I have always enjoyed writing.....well, except for required college papers. When I was young, I would write stories.,,that I never finished. When I worked out of the house, I enjoyed writing lengthy emails and proof-reading them before I hit "send". Starting a blog was a no-brainer for me when I decided I had way too much to say and wasn't possibly going to post it all on Facebook!
I thoroughly enjoy blogging...it's so awesome to have a platform that's all mine to write whatever and however I want! Aside from a children's book that I plan to write some day, I had never thought about writing anything other than my blog. Actually, that's not true - I have thought about submitting an article to Our Iowa magazine sometime in the future.
Last week, I received this message from a friend of mine who writes for magazines, that went something like this:
"My editor just messaged me and asked if I knew any writers in Ames. I highly recommended you and he really wants to talk to you. What e-mail address should I give him? I think the job is yours if you want it. No pressure."
Uhhh...WHAT?!?!?! Haha. I think about it for a few minutes and then decide "why not?!" and give her my email address. 30 seconds later I get a very short email from the editor asking for a link to my blog so he can view my writing. AHhhhh, No!! He can't view my blog....it's so full of all sorts of grammatical errors!!! I give it to him anyway, along with the message that "It's MY blog, I do what I want!" (I could tell he was super laid back and this wasn't a very formal process, so I felt free to be candid with him).
I quickly went to my blog to see what he was going to be reading first and saw so many errors in the very first paragraph.....so, I immediately emailed him with my edits of the first paragraph...and reminded him I really don't give a hoot about the "rules" when I write my blog. His comment was something like, "Well, since you knew how to edit that, I think you will be fine." So, he gave me my first assignment (with VERY little detail I must add), and told me to turn it in in 5 days.
5 DAYS?!?!?! No way!! How am I even going to find someone to interview, let alone get the story written in that short amount of time. 4 days later.....I was finished and had my story submitted.
Let me tell you something. Writing for a magazine (at least this one, which by the way, is Ames Living), is so much different than writing a blog!!! Like, I'm talking day and night here. Where my blog is all about my experience, my feelings, my opinions, etc....a magazine story has absolutely nothing to do with me and I can't even reference myself in any way, shape, or form. That was extremely challenging for me.....I love to write about myself ;)
James read my first story before I submitted it and said, "This is boring; this isn't you. Where is all the humor and exclamation points?!?!" I reminded him it isn't about me at all and I'm just delivering information essentially. But, I agreed with him that it was definitely not as exciting as writing my blog. I decided to scratch the first story and start over the next day....my second attempt was much better. I tried to add a little humor to it, but the editor took it out after I submitted it to him :( Boo!!!
Anyway, the editor decided my first submission wasn't terrible and, as far as I know, it will be published in the September Ames Living magazine. What's really crazy, is that he assigned me the cover story for the following month!!! Eeeek!! He only gave me two-and-a-half weeks to find and interview 3-4 people and write the story, which is 4x longer than the first story he assigned me. Additionally, I am also writing a second small story for that issue too...also due in 2.5 weeks. This will be a true test of my ability to meet a deadline!!
As crazy as this all still feels, I'm super excited to have been given this opportunity (THANKS, Courtney!!!) and am looking forward to becoming a "real" writer someday ;)
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