I'm sure most writers would agree ... reporting is the best part of the job. You read awesome things (okay... sometimes not ... like searching through heaps of web pages on land zoning in CoMo... eh..) and you meet the most incredible people. Case in point: my first feature for Vox Magazine.
Now the writing process. It's just plain awful - well most of the time. Struggling to find the right synonym or fighting to make the perfect nut graf (cough Swasy cough) really makes me want to pull my hair out sometimes. But in the end, when all the edits and the headaches and persistent fact checking .. (okay, so tell me again how do you spell your name?) is over and done, and you pick up a crisp copy fresh off the press of your work ... well nothing compares to that.
You can't explain
that feeling . It's like that overwhelming sense of self pride you got in the third grade when Mrs. Haar (insert your teacher's name here) gave you an Excellent sticker and an A+++ on your creative writing assignment about a girl named Pua in Hawaii -- oh yeah, don't you wish you guys could read that one. But really, even when you don't have a byline ... just knowing that you contributed and that someone somewhere is reading something that you put blood, sweat and tears into. That's why you love your job.
And lucky me. I've had 2 really awesome experiences like this in the past week. The first being Vox, of course. Never have I ever (don't worry.. I'm not about to get into a TDelt frosh retreat story... haha DL!) seriously put so much time into a story. And never was I so enthusiastic to write. So when I walked into the Job Point office with a stack of copies in hand, I wasn't prepared for what I saw. There, the sweet old lady at the reception desk was reading a story printed off the web. BY LINDSAY SCHALLON. Yep, it was right there at the top. And when she noticed me, I handed over an issue, saying I was from Vox. "Oh I was just reading a story by you guys... it's fantastic." Fantastic. Wow. Really?
And then, another worker came out to congratulate me. And then a phone call from another telling me the great work I did. I don't mean to brag, but wow.. you know, it was just that feeling.
Fast forward one week. In class this morning my friend Jess (who's also a magazine intern this summer... can I get a WHAT WHAT!?) slammed the new issue of the magazine I'm interning at this summer down on the desk in front of me. "Did you read it yet!?" And there. She flips the page open to a trends page... low and behold... 2 different trends I wrote about in my faux article during interviews. And then again on page 80 - couples who say we.
There it was again. That feeling. It wasn't my copy. And my name wasn't on there. But I had ideas that contributed. And maybe the writers hadn't even seen my stuff at all. Still ... knowing that I'm on the same page (no pun intended) as the magazine... maybe I belong there after all.
Now's my chance to be fearless. 19 more days.
