: This posting was previously posted on a separate blog entitled “Literary Introductions”. For several reasons, I have decided to combine my multiple blogs into one and use the categories instead of having separate blogs. The following blog posting was originally posted on June 17, 2009)

Right now, I am smack in the middle of my week-long vacation. I have also recently moved. Both of these tidbits of information are entirely relevant.

Because I have recently moved, I haven’t had Internet access until this past Monday morning. I anxiously waited for the Comcast technician–fidgeting, pacing, cleaning. I am not a fan of having strange people in my home (strange in the unfamiliar sense). Finally, I sat myself down and picked up a book that my boyfriend is borrowing from a friend of his: House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski.

Now, you have to understand something about me: I am an impatient reader. I want the action to start right away and keep moving until the very end, which is probably why I almost always fall asleep when reading text books.

But this time, for no reason at all, I felt compelled to read the introduction. I wanted to read the introduction.

Good thing I did.

I have to say, this is by far the strangest book I have ever picked up. Ever. For reasons I can hardly even explain. That being said, if I hadn’t read the introduction to this book, I would not have understood much–if anything–of what I was reading. The reason? The book is written in a sort of extended essay form with footnotes and citations. But the book is fiction and many of the footnotes are bogus. Strange, right?

Well, a man named Johnny Truant wrote the introduction. And throughout the book, he acts as an editor of sorts, trying to get the book ready to be published (though he has not written the story–the story is said to be written by a man named Zampanò). Truant adds footnotes in an attempt to offer some explanation and perspective to the story (because he supposedly knew of the strange man who wrote this tale about a house that was physically bigger on the inside than on the outside–a true paradox).

Did I mention that Truant is a fictitious character in the story? Yup. A fictitious character wrote the introduction to this book.

The thing about Truant’s footnotes… they go on for several pages and often have little to do with the base story of this family in this shape-shifting house. In fact, Truant discusses aspects of his life that seem so irrelevant to the story you can’t help but wonder, “What the hell?”

But here’s the thing: Even when Truant is talking about his sexual venture with a woman he met in a bar and how throughout that sexual venture he fantasized about a stripper he calls Thumper, it is relevant to the story. In the strangest way, it is completely relevant to the story.

How do I know? Because in the introduction he talks about how in reading this book–a book that was passed around but not really published before now–he found that it changed him. He begins to go a little mad (or a lot mad) and these footnotes are not just explanations of the text, but an example of the effect this story has.

And thus, my fascination with book introductions has evolved.

The goal of this blog is that each week I will read the introduction to a new book. I can’t say that I’ll be able to read the entire book, however. I realize that it is now summer and as a student that should mean I get a break, but I have decided to pursue summer courses. Because of this, reading a book a week on top of working and going to school just isn’t quite an option for me.

At the same time, what good is a discussion about an introduction with no context? In addition to the introduction, I am going to read the first few chapters (as much as I can) and then post a new blog about what I have discovered (or haven’t discovered) in reading the introduction. Call it my literary exploration, if you will.

Disclaimer: I am not a literary guru. In fact, I’m sort of deficient in terms of great literature. So, I have a secondary goal. In addition to writing about introductions to books, I am seeking feedback and interactive discussion that will help develop my knowledge. My training is in journalism, not literature–a fact that I am sure will seep through in the writing style of my blog.

In general, at the end of each blog I will post the book that I will be reading an introduction to next, but because I haven’t yet thought that far ahead, for now I will leave that little detail open until next time.